"Knowledge is not made for understanding, it is made for cutting."

- Michel Foucault

 

Actual Size Los Angeles is pleased to present, Negotiation of Objects, a two-part group exhibition featuring the work of Sean Kennedy, Natalie Labriola and Kenneth Tam.

 

The two parallel installations will take place at the 741 New High Street location and Art Platform LA. The exhibitions feature sculptures and wall-mounted works that explore cultural reflexivity in objects. The works by these artists, exhibited in two venues, dialogue to explore the act of marking surfaces, and how a variety of everyday materials respond to the artist’s influence and the effect of time passing. Finger marks on suede, emoticons imprinted in clay, and the contours of wood grain act as meditations on our contemporary symbolic language, and the media that conveys it.

 

Exhibition at Actual Size Los Angeles September 17th - October 8th, 2011.
Exhibition at Art Platform LA September 30th - October 3rd, 2011.

Co/Lab at Art Platform LA, presented by Artra Curatorial. For more information go to: http://www.artplatform-losangeles.com/special-programs/colab/

 

Sean Kennedy’s practice often harnesses dust, light and circumstance to create works that comment on the ephemeral. Kennedy uses the vocabulary of minimalism to create his suede “paintings." These monochrome works continue his structured investigations of the visual traces of time. The artist stretches suede over a framework much in the same way a canvas is prepared. The material is left vulnerable to impermanent alterations, from deliberate handling, or by accidental brushes against the surface.

 

Natalie Labriola's ceramic tablet offers a playful index of emoticons, exhibiting letters, numbers and other symbols that create casual markers of a range of emotional reactions. The mimetic symbols, 21st century calligrammes imprinted upon the “stone,” suggest a commemorative plaque for the internet age. Labriola’s work treats modern technology with an ironic reverence. For example, a gravestone-like pedestal rests on the floor, engraved with the sardonic statement, “Did I shave my legs for this?” Her carefully studied drawings of cracked iPhone screens appear as luminous monoliths.

 

Kenneth Tam molds and carves his sculptures as if he were tracing the contours of a body. Tam pushes the limits of his materials, which include Bondo, concrete, shopping bags, and deodorant, by relating to their inherent physical qualities. In "Drunken Map," he carves along the grain of a plank of wood, resulting in a fluid, frame-like structure that leans delicately against a wall. Kenneth Tam’s artistic practice is intuitive, subtle and playful. His works navigate between the object's natural state and the artist's drive to alter it. This give-and-take between accepting and pressing the limits of the media is also displayed in his video work, which documents encounters with individuals he meets through the internet. Tam captures the challenges of negotiating with strangers as they perform tasks together.