Constellation | 5 September - 11 October 2008

Kavi Gupta Gallery is proud to present Constellation, a group exhibition of painting, drawing, video, collage, and sculpture featuring Los Angeles artists Sayre Gomez, Mark Hagen, Julian Hoeber, Brett Lund, and Landon Wiggs. Constellation is an exhibition that addresses notions of time, process, and human agency. Elementary in nature, Constellation places emphasis on formlessness, physical affect, and expression to look at the metaphysical purpose of art making. The exhibition draws a common thread through multiple movements as it references Romanticism, Minimalism, and Surrealism and ventures to relate cosmological movement and natural phenomenon to themes of idealism, fate, and free will.

Through the ominous gaze of a surveillance camera, Landon Wiggs's video Trans Live shows different views of the steel skeleton of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. Words slowly form out of the building's structure, eventually succeeding into a rapid constantly morphing series of anagrams. Wiggs's clever and textual play starts with what the suburban megalopolis in background affirms, specifically, that "everything happens".

Another work, Mark Hagen's painting titled Pride, features a peculiar graph drawn by the inspirational executive coach Keith "Vanguard" Raniere, leader of the cultish NXIVM Executive Success Programs. The graph details Raniere’s unconventional perspective on the connection between an individual's pride (the "pride barrier") and their drive to live "ethically" and achieve their "ultimate dreams". Hagen's painting appears as an oversized version of the diagram; the text and graph are superimposed over the geometric topography of the paper suggesting the struggle and disconnect between one's ideas and actions.

Brett Lund's Black Orpheus is a striking, albeit crude-looking herm. Similar to a figurative bust, but without the solidity of any specific identity, the sculpture is an abstract embodiment of otherness. Referencing Marcel Camus' 1959 postcolonial film of the same name, Lund's sculpture alludes to Brazilian modernism, classical mythology, and the processes that form historical narratives.

Part of his new series that will debut this September at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, Julian Hoeber's polished aluminum bust continues the artist's ongoing representations of death. Cast in aluminum from a wax bust that was repeatedly shot with a handgun, the work is visceral and uncommonly eerie in how it relates figurative art history to human annihilation and oblivion.

Sayre Gomez's recent collages entitled Formal Exercises combine craft paper, masking tape, airbrush, and a seemingly disparate set of images to create extraordinary formal compositions. Recurring images of child play, handicrafts, and ancient artifacts, the collages look at the connection between an individual's aim to create meaning and the subsequent formation of art history at large.
This exhibition is curated in association with Marc LeBlanc, Los Angeles curator and critic who recently received his MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute. LeBlanc began his curatorial work in 2001 as the director of 1R Gallery in Chicago, and since 2004 has worked independently organizing exhibitions for galleries in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In addition, LeBlanc regularly contributes reviews and features to Beautiful Decay Magazine and Artillery Magazine; his essays have also been published in various exhibition catalogs.

Sayre Gomez (lives and works in Los Angeles) recently received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2008. Selected group exhibitions include shows at Sandroni Rey, LA; Black Dragon Society, LA, Bemis Center, Omaha, NE and JCCC Gallery, Kansas City, KS.

Mark Hagen (b. 1972 Black Swamp, VA; lives and works in Los Angeles) recently had a solo show at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and has participated in the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, as well as group exhibitions at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Jack Hanley Gallery, LA and White Columns, NY.

Julian Hoeber (b. 1974 Philadelphia, PA, lives and works in Los Angeles) has had solo exhibitions at Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan and Blum & Poe in Los Angeles. Selected group exhibitions include shows at the Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens; LACE, Los Angeles; Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA; Emily Tsingou, London; and I-20, NY.

Brett Lund (b. 1973 Minneapolis, MN, lives and works in Los Angeles) received his MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2006. Lund has an upcoming solo show at Blanket Contemporary Art, Vancouver; and recently had a solo exhibition at Daniel Hug, LA. Selected group exhibitions include shows at Patrick Painter, LA; Salon 94, NY; Christian Nagel, Berlin; and Foxy Production, NY.
Landon Wiggs (b. 1978, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received his MFA from Yale University in 2003 and has been included in group exhibitions at Circus Gallery, LA; High Desert Test Sites 5 at Joshua Tree; Black Dragon Society, LA and Hayworth Gallery, LA.

Constellation: Kavi Gupta | 835 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, IL, 60607

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