Annual Summer Group Show at Cottage Home

Summer Group Show @ Cottage Home

Sister | China Art Objects | Thomas Solomon Gallery
July 11 - August 15, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, July 11, 7-10 pm

Cottage Home
410 Cottage Home St.
LA, CA 90012

Lawrence Weiner's "Water in Milk Exists" at Cottage Home

Los Angeles Premiere of Lawrence Weiner’s
Water in Milk Exists

Thursday, July 9, 8pm
Cottage Home
410 Cottage Home St. LA, CA 90012
Screening followed with a few words by Lawrence Weiner and a reception.

Lawrence Weiner teamed up with cinematographer Kiki Allgeier and producer Nortitoshi Hirakawa to realize WATER IN MILK EXISTS, a fresh skin flick that challenges both artistic and pornographic conventions. The film contains quotations from the artist’s children books, austere dialogues on string theory, animations, as well as a lot of carnal action.

WATER IN MILK EXISTS in a rare public screening and is receiving its Los Angeles premier at Cottage Home. Weiner realized his first porn movie A BIT OF MATTER AND A LITTLE BIT MORE in the 1970s as public declaration of Weiner’s solidarity with the detained crew of the legendary DEEP THROAT. Weiner’s latest contribution, on the contrary, focuses on a highly individual experience of sex and a freedom in sexuality that is often loss in the gaps between porno, pop culture, and the practice of everyday life.

The European premiere of WATER IN MILK EXISTS took place during Art Basel in one of the last remaining porn movie theatres in that city. For its Los Angeles premier, it will be screened in a former Chinese porn theater that has in its most recent incarnation been converted into an art gallery. Thus bringing together like Weiner’s film, art and pornography. This screening has been organized independently by Andrew Berardini, and will likely retain a smattering of the downbeat underground vibe in which it was originally screened.

Writes Lawrence Weiner: "SITUATED WITHIN A LANDSCAPE OF HUMAN INTERACTION THOSE ACTIVITIES THAT LEAD TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURES NECESSARY TO DEAL WITH OR CO-EXIST WITH THE FORCES OF NATURE, WATER IN MILK EXISTS ATTEMPTS TO PRESENT VARIOUS CHARACTERS AT A POINT OF DISJUNCTIVE BUT SIMULTANEOUS REALITIES. IF THE CONCISE PLACEMENT OF STONES LEADS TO A STRUCTURE (A TRUISM POSED BY MIES VAN DER ROHE) THEN PERHAPS A CONCISE PLACEMENT OF PERSONS CAN LEAD TO A STRUCTURE NOT BASED UPON PARALLEL HIERARCHIES. THE ACTIVITIES OF THE PLAYERS FIT WITHIN THE GENRE OF ADULT FILMS. IN FACT, THE PLAYERS ARE ADULTS."

A Structure of Lawrence Weiner. Players: N Beckwith, Lesny Jn Felix, Cleo Fishel, Taka Fukuya, Jonathan Hokklo, Joann Kim, Lucca Jean Lax, Kristen Lorello, Zaza M., Christopher Mitchell, Natalie S. Mignon, Kitao Sakurai, Ryan Scanlan. Director of Photography: Kiki Allgeier. Producer: Noritoshi Hirakawa. Executive Producer: Edi A. Stockli. The Swiss Institute, New York. Curator: Gianni Jetzer. Editors: Kiki Allgeier, Lawrence Weiner. Graphics: Bethany Izard. Melodic Noise: Kim Allgeier, Lawrence Weiner. Henry the Navigator, copyright Lawrence Markey and Lawrence Weiner.

Our own Tom Watson, Wednesday, July 1 at 9:30 sharp

mike watt + the missingmen
wednesday, july 1 at 9:30 pm
at the old towne pub
66 n. fair oaks
pasadena, ca
(626) 577-6583

Michael Rashkow: Quadrangles June 27th to July 18th. Opening Reception: Saturday, June 27th 6 to 9 PM

China Art Objects Galleries is pleased to announce the third exhibition in our summer series.

