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Carol Rama, Bricolage (#2), 1969, Mixed
media and collage on paper, 27 x 33.5 inches framed
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NEW LOCATION
LUKAS DUWENHÖGGER
VIOLA FREY
D'ETTE NOGLE
JOEL OTTERSON
CAROL RAMA
SEPTEMBER 19,
2015 - NOVEMBER 7, 2015
Michael Benevento is very pleased to announce
the inaugural exhibition at our new gallery location on Beverley Blvd. For the
exhibition each of the five connecting gallery spaces will feature work by one
of the five included artists, Lukas Duwenhögger, Viola Frey, D’Ette Nogle, Joel
Otterson, and Carol Rama.
In the front right gallery the elegant pairing
of oil paintings by Lukas Duwenhögger articulates the space’s multiple viewing
angles. The two haunting works are indicative of Duwenhögger’s oeuvre,
featuring tightly painted, yet stylized, imagery of isolated male figures of
Mediterranean descent in theatrical fantasy settings. One of the two exhibited
works, titled after Melchior of the Biblical Magi, is shaped within a tall oval
frame.
Lukas Duwenhögger, Kellner, 1996. Oil on canvas, 23.5 x 19.5 inches è
Legendary Bay Area sculptor Viola Frey was best
known for her larger than life, colorfully glazed ceramic figures. The work on
display in the back left gallery is a rare example of a partial departure from
that aesthetic. The complex sculpture is an amalgamation of slipcast ceramic
parts, some of which are recognizably figurative in various ways, but this
object features a ghostly white glaze and more intimate scale.
Inside the video room D’Ette Nogle’s newest
video-based work offers viewers clear and purposeful directions for memorizing
and visualizing the five obtuse and heavily politicized terms Equality,
Liberty, Democracy, Opportunity, and Rights. The text appears on screen and is
accompanied by a female American English computer voice and intermittent
close-up views of the artist’s eyes and forehead while she responds along with
viewers to a cue to “draw a picture in your mind”.
D’Ette Nogle, Initiatory Exercise for Gallery
(New Order of the Ages),
2015, HD Video, 2:30 min è
Joel Otterson’s obsessive sculptural
combinations have long celebrated the mawkish nature of the domestic
environment. Navigating aesthetics rooted in decorative representations of
taste, style, class, craft, and sexual identity, Otterson consistently draws
inspiration from middle-class Californian domestic spaces and Queer Culture.
His sculptural installation Camp, showing among other works by the artist in
the back right gallery, is as much a reference to the dandyism of 1960’s
American Camp as it is a sculptural representation of a tent at a campsite.
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Carol Rama, Zef, 1946, Mixed media on paper,
23 x 18
inches framed
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Joel Otterson, Raving Mad (Detail), 1997, Copper plumbing pipe and
ç
In the left front gallery hangs a grouping of
works on paper by the self-taught Italian genius Carol Rama. Within the
exhibited works, spanning dates from the 1930’s through the 1970’s, are
incredibly powerful examples of the artist’s provocative painted imagery, all
of which was shockingly radical in its time of production for its overt and
unapologetic themes of sexual identity and female erotic desire. Complementing
the heavily stylized figure paintings are two subtly humorous Bricolage works
by Rama that are consistent with the aesthetic sensibilities of 1950’s-1960’s
Arte Povera and Assemblage Artists.
Michael Benevento is located at 3712 Beverly
Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90004.
Gallery Hours are Tuesday – Saturday 10am-5pm. For press inquiries and
additional information please contact Becky Koblick at
bk@beneventolosangeles.com.
