October 22 – November 26, 2014
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 22, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition featuring the collaborative work of Lizzie Fitch / Ryan Trecartin. Built around a new multi-channel movie, the show highlights the current evolution of the artists' signature sculptural theaters and their continuing manipulation of the possible forms of the movie viewing experience.
This newest iteration of the artists' large-scale installations takes the form of a hybrid tent structure intersected with a steel platform melding recreational and factory aesthetics familiar from camping equipment, concert stages, industrial fittings and security cages. As in many of Fitch / Trecartin's sculptural theaters, the look and feel of the built environment creates resonances with locations and elements of the accompanying movie, extending the digital and narrative content through material reverberations. With this expansive structure, Fitch and Trecartin continue their exploration of vernacular architectural elements of American spaces of shelter, recreation, and industry, as seen recently in Priority Innfield, their installation for the 55th Venice Biennale.
The majority of the movie was filmed locally in Los Angeles, using the former Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard as a central site. In the movie, roving bands of characters explore the dark, cavernous space, making recourse to horror movie tropes and teen coming-of-age adventure films. Similar to the "Jennys" in Trecartin's movie CENTER JENNY (2013), groups of characters with interchangeable appearances function as vehicles for collective thought. Individual personalities take on modular existences in order to become singular components for the sharing of information. Digital creatures populate the movie via animations, as do live-action drones and dogs, pointing to the possibility of a "survival of the friendliest," where relationships to anthropomorphized technology may be evolving humans alongside their companions. The Masonic Temple also becomes a sort of companion character, haunting the movie through darkly detailed digital recreations of its rooms and stairwells, as well as by the continual reoccurrence of its textures and decorative elements as they expand variously into forest landscapes and shapeshifting animation presets.
The work traffics in references to the cinematic sphere with its large multi-screen surround installation while also invoking the experience of a multiplayer video game through its changing viewpoints and the audience's ability to determine their own spatial positioning. While continuing to shoot primarily with hand-held cameras, Fitch and Trecartin expanded the shooting process by employing GoPros and a variety of other small action and personal surveillance cameras mounted on actors, props, and quadcopters. Using up to fourteen different cameras recording individual scenes, the artists captured footage in nearly 360-degree scope and almost continual relationship to the bodies of characters, elevating the movie to a near paranormal experience. Sound continues to play a growing role in the presentation of the movies as this installation expands beyond stereo towards an immersive 5.1 mix. Together, the cinematic, aural and material constituents combine to create limitless entry points to the movie.
For this exhibition, Fitch and Trecartin continue their longtime artistic collaboration with Rhett LaRue, as well as in-depth contributions by Sean Grattan, Murphy Maxwell, Sergio Pastor, Nick Rodrigues, Lola Sinreich, Adam Trecartin, and Anthony Valdez.
The artists would like to extend their sincere thanks to the Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation and their extraordinary staff, especially Jose Garcia, who facilitated this months-long production in every way possible.
Lizzie Fitch was born in Indiana in 1981 and Ryan Trecartin was born in Texas in 1981. They received their BFAs from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. They live and work in Los Angeles.
Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin have collaborated artistically since 2000. A concurrent exhibition of their work is on view at the Zabludowicz Collection in London. Their ANY EVER collaborations have been exhibited at Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; Museum of Contemporary Art Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles; The Power Plant, Toronto. Their work has also been included in group exhibitions worldwide, including at the 12th Biennale de Lyon; the 55th Venice Biennale; The Stoscheck Collection, Dusseldorf; Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. Both artists maintain solo practices in addition to their collaborative practice as Fitch/Trecartin.
An opening reception for the artists will be held on Wednesday, October 22 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.
For all press inquiries and to RSVP to the press preview, please contact Ben Thornborough at +1 310 276 5424 or benthornborough@regenprojects.com.
For all other inquiries, please contact Jennifer Loh, Jane McCarthy, Lindsay Charlwood, or Cat Krudy at Regen Projects.