Monthly Archives: July 2015

The gallery is pleased to present new works by program artist Lester Monzon. These pieces can be viewed by visiting the gallery’s “Featured Works” page on the website.

By collapsing of architecture, space, and art history, Lester Monzon’s work dissects the notion of context. Colorful gesticulations conceal sections of rigid patterning, a tete-a-tete between abstract expressionism and hard-edge abstraction that implies a gentle lampooning of the taxonomic tradition. Monzon upends the formalism and segregation innate to the fine art world, and fabricates a composite genealogy of painting – a pithy resolution to an otherwise vapid debate. Monzon’s luscious brushstrokes slyly creep into a Hirst-esque field of dots or Noland-like plane of stripes, like the resurrection of a once-declared dead practice through a satirical hand. In his recent work, Monzon applies this critique of contextual art to mark-making in public spaces; be it graffiti on tiles in a public bathroom, stains on the sidewalk, or the popularized notion of “street art.”

Monzon (b. 1973, Brooklyn) received his M.F.A. from Art Center College of Design (CA). His work has been exhibited at the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art (CA), in addition to shows in San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA). The artist lives and works in Los Angeles (CA).

For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Gallery artists Josh Azzarella and Allison Schulnik were recently in the 62nd Sydney Film Festival.

Artists from around the globe had their works displayed in the free-access Festival Hub, giving guests a close look at many different perspectives from artists at the forefront of their field.

Read an article about the festival here.

For more information about the artists or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Gallery artist Penelope Umbrico is in a group show at GUS Stellenbosch University Art Gallery (South Africa) titled ‘think of number 6, bark like a dog,’ curated by John Peffer with Bettina Malcomess.

The title comes from a 1962 process work by Fluxus artist Ben Patterson, that humorously points to the non-place of images (not necessarily in the body or in things).

To read more about the exhibition click here.

Gallery artist Penelope Umbrico has a new solo installation at California Museum of Photography. Umbrico’s project Range (2013-ongoing) navigates the contemporary vernacular of social media and popular smartphone “app” filters to re-present canonical landscape photographs by photography’s twentieth century masters.

CMP Projects is an ongoing exhibition series that features photo-based work by contemporary artists. This presentation is curated by Joanna Szupinska-Myers, CMP Curator of Exhibitions, and Kathryn Poindexter, Curatorial Assistant. The series is partially supported with funds provided by UCR’s College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS) and the City of Riverside.

To learn more about the exhibition click here.

For more information about the artist or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to present “New Paintings (Stroll On),” the gallery’s seventh major solo show from Las Vegas painter, Tim Bavington. Based on the 1966 Yardbird’s song “Stroll On, “ this new body of work continues the artist’s investigation into transforming musical scores into unique visual compositions.

Drawn to the vibrant palette of his neon-lit hometown, Bavington is a master of richly saturated color and visceral execution. Utilizing pop and rock music as his source material, Bavington creates rhythmic visual systems by assigning colors to the musical arrangements. Guitar riffs become mathematically proportioned bars of paint, varying in widths and colors to represent audible shifts and durations. The result is a visual psychedelic mood ballad with colors undulating in atmospheric swells, at once evoking Bridget Riley and David Bowie. In a 2010 Los Angeles Times article, art critic David Pagel wrote, “Like pop songs, Bavingon’s abstractions waste no time in getting your attention. And like symphonies, they unfold slowly, with shifting tempos that lure memories into moment, filling it with infinite richness.” In his new body of work, the shimmering optical planes swirl dizzyingly while “I’m strollin’ on, gonna make you see me” is called to mind.

Tim Bavington (born 1966, England) received his BFA from the Art Center (CA) before making the permanent move to Las Vegas, where he completed his MFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (NV). His work is included in the public collections of Fredrick R. Weisman Collection (CA), Albright-Knox Art Gallery (NY), Creative Artists Agency (CA), Joslyn Art Museum (NE), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Portland Art Museum (OR), United Talent Agency (CA), Vivendi Universal (CA), Palm Springs Art Museum (CA), Denver Art Museum (CO) and The Museum of Modern Art (NY).

