FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Regen Projects
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424
Fax. (310) 276-7430
Lari Pittman
November 1 – December 20, 2003
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 AM-5:30 PM
Opening reception: Saturday, November 1, 5:00-7:00 PM
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Lari Pittman. The show will feature six new, large-scale oil paintings, as well as several works on paper. The operatic, symbol-laden surfaces of Lari Pittman’s panels examine pluralistic identities – sexual, philosophical and cultural. Pittman’s paintings present a coded tableaux of simultaneous narratives that employ decorative elements such as scrolls, arrows and patterns that function as formal devices drawing the eye toward significant focal points. Vignettes of domestic interiors, landscapes and seascapes are entangled in a lattice of roots, flames, rope and delicate spider webs. Pittman’s singular vocabulary engenders some of the most striking and challenging painting being made today.
British critic and curator Alex Farquharson writes in his essay, Beauty Pageant,
“Cut up, overlayered and elaborately stylized, the paintings of Lari Pittman bear a mass of imagery that locates them firmly in the expansive urban orbit of Los Angeles. They grasp the city’s sexual and moral currencies, its cultural politics and philosophical identity, but their shifting inventories of its visual content alone make them the most inclusive...artistic portrayals of Los Angeles to date...The very excess of imagery in the paintings, and the innumerable narratives they spark off, has the comparable effect of flattening illusionistic depth. This echoes the horizontal sprawl of L.A.’s diverse communities, and the pluralistic languages of commerce and dwelling with which each gives its pitch and establishes its patch.”
(Farquharson, Alex, “Beauty Pageant,” Lari Pittman Paintings: 1992-1998, published by Cornerhouse, Manchester, England, 1998)
Lari Pittman has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. Pittman was featured in Francesco Bonami’s exhibition, “Pittura/Painting” at the Venice Biennale. Pittman was also last year’s recipient of the Skowhegen Medal for Painting. In 2000, Pittman was commissioned by the Getty Museum for the exhibition, "Departures: 11 Artists at the Getty." Pittman's work was included in "The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900-2000" at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and Documenta X in Kassel, Germany. Monographs of Pittman's work include Lari Pittman: Paintings 1992-1998 published by Cornerhouse in Manchester and Spacex in Exeter; and Lari Pittman: A Survey: 1982 - 1996 published by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
An opening reception for Lari Pittman will be held on Saturday, November 1, 5:00-7:00 PM at the gallery. For further information please contact Shaun Caley Regen or Lisa Overduin at 310/276-5424.
