13ThingsLA: October 9
Arise, Fair Sun for your art calendar
Genevieve Gaignard, Angel and Muse, 2023 (detail). Wallpaper, acrylic, graphite, paper cutouts, pouring medium, varnish, cotton thread, fabric, and gold plated stainless steel on panel, 30" x 40" x 1 1⁄2" (Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles, Photo credit: Brica Wilcox)
Exhibitions reviewed at Vielmetter Los Angeles and Matter Studio Gallery, neon art on film at the Brand, exhibition openings and talks at A+D Museum, Sean Kelly Gallery, and Art + Practice. The Performance Art Museum goes clubbing; L.A. Dance Project is back from Paris, and Indigenous Peoples’ Day is observed with two very different gatherings—at the Getty Center and Music Center. Plus, Art & Science are still out there colliding—at TAM, the Wende Museum, and across Fulcrum Festival’s several venues. And Shana will be chatting about art some more, of course—this week at a walkthrough with artist James Richards for his current show at Lowell Ryan Projects on Saturday, October 12, 2pm.
Feature
Genevieve Gaignard, Tits for Tats, 2024. Mixed media collage on panel
40" x 30" x 2" (Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles, Photo credit: Brica Wilcox)
EXHIBITION REVIEW: Genevieve Gaignard: Thinking Out Loud is now open at Vielmetter Los Angeles. A wondrous new series of mixed media collages and more sculptural installation vignettes represents a bit of a transition in Gaignard’s practice, as the work moves away from the immersive and toward the planarity of the wall panel in terms of its objecthood—but retains the finely detailed acquisitive symphonics of her visual strategy as her hand moves from assemblage to collage as the primary idiom. That this coincides with her recent relocation to NYC and all the settling in such a big change entails is no accident—it’s also referenced in the exhibition’s title, offering a casual intensity that suggests she’s actively thinking things through. Her love of pattern, her penchant for in-character self-portraiture and provocative text, her affection for homemade altars and the trappings of mass-produced prettiness, and her omnivorous visual wit remain in full effect—but this work is now also in conversation with painting as well as collage, questioning how and why meaning has been historically constructed, as well as by whom and for what agenda. Giving viewers little mysteries to solve within each tableaux, evoking personal memories and shared, contested narratives, Gaignard is using tropes of gentle beauty (and fluffy white clouds) to spark fraught but necessary social discourse—and is seen here figuring it out for herself. On view through November 9 in Downtown; vielmetter.com. —SND