Concurrently in Gallery Two, is “Amities Fly,” the gallery’s second solo show from Los Angeles painter, Joshua Dildine. Merging found autobiographical photographs with viciously gestural painting, Dildine’s works confronts conventional notions of nostalgia and representation – as well as painting itself.

Dildine’s paintings typically begin with a photograph from his childhood. Seeking to make this image universal, the photograph is printed on canvas and painted over—often until the original image is completely obscured, or nearly unrecognizable. The result is a dynamic abstraction, with hints of ‘80s familial iconography. His visceral movements and accelerated brushstroke are loaded with sensual energy, harkening to the Ab-Ex days of pure delight and mystery in paint’s materiality. By placing these gestures on top of faded, kitschy, (and sometimes cloying) memorabilia. The end result is a fixation shared by society at large: the contemplation of past events and relationships. Dildine mines these memories for the underlying traits that forge our shared humanity: the humor found in the compromising, the endearment found in the aggravating, or the conflict found in the absent. His painterly swaths are as instinctive as the family photos they conceal; his vivid palette alludes to the glaring absurdity of our incessant self-analysis and examination of the past. In his most recent body of work, Dildine embellishes elements or patterns within the original image in order to create a farcical confrontation with the past – a perspective that is both critical and celebratory. Through this carefully disjointed lens, Dildine creates experiences that are at once present and bygone as he whimsically harnesses the nature of our being.

Dildine (b. 1984, CA), received his MFA from Claremont Graduate University (CA). He has been featured in group exhibitions in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Murfreesboro, as well as the Frederick Weisman Museum of Fine Art (CA). His work is included in the public collection of the Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California Riverside (Riverside, CA). He was also the recipient of the 2010 Claremont Graduate University Award. The artist lives and works in Claremont, CA.

Artist collaborative Okay Mountain recently created and installed a site-specific installation on George’s Island – located within the Boston Harbor Islands, a national park off the city’s coast that’s threatened by sea level rise. Produced by the Isles Arts Initiative, the commission is part of a summer long public art series on Georges, Spectacle islands and Boston Sculptors Gallery that will capture the intrinsic beauty of the 34 harbor islands.

Says Art F City:

[On July 11, 2015], “Cove“opens on Georges Island, a decommissioned military fort from 1861. The show features site specific installations by Elizabeth Alexander, Amy Archambault, Damien Hoar de Galvan, Samantha Fields, Pat Falco, Alex Hamrick, Middle Kingdom, !ND!V!DUALS Collective, Elizabeth Keithline, Megan & Murray McMillan, and Okay Mountain.

For their commission, Okay Mountain created Monument to a Decommissioned Monument (2015), in which they reflect on the way historic sites, and even history itself is repurposed. Responding to the revolving reincarnation of George’s Island, from military fort, to prison, to training grounds, to public park, Okay Mountain presents a shrouded heroic figure looking out toward Boston, suggesting a now-defunct past our possibly an as-yet-revealed future. To visit their contribution to the exhibition – and other works on display – please visit the website for Isles Arts Initiative.

Okay Mountain is a nine member artist collective based in Austin, Texas. Formed in 2006 as an artist-run alternative gallery space, the group has exhibited their drawing, video, sound, and performance projects throughout the United States and in Mexico City, and has been widely recognized for its “inventive construction, loving attention to detail and keen-eyed connoisseurship.” Okay Mountain repackages, reconstitutes, and rekindles our consumerist desires with a sardonic edge. Their installations and multi-media assemblage works mimic the stock vernacular of our communal materialism, yet tweak them just enough to reveal our superficial insecurities and convictions.

While most artists are alumni of the University of Texas at Austin (TX), others are graduates of University of California Los Angeles (CA), Rhode Island School of Design (RI), and the University of Kansas (KS). Institutional exhibitions have included those at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston (TX), Austin Museum of Art (TX), McNay Art Museum (TX), Arthouse (TX), University of Tennessee, Chattanooga (TN), and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (MA). Their work is included in the permanent collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (CT), McNay Museum of Art (TX), Orange County Museum of Art (CA), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (CA), Santa Barabara Museum of Art (CA), and Vanderbilt University (TN).

