June 10-June 19, 2017
Curated by Heather Lowe
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 10, 5-7 pm
338 South Avenue 16, Los Angeles, CA 90031
Collaborations between artists are tricky things. Not unlike the relationships between
artists and their clients, patrons or dealers, the process of collaborating can be fraught with
problems: clashing egos, different artistic visions and temperaments, miscommunications,
grudges and yes, failures. I think
of the fireworks that ensued when Robert Irwin and Richard Meier clashed at The
Getty while planning the gardens; each lobbying for their concept and
jockeying for power. Artists as
well as architects can be passionate and protective about their vision. Alternatively,
collaborations can be challenging and inspiring with results that are greater
than the sum of their parts. The
artist enters into a covenant with a lot of trepidation because, after all, the
creative practice is a private and sacred zone for most.
Heather Lowe’s curatorial effort at the Keystone Gallery, Exquisite Pittoresco, celebrates the
better nature of artistic collaboration through the convention of the exquisite
corpse known to art students everywhere and made famous by the Surrealists. The original premise of an exquisite
corpse was that one artist began a drawing followed by a second artist who continued
drawing on the same paper, usually without seeing the initial effort. The mash-up of images appealed to
artists like André Breton, Miró, Yves Tanguy and Man Ray, whose love of
happenstance informed their work. They
found beauty and meaning in random imagery, influencing modernists for
generations. Lowe, in her infinite wisdom, has allowed her artists more leeway
by suggesting invited artists to collaborate with another person in a four-part
process with only a few guidelines.
Indeed, artists were expected to break the rules and many did. The 17 sets
of artists in Exquisite Pittoresco each
approached the challenge differently and it is as fascinating to consider their
process as much as it is to see their efforts.
In this show as in other collaborations, artists may create
together side by side or work sequentially, responding to work by taking turns. Artists might envision the finished
artwork as a single piece or as several independent, modular works that relate to
each other through a linear narrative or through formal attributes. Artists could
agree to work on just their own contributions or decide to work into their partner’s
work too. There are endless
possibilities. Come see some of them at Exquisite Pittoresco. Opening reception is Saturday, June 10 , 5-7 PM.
Artists participating in the show are: JonMarc Edwards/ Ando
Pndlian, Dwora Fried/ Bibi Davidson, Jeffrey Vallance, Paulette Nichols, and
Victoria Reynolds, S. Lee Robinson/ Kat Genikov, Matt MacFarland/Jesse Lucas,
Sarajo Frieden/Lorraine Heitzman, Ichiro Irie/ Aska Irie, Sarah Stone/Patrick
McGilligan, Lena Moross/Steve Seleska, Ted Meyer/Heather Lowe, Julia
Schwartz/Jared Valesquez (Vasco), Krista Machovina/Kerry, Maria Bjorkdahl/Kristine
Augustyn, Robert Costanza/Glenn Waggner, Janet Stafford/Michelle Hill, Julia
Schwartz/Kio Griffith, Kailey Fry/Rachel Deehan
