MANIPULATING SPACE

artists of the 21st century through innovative prints.

BY CHARLIE ADAMSKI CAULKINS

Organized by Sotheby’s, the current exhibition at Park House, California Dreaming , is a feast of bold graphic imagery by a group of famed multidisciplinary artists of the 21st century. Perhaps more importantly, it is also a representation of these artists’ perspective on space in their practice. Close inspection of each work leads to moments of discovery as the compositions depart from traditional two-dimensional works on paper.

The artists featured in California Dreaming have a special approach to how they treat spatial concepts in their work. As seen in this exhibition, the various paper constructions each created in partnership with the innovative methods of the publishing house Mixografia, possess a three-dimensional quality. To fully realize this, these works must be seen in person; the exhibition runs through the end of September, and the works are available for purchase.

Ed Ruscha is a master at recognizing the underlying graphic nature of language and landscape. In the Petro Plots series, viewers find themselves at a bird’s-eye vantage, looking upon topographical perspectives of Los Angeles landscapes. The eye moves between the geographical texture of the paper and the defined lines of the roadways, reducing the larger-than-life to its purest graphic elements.

In John Baldessari’s Eight Colorful Inside Jobs, the primary-colored elements of the composition whimsically jut into the viewer’s space, encouraging closer inspection. Each work states the color it represents, but perhaps it is really the unexpected three-dimensional composition that should be the viewer’s focus. In Stonehenge and Blah, the artist’s reoccurring practice of placing colorful fields over photographic imagery encourages the viewer to consider what is happening around and behind the colorful, encouraging exploration of the space beyond the obvious.

Guatemalan artist Darío Escobar reimagines a familiar, everyday three-dimensional object and reduces it to a repetition of form, reinterpreting a spherical ball to a honeycomb like a rippling grid, only recognizable by its iconic coloring and texture.

Tom Wesselmann eliminates perspective in his compositions. Through flattened picture planes and layered graphic imagery of everyday scenes, and objects, he successfully creates bold and punchy works of art. The nude is a common theme throughout his practice, from early ’60s compositions to the most recent. In Sunset Nude with Yellow Tulips, we see the elimination of space between elements in action: an abstracted reclining nude is flattened up against the picture plane but still possesses her alluring curves. Lemons dangle over the edge of the windowsill, and the sunset, although presented on equal footing with all other elements, brings graphic depth to the composition. Through his collaboration with Mixografia, Wesselmann introduces a subtle three-dimensionality between each layer but still stays true to his signature visual language and treatment of space.

Alex Israel, the youngest artist in the show, is obsessed with notions of Hollywood and celebrity. He skillfully plays with cinematic themes—specifically, the notion of blurring the lines between illusion and reality. In Desperado we see just that. In a series named after the 1970s hit by the Eagles, a 1950s bubble-gum pink Corvette convertible is perched atop the edge of a cliff, a tall, electric-green saguaro cactus cements the notion that this is a desert landscape, and a stunning California sunset fills the remainder of the sheet, as far as the eye can see. Through these few elements, Israel conjures a dreamlike cinematic space that evokes notions of the American West, the American Dream, and old Hollywood. For Desperado, Israel combines digital printing with Mixografia’s unique papermaking technique— an innovation for the publisher.

Through collaboration with Mixografia’s innovative printmaking processes, each of these artists has successfully pushed the boundaries of their practice in their own unique way, resulting in further exploration of their perspectives on art, design, and the world they live in.