Michael Rashkow
Quadrangles

June 27th to July 18th, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 27th 6 to 9pm

Reading and Performance Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:30 PM

Reading & Performance at The Mountain at 8:30 PM

Veronica Gonzalez will read a novel in progress on Thursday night in a bit of an impromptu evening of readings, with Ariana Reines and Sarah Wang… there will be a chorus (as part of Ariana’s piece) with the possibility that Michael Silverblatt will be singing in it.


The Mountain
475 Gin Ling Way Los Angeles, CA 90012

Images from Alex Hubbard, Charlemagne Palestine, Anthony Pearson, and Jon Pestoni

Alex Hubbard, Heads in the Dark, 2009, DVD, 19’ 10”, Courtesy of the artist


L: Alex Hubbard, Heads in the Dark, 2009, DVD, 19’ 10”, Courtesy of the artist
R: Jon Pestoni, Untitled, 2009, Oil on canvas, 35 x 27 ½ inches, Courtesy of the artist


Installation view of China Art Objects
L: Jon Pestoni, Untitled, 2009, Oil on canvas, 35 x 27 ½ inches, Courtesy of the artist
R: Jon Pestoni, Bird Food, 2009, Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches, Courtesy of the artist


Installation view of China Art Objects
L: Anthony Pearson, Untitled, 2009 & Untitled, 2009, both Solarized silver gelatin prints,
Unique, 17 x 12 ½ inches, Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery
R: Charlemagne Palestine, Dorian Sweep, 1973, Mixed media with sound, Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist


Charlemagne Palestine
Untitled, circa 1982
Acrylic and fur on paper
Unframed: 30 x 22 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Jay Sanders


Charlemagne Palestine
Dorian Sweep, 1973
Mixed media with sound
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist


Alex Hubbard, Heads in the Dark, 2009, DVD, 19’ 10”, Courtesy of the artist


Anthony Pearson
Untitled, 2009
Solarized silver gelatin prints
Unique
17 x 12 ½ inches
Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery


Anthony Pearson
Untitled, 2009
Solarized silver gelatin prints
Unique
17 x 12 ½ inches
Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery


Anthony Pearson
Untitled, 2009
Framed color photograph
Unique
17 x 12 ½ inches
Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery


Anthony Pearson
Untitled, 2009
Framed color photograph
Unique
17 x 12 ½ inches
Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery


Jon Pestoni
Untitled, 2009
Oil on canvas
27 ½ x 35 inches
Courtesy of the artist


Jon Pestoni
Untitled, 2009
Oil on canvas
36 x 28 inches
Courtesy of the artist


Jon Pestoni
Untitled, 2009
Oil on canvas
28 x 22 inches
Courtesy of the artist


Jon Pestoni
Bird Food, 2009
Oil on canvas
24 x 24 inches
Courtesy of the artist


Jon Pestoni
Untitled, 2009
Oil on canvas
24 x 24 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Alex Hubbard, Charlemagne Palestine, Anthony Pearson, and Jon Pestoni
May 28 to June 20, 2009

The current exhibition at China Art Objects Galleries brings together the diverse practices of Alex Hubbard, Anthony Pearson, Charlemagne Palestine, and Jon Pestoni. The mode of operation for each artist is linked, not only through a conscious use of abstraction, but also in a more deliberate dialogue with the conventions of particular media. Each artist contaminates formalism with a mix match of ideas and emotions, updating the use of traditional mediums.

Alex Hubbard’s video, Heads in the Dark, blurs aspects of ‘the making of the work’ with the finished product. There is also the blurring of post- minimalism, scatter art, and contemporary painting, with contemporary cooking and craft T.V. Jon Pestoni’s oil on canvas paintings explore terrain that is neither figurative, nor purely abstract. In his work, overt repetition is subordinate to subtle shifts in scale, shape, and subject matter. Charlemagne Palestine’s work is both sculpture and painting. For a static work, its integration of music articulates a complex spatial dynamic. Anthony Pearson’s photographs incorporate handcrafted painting before they ever become the finished image. In a twist of sensibility, they then return to being unique by becoming editions of one.

Be it music, video, photography, painting, or sculpture, none of the works in the exhibition rely exclusively on direct art historical references. The works in the exhibition unabashedly seek out original formal terrain that is highly aware of historical precedent but not reliant on it. Palestine’s 1973 Dorian Sweep serves as an exemplary model of this kind of art making.