Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Down-Home Libidinal Art



From the press release:

David Kordansky Gallery is pleased to present Cornfabulation, a collaborative exhibition by Aaron Curry and Richard Hawkins.

... the exhibition’s title gets to the heart of Curry and Hawkins’ willingness to forgo cosmopolitan restraint for a more down-home, libidinal approach to aesthetic invention. The installation consists of three rooms covered in cardboard ‘wallpaper,’ on which a cartoonish wood grain pattern is laid over colorfully graphic striping.

... the wallpaper replaces the neutrality of the white cube with the aura of an imaginary haunted house full of honky-tonk curiosities.







To me it feels quite rare, the impulse to take notice of the L.A. gallery scene. And when I do, it tends to feel as if I am more than half mocking the work (as with Mike Kelley's sculptural environments representing Kandor, birthplace of Superman, savored this past January). What Curry and Hawkins offer here strikes me as both fascinating and horrible in the same way vintage Technicolor remains forever fascinating and horrible.