FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
REGEN PROJECTS
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424
Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com
LIZ LARNER
July 1-July 30, 2005
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00-6:00 PM
Opening Reception: Friday, July 1 5:00-7:00 PM
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculpture by Liz Larner. This recent work takes off from the place where color, form, and materials relate to space. In Larner’s words, “Some of the related concerns of this work have to do with: The West and California, Joan Didion’s Where I Was From, 2-D and 3-D space, the elusive nature of symbolic color, and smiles.”
In this exhibition, Larner brings up the idea of manifest destiny. A large black strip springs from the rafters to the floor, entitled Her Diamond Deserts after a line in Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land is Your Land.” As the viewer comes closer, she notices that a similar black form runs across the floor, and up the wall behind the vertical shape revealing another space: a void or vortex.
RWBs is an equal force in the space. Its white-silver and blue skeleton made of aluminum tubes is partially concealed by red, white and blue textiles tailored in form-altering patterns. The fabric sheaths festoon the form and conjure many sides of Americana: racetracks, rodeos, parades, county fairs, military funeral processions, as well as concepts of nationalism and corporate identity. This piece embodies the paradox of symbolic color.
The Smile sculptures are made from cast porcelain. Ceramic is a new medium for Larner. The material encompasses a range of specific ideas behind this work. It is a fragile yet incredibly strong and resilient material that is almost magical in its ability to take on most any form. Ceramic technology is ancient and has never stopped evolving with the demand for contemporary applications; it is in our mouths and on our dinner tables. It is used in ultra high tech applications like the tile that fell off the space shuttle. The sculptures are crescent shapes made up of faceted planes; at first the shapes may appear to have been generated digitally, but in fact were created without a computer.
Larner’s Guest sculptures consist of an interlocking form that creates a type of open 3-D surface that will index any form it rests on. They do not have a fixed context or location to rest in. They can expand and contract, roll up or flatten. They can be draped over a pedestal or hung on a wall, even worn.
These works are essentially non-narrative but how they are placed in the gallery creates the potential for narrative and the objects play along. The installation seems like a staging or set up, but of what exactly? What is the story if the place we are headed towards or if where we are from are imaginary ideals, or even an illusion?
“Later it seemed to me that this had been the moment when all of it—the crossing, the redemption, the abandoned rosewood chests, the lost flatware, the rivers I had written to replace the rivers I had left, the twelve generations of circuit riders and county sheriffs and Indian fighters and country lawyers and bible readers, the two hundred years of clearings in Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee and then the break, the dream of America, the entire enchantment under which I had lived my life—began to seem remote.” Joan Didion, Where I Was From, 2003
Born in 1960 in Sacramento and a graduate of Cal Arts, Larner lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2001, MOCA organized a retrospective survey and a monograph was published on the occasion of the exhibition. Since 1987, Larner has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the US.
The opening reception for Liz Larner will take place on Friday, July 1 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. For further information please contact Shaun Caley Regen or Lisa Overduin.
REGEN PROJECTS
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424
Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com
LIZ LARNER
July 1-July 30, 2005
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00-6:00 PM
Opening Reception: Friday, July 1 5:00-7:00 PM
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculpture by Liz Larner. This recent work takes off from the place where color, form, and materials relate to space. In Larner’s words, “Some of the related concerns of this work have to do with: The West and California, Joan Didion’s Where I Was From, 2-D and 3-D space, the elusive nature of symbolic color, and smiles.”
In this exhibition, Larner brings up the idea of manifest destiny. A large black strip springs from the rafters to the floor, entitled Her Diamond Deserts after a line in Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land is Your Land.” As the viewer comes closer, she notices that a similar black form runs across the floor, and up the wall behind the vertical shape revealing another space: a void or vortex.
RWBs is an equal force in the space. Its white-silver and blue skeleton made of aluminum tubes is partially concealed by red, white and blue textiles tailored in form-altering patterns. The fabric sheaths festoon the form and conjure many sides of Americana: racetracks, rodeos, parades, county fairs, military funeral processions, as well as concepts of nationalism and corporate identity. This piece embodies the paradox of symbolic color.
The Smile sculptures are made from cast porcelain. Ceramic is a new medium for Larner. The material encompasses a range of specific ideas behind this work. It is a fragile yet incredibly strong and resilient material that is almost magical in its ability to take on most any form. Ceramic technology is ancient and has never stopped evolving with the demand for contemporary applications; it is in our mouths and on our dinner tables. It is used in ultra high tech applications like the tile that fell off the space shuttle. The sculptures are crescent shapes made up of faceted planes; at first the shapes may appear to have been generated digitally, but in fact were created without a computer.
Larner’s Guest sculptures consist of an interlocking form that creates a type of open 3-D surface that will index any form it rests on. They do not have a fixed context or location to rest in. They can expand and contract, roll up or flatten. They can be draped over a pedestal or hung on a wall, even worn.
These works are essentially non-narrative but how they are placed in the gallery creates the potential for narrative and the objects play along. The installation seems like a staging or set up, but of what exactly? What is the story if the place we are headed towards or if where we are from are imaginary ideals, or even an illusion?
“Later it seemed to me that this had been the moment when all of it—the crossing, the redemption, the abandoned rosewood chests, the lost flatware, the rivers I had written to replace the rivers I had left, the twelve generations of circuit riders and county sheriffs and Indian fighters and country lawyers and bible readers, the two hundred years of clearings in Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee and then the break, the dream of America, the entire enchantment under which I had lived my life—began to seem remote.” Joan Didion, Where I Was From, 2003
Born in 1960 in Sacramento and a graduate of Cal Arts, Larner lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2001, MOCA organized a retrospective survey and a monograph was published on the occasion of the exhibition. Since 1987, Larner has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the US.
The opening reception for Liz Larner will take place on Friday, July 1 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. For further information please contact Shaun Caley Regen or Lisa Overduin.