I was in the Beverely Hills this afternoon so I took the opportunity to visit
Ace Gallery. It has been quite a while since the last time I step into a contemporary art gallery or museum. I do visit galleries quite often, however, they have all been in mostly fine art galleries these days. Therefore, I was quite happy to
finally see some contemporary art.
I spent most of my time lingering in the front showrooms of the gallery, first trying to comprehend Gary Lang’s intensely colorful paintings, then to really admire his brilliantce.
The first two smaller showrooms display his large (like 9′ x 9′) rectangular colors of lines woven together, carefully arranged and orchestrated to create a kind of intricate plaid pattern. Upon the first gance, the paintings appeared digital to me, because they are so meticulously precise both in composition and in application of paint. But once I walk closer to the art work, I realized that they are undoubtedly human-made. Although the colors are bright, they have a airy, watery quality to them, as if they are microscopic fiber images of laundry floating in a washing machine… ok ok, that’s my awkward mental imagery.
While the first two show rooms were intimate and the line paintings more harmonious, the larger showroom behind was quite a change in tempo. I had a “wow, what’s going on here” kind of surprise upon entering. I saw a roomful of huge circles, busting in radiant, bright, unnatural colors. The colors illunmnated a unnatural, plastic glow that it appeared as if there were neon signs, not paintings. These paintings ranged from 7′ to 13′ in diameter.
The compositions were very simple, just circles focusing in on smaller circles to direct your eyes to the center of the canvas. Yet, they were made complicated with the colors, and the transition between colors. The artist didn’t seem to follow a set color scheme for a painting, because each of these circular painting would contains streaks of wild, screaming colors that breaks the rhythmand clearly “didn’t belong”. Like the retangular paintings, these circular paintings also appeared machine-made from a distance. But, once the viewer walks up to the piece, it would be evident that they were completely done by hand.
These paintings, being circular, also had a sculptural quality to them. They have broken away from the typical retangular support of a retangular canvas. Thus, when displayed on large white walls in a huge showroom, the visual experience is quite unique. I later read that the artist intends to relate his art to musical composition, and the sounds we hear everyday. Through painting, he wants to indiscriminate passages of sounds and silence.
Ok, that made sense. Embeddedin his work was a sense of calculated randomness, much like the sounds we hear from our daily lives — they are something you can anticipate, yet not. Often times you don’t hear them, because they are constantly in your environment so you’ve adopted to not hear them, but they are there.
In each intense, bold circles of sometimes contrasting colors, there are tender moments to be found. To the right is a piece that I spent a lot of time admiring. I like the progression of one color onto the passage of another, although sometimes the rythem would be interrupted by a random color. When I focuse in on this piece, I particularly liked the gorgeous soft purple, plus the darker underpaints that shows through on other lighter colors.
They vibrate and pulse, taking me layer after layer into the center of this 13′ in diameter painting that felt like it’s larger than life. On one hand it’s so visually intense, as if looking at it is asking for a headache. Yet, the artist employed a good balance of soft colors and edges (circles) in these works that they are in a way, inviting to look at as well.
All in all, it was a great trip to the art gallery. Although I don’t call myself a contemporary artist, I’d very much like to see more centemporary art more often, when time allows.
September 29th, 2009 | Category: Art, music, and culture | Comments (44)
