Art Around Town

At the galleries

Comments (0) By Christopher Miles Wednesday, Apr 9 2008

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Gravity Art

The genesis of “Gravity Art,” the new show at Telic Arts Exchange, was curator Rene Daalder’s documentary-film project on Duch/Californian artist Bas Jan Ader. Before disappearing in 1975 while attempting to cross the Atlantic in a tiny sailboat, Ader created a body of work often dealing with human failings, weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and, with almost slapstick appeal, our susceptibility to gravity. With such inspiration, Daalder assembled (for Amsterdam’s de Appel Arts Centre) an exhibition of films and photographs by multiple artists interested in variously harnessing, defying and giving in to the force of gravity. Hoping to draw a closer correlation, and create more of a cacophony, Daalder tries again here, with an exhibition designed by architect Jens Hommert that allows visitors to hear the soundtracks of 30 films and video works simultaneously, and to watch any one of them with at least a handful more in the periphery. Such curatorial reaching often results in a reauthoring of artworks that is irritating, both in what seems a violation of the originals and in that the curator’s attempt to play artist is usually less interesting. Daalder and Hommert nonetheless succeed as artists, authoring a new work that brilliantly appropriates all the others. They also succeed as curator and designer, delivering an exhibition that, though muddling, crystallizes the spirit of included works by an impressive list of new-realist, actionist and postminimalist artists and their descendants. It’s also an engaging study of the gravitational heroics, humor and tragedy known to anyone who has ever gotten out of bed or fallen on the floor. Telic Arts Exchange, 975 Chung King Road, L.A.; Fri.-Sat., noon-6 p.m.; thru April 26. (213) 344-6137 or www.telic.info.

Wangechi Mutu, A'gave you (2008)

Judy Fox, PRIDE (2008)

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Anne-Laure Sacriste: Paradis Artificiels

Undoubtedly influenced by the traditions of abstraction, landscape painting, photography and cinema, Anne-Laure Sacriste commingles those genres’ expectations and conventions. In a prior body of work, she capitalized on the long tradition of using water’s reflection of its surroundings, like trees and rocks reflected in a lake, as a picture within a picture, to produce what were in fact clear abstractions but felt like realist landscapes. In this latest body of work, Sacriste sets horizontal rectangles of reflective white paint within more-boxy gray panels — like wide screens in theaters. Painting atop these grounds with watercolors that run down the surfaces, she delivers landscapes that seem plucked from motion pictures, offering both the luminosity of a projected image and a sense of animation, each derived from little more than smart, strategic and dazzling material handling. Chung King Project, 945 Chung King Road, L.A.; Wed.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; thru April 19. (213) 625-1802 or www.chungkingproject.com.

Click here for a collection of more images from the artists in this article.