Gallery artist Jean Shin is included in the new exhibition, “The Architectural Impulse,” at Cristin Tierney Gallery in New York City.

The Architectural Impulse is a group exhibition of artists whose works draw from the materials, processes and theoretical concerns of the architectural discipline. To learn more about the exhibition click here.

For more information about the artist or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Jean Shin, Carte Blanche Constructions, 2001. blank rolodex cards. Dimensions variable.

The gallery is pleased to announce the Crocker Art Museum‘s acquisition of Penelope Umbrico‘s work, “21,887,750 Suns from Sunset from Flickr (Partial) 06/27/2014” (2014), for its permanent collection.

The first public art museum founded in the Western United States, the Crocker Art Museum was established in 1885 and is now one of the leading art museums in California. The Crocker serves as the primary regional resource for the study and appreciation of fine art. The Museum offers a diverse spectrum of special exhibitions and programs to complement its collections of Californian art, works on paper, European art, international ceramics, photography, Asian art, and African and Oceanic art. The Crocker Art Museum is the only museum in the Sacramento region accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), a recognition given to less than 800 of the nation’s 17,500 museums. AAM accreditation certifies that a museum operates according to standards set forth by the museum profession, manages its collections responsibly, and provides quality service to the public.

Penelope Umbrico offers a radical reinterpretation of everyday consumer and vernacular images. Umbrico works “within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects, and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments—but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities.”
She finds these moments in the pages of consumer product mail-order catalogs, travel and leisure brochures; and websites like Craigslist, EBay, and Flickr. Identifying image typologies—candy-colored horizons and sunsets, books used as props—brings the farcical, surreal nature of consumerism to new light.

Penelope Umbrico (born in Philadelphia, 1957) graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. She has participated extensively in solo and group exhibitions, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. Umbrico is core faculty in the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media Program. Selected public collections include the Guggenheim Museum (NY), International Center of Photography (NY), McNay Museum of Art (TX), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Museum of Contemporary Photography (IL), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Museum of Modern Art (NY), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), among others. She lives in New York City.

For more information about the artist or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

This Thursday gallery owner Mark Moore will be a panelist on, “White Cube: The Future of the Art Gallery,” held at Samuel Freeman Gallery.

When: July 16, 2015
Time: 6:30 -8:30 PM
Location: Samuel Freeman Gallery 2639 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90034

This panel will explore the evolving roles, business models and strategies of mid-size art galleries, which are currently being squeezed by the shifting economy and the proliferation of competing art sales platforms. Drawing upon their varied professional experiences, the panelists will consider the impact art fairs, auction houses and online retailers are having upon on the brick-and-mortar art gallery. Among the questions to be raised: what strategies might galleries adopt not only to survive, but flourish in the art world of today?

The panel, moderated by renowned arts writer, Jori Finkel, will consist of two gallery owners and representatives from a leading art fair, auction house and online retailer:

Mark Moore, Principal, Mark Moore Gallery

Susanne Vielmetter, Owner and Director of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

Tim Fleming, Director, Art Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair

Melanie Edmunds, Gallery Relations Manager, Artsy, Los Angeles

Saara Pritchard, Post-War and Contemporary Art Specialist, Christie’s, New York

Gallery artist Andrew Schoultz has a special mural installation in “Invisible College,” a new exhibition at Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

Invisible College explores the aesthetics of a movement that has devised its own course; one that has been largely defined outside of institutional contexts. Moving away from the standard art education model that demands graduate school, an excess of critical rhetoric and an art world careerism, these artists, many of whom are self-taught, have sought their own inspiration and voice instead, drawing on everything from popular culture and social media platforms, to street art, murals and graffiti. By creating a distinct community in support of the diversity of its visions and styles, the movement has mortared and upheld its own invisible school.

This group exhibition is co-curated by Andrew and Shawn Hosner of Los Angeles’ Thinkspace Gallery, and Josef Zimmerman of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. The exhibition will feature new and representative works by 46 artists belonging to the New Contemporary movement.

For more information about the artist or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.