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The Artist as Curator series

Museum curators are charged with taking a long and wide view--the comprehensive synchronic and diachronic perspective that allows us to map our world, and situate new art objects into the constellation of space and time.

Artists--blissfully--are released from such tedious scholarly obligations, and are free to construct their own Borgesian 'Chinese encyclopedias' in whatever fashion they wish. Artists since the dawn of Modernism have been the instigators of significant movements codified through exhibitions. From Edouard Manet to Donald Judd, artist-curated exhibitions remain stand as landmarks in the history of art. While curators sometimes use art to illustrate larger social historical forces at work, artists as curators tend to focus on shop-talk--how things are made. Composition, color, emotional qualities, technique--all of the most central questions in art-making sometimes get elided when constructing the larger discourse of 'meaning'. Artists remind us of how things 'feel' rather than what they 'mean'. Artists as curators help put the pleasure back in the art--they remind us that making art and viewing art are, in fact, sensual experiences.

The position of the artist is (metaphorically) like soldier in the field--they are the scouts, and with their ears to the tracks, they often sight trends and themes long before the curators catch the shift of wind. So, we at the Museum thought it would be exciting to invite an artist to curate a 'state of the state' exhibition that in turn allows us to subvert the traditional curatorial authority of the institution. In true Duchampian fashion, the Artist as Curator series was born.

For our inaugural Artist as Curator exhibition, we have chosen Julia Latané. We have curated a small exhibtion of Latané's work to introduce her to the audience, and she in turn has curated Quickening, a group exhibition of 10 Los Angeles-based artist, and one North Carolina-based artist.

Julia Latané Pop Organica

The Artist...

Julia Latané's work creates a tension between the worlds of the 'natural' and the 'synthetic'. This tension echoes our own displacement as both part of nature and as part of a long history of attempts to conquer nature. When we fight nature, we fight ourselves. That fact, however, has not tempered efforts by human beings to transcend the limits of our natural world. We created electric light to conquer the inconvenient movements of the sun. We created elevators and planes and rocket ships to counteract the oppressive effects of gravity. We use tools and surgeons and chemicals to alter the way our bodies 'naturally' look. These examples are fairly harmless, and speak more of our ability to dream than our failure to accept our plight. But the history of human kind is wrought with examples that bespeak the basest parts of our being, born of our fear in the face of the 'natural world.' The horrific experiments of the Third Reich's attempt to create a 'master race' are perhaps the most egregious examples of our desire to rule, but there are a host of other attempts to conquer nature gone awry.
Nature as Muse,

It is against this complex tableau that we view Latanés work. Historically, rather than try to conquer nature, artists have stood in awe of the majesty and power of the natural world. In a way, Latané's objects carry on traditions in both landscape painting and scientific illustration--while significantly updating the modes. The objects at first seem to be cartoonish versions of scientific illustration, but only until one realizes just how abstract most 'scientific' illustrations actually are. So far removed from the thing itself, both in time and space (think of astronomy, biology and particle physics), many images of natural phenomena are in truth fanciful and impressionistic. Recall the recent flap in astrophysics when scientists from Johns Hopkins excitedly announced they had determined "the color of the universe". We were all delighted to discover that it was, in fact, "turquoise". Our most romantic and ethereal color--the color of our ocean and our sky and mood when we are 'blue'. The excitement was not long-lived, however. A few weeks later, the scientists acknowledged that they had miscalculated, and that the color of the universe was actually "beige". The color of drapes and slacks, not our cosmos. (Recall, too, the recent suggestion that our perpetually expanding universe is in fact shaped like a 'prickly pear').

What we are witnessing here is the articulation of our desire in the face of awesome mystery. Us lay folks stand in amazement as we hear about new stars light years away and quarks named 'beauty' and 'truth'. These kind of phenomena are nearly impossible to apprehend given the limitations of our prosaic, workaday world. That is why we have art. Art allows us to represent the abstract, be it love or sub-atomic particles.

A Theory of Everything

Fascinated by M theory (aka Superstring theory or "a theory of everything"), Latané pays homage with a group of sculptures whose phenomenal effects are equally mystical. Developed as an attempt to reconcile quantum physics with gravity, string theory has gone from lunatic fringe to (almost) mainstream over the last decade, and has captured the hearts and minds of non-physicists for its somewhat romantic implications. Since the 'strings' in question are so small (a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter), our representations of the physical phenomena are abstract--that is to say, they are art. Atom smashers (particle accelerator labs) allow us only to see the index, the trace, the echo of particles. We are looking at ghosts, fairy evidence of the nature of our existence. Our technological abilities to shift scale in order to see (ourselves, our origins, the nature of life) are rudimentary. We know there is information to be had, but we struggle to apprehend it. How thrilling this mystery is! How awe inspiring to search for our origins and to map our place in the cosmos. It is this grand pursuit that is the source of inspiration for Latané's work.

Latané's curiosities drive her to consume texts on everything from theoretical physics to fairy tales--and the result is an odd hybrid of fact and fantasy. Her curiosity to understand the world around her began early. "I remember when I was five and I asked my Dad where the edge of the universe was". Latané reminisces when asked when these obsessions began.

Her steel endless loops float on the wall casting shadows that imply an endless perpetuation of form. These are the 'closed loop' strings of the M Theory that has seduced Latané. Her Diatoms glitter, chips of plastic standing in for the silica that makes up these mystical unicellular algae. Her Tube Lichen stand proud and over scaled, grand synthetic interpretations of the gorgeous hypogymnia.

Now, these objects have little to with science, no more than Picasso's Cubism was an illustration of Einstein's Special Theory. Latané uses these natural phenomena as a point of departure to investigate forms in nature, and their ability to seduce.

Synthetic Intentions

Latané revels in the lush, perfect colors provided by synthetic materials. The shiny, even, saturated qualities allowed by chemically-based materials is seductive, indeed. These material choices were born of a desire--with a hint of irony--to suggest that the artificial (the hyper-real, the simulacrum) is better than the natural. This paradox has been embedded in the Pop movement since at least Warhol. With his coy and playful musings, one was never quite sure if Andy was being critical of the superficial qualities of celebrity culture, or reveling in them. When Mr. McGuire utters "Plastics" in The Graduate, we know him to be dead serious, but we as the audience understand the irony.

Latané talks about her conscious decision to begin to work with synthetics. The paradox of manipulating natural forms into synthetic materials was of course appealing. But further, the synthetics--and the magical, fantasy world that they evoke--are reminiscent of the imaginary microcosm that Latané escaped to as a child (perhaps around the time of her preternaturally brilliant cosmic questioning). This synthetic world is perfect, like those candy-colored toadstools and brilliant rainbows in the pop cosmologies of cartoon landscapes.
Latané's work oscillates between this fantasy and the reality of our relationship to our environment. Her work brings us great pleasure as it reminds us how small we may be relative to the magnitude of space and time. This can be daunting, but in the presence of the work, it is more often inspiring. We are the fortunate beneficiaries of Latané's curiosity, and her exquisite works of art in turn cultivate the curious in us.

...as Curator...

I chose these artists because I think they are super-cool. -Julia Latané

The idea for this exhibition evolved after going from an opening of Timothy Nolan's work directly from Jaime Scholnick's studio. I was moved by the work of both artists, but was struck by the contrast between the quiet serenity of Nolan's white on white oil stick paintings and the heated frenzy of Scholnick's ink on paper images of bullets and genitalia. Both artists use exquisite technique and end up with beautiful and compelling objects, but they are radically different in the effects they produce in the viewer. I thought that curating an exhibition that allowed the viewer to move through work that went from quiet to loud, from still to shrill, from calm to chaotic would not only create an exciting path, but would illuminate the ways in which artists manipulate form, color, and subject matter to provoke different emotional states.

Quickening Artist Biographies

Brian Cooper [b. 1971, San Francisco, CA]
Brian Cooper currently lives and practices in Los Angeles. He received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995 and a MFA from the University of Southern California in 2002. Cooper has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the southwest and abroad including "southwestNET:PHX/LA" at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (2004) and "Network," a collaboration between POST Gallery in Los Angeles and de Parcel in Amsterdam (2004). Solo exhibitions include Meltdown at Acuna Hansen Gallery in Los Angeles (2003) and Project Room at Sweeney Art Museum at the University of California Riverside (2004).

Michaela Daly [b. 1969, New York, NY]
Michaela Daly received a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1992. Recent exhibitions include Group Show at Anthony Wistlar in Chicago, IL (2000); a collaborative project with San Francisco-based watercolor artist Lynn Sondag entitled Veneer at Truman College in Chicago, IL (1995); and Grout at The Sun in Savannah, GA (1992). Private commissions include a mural installation for M Design in Los Angeles (2005) and a private residence in Venice Beach, CA (2004).

Claudio Dicochea [b. 1971, San Louis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico]
Claudio Dicochