Actual Size is pleased to present Tautology, an exhibition of new work by Dallas-based artist Stephen Lapthisophon, organized by Vincent Ramos.Tautology is part of a dual venue exhibition, Le Vent d’ Est. Stephen Lapthisophon’s debut solo exhibition in Los Angeles will document his first impressions of the city as well as record his responses to the gallery spaces at Actual Size in Chinatown and Elephant in Glassel Park.

 

Stephen Lapthisophon works in a realm where process-driven gestures, clues leading to nowhere, and fragmented layers of meaning are forced to co-exist. Legally blind since 1994, he relies heavily on his other senses to initiate ideas that disrupt notions of cultural memory. His site-specific installations employ a range of materials and approaches that include drawing, text, found objects, coffee and salt.

 

On Thursday, June, 20, 2013 at 8:00pm Actual Size will host Dark Warehouse, a lecture and screening of videos by Stephen Lapthisophon. Lapthisophon will screen a selection of his own time-based works, as well as clips culled from YouTube that inform his practice and his understanding of Los Angeles.

 

Stephen Lapthisophon received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. Recent solo exhibitions include Isolation, A Slender Gamut, New York, NY (2012), The Construction of a National Identity,Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL (2011), Las Palabras en la Sombra de Esta Fecha, El Escaparate, Barcelona, Spain (2009), and DESIGN, Zagreus Projekt, Berlin, Germany (2008). Recent group exhibitions include,Variations on Theme: Contemporary Art 1950’s-Present, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (2012), The Café, SHOW Studio, London, UK (2011), andArchival Impulse, Gallery 400, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL (2011). His work has been written about in ARTFORUM, Frieze, Art in America, Art News, New Art Examiner, and ART LIES. A collection of his essays entitled, Writing Art Cinema 1988-2010 was recently published by Green Lantern Press. He is currently a senior lecturer in art and art history at The University of Texas at Arlington.

 

Vincent Ramos is an artist from Los Angeles. He received his MFA from CalArts in 2007 and his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2002. Recent exhibitions include Made in L.A. 2012, Hammer Museum and LAXART (2012), Pachuco Cadaver or There Are No Heavies in America,Las Cienegas Projects, Los Angeles (2011), and Outsider Art: Others from Elsewhere Doing Something Altogether Different…Sort Of, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica (2011). Curatorial projects include, After The Gold Rush: Reflections and Postscripts on the National Chicano Moratorium of August 29, 1970, Vincent Price Art Museum, ELAC, Los Angeles (2011),River, Elephant, Los Angeles (2011), Chasing Shadows, The Onion (The Church of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society), North Hills (2010),The Sharon Show & 1969, Dan Graham, Los Angeles (2009), and Call Me Lightning: An Evening of Performance-Based Work, FOCA, Los Angeles (2008)

 

Special thanks to Max Presneill and the Torrance Art Museum, Chloë Flores and GuestHaus, Irene Tsatsos, Natilee Harren, John Berdel, Aaron Wrinkle, and the directors of Elephant for their support in bringing Stephen to

Los Angeles.