Our Highlights from Art Los Angeles Contemporary 2015
It’s great to have an art fair in our backyard that promises to be an intimate affair with a wonderful, curated mix of established and lesser known galleries. The art that especially resonated with us—some by artists who we’re already familiar with, some by artists who are completely new to us—include the following.
Our Selection:
Imi Knoebel, Betoni, 1990-1996, at Galerie Christian Lethert
Since our collecting focus is primarily on abstraction and works that have a minimalist rigor to them, this small but powerful Imi Knoebel work stood out. Painted with pigment and concrete, we love how architectural Imi’s works can be, influenced by the Bauhaus. His use of color is not only seductive but an integral part of each form.
Ann Veronica Janssens, Red Disc, 1995-2010, at 1301PE
Ann Veronica Janssens builds on what we find so fascinating about John McCracken. While one might assume her sculptures are about the materiality of the metals or composites she utilizes—polished stainless steel, glass, plastic, etc.—all her work is really about light and how the materials and colors reflect it, let it through, or dematerialize the object.
Fiona Banner, Intermission, 1992-2012, at 1301PE
A YBA, Fiona Banner is a sculptor and conceptual artist who utilizes video and photography. Her abstraction of text and punctuation marks is very interesting as is this photograph, in which she stops a moment in time (and in film). This work feels especially poetic and relevant to our lives, which are always “on” these days.
Mark Ruwedel, Opportunities Realized, 2010, at Gallery Luisotti
This series of black and white photographs feels pre-Google Street View. This documentation of the urban landscape of the American West is haunting and methodical. We’ve all driven by neighborhoods that are devoid of visible inhabitants even though there are homes and mailboxes, parked cars, and strip malls. Mark ably follows in the tradition of artists such as Ed Ruscha and Walead Beshty.
Travess Smalley, Untitled, 2014, at Foxy Production
We love how this work challenges our notions of perception—real versus duplicated, transparent versus opaque, foreground vs background. Travess is working with photography and digital manipulation the same way that several artists in our collection have done in increasingly successful ways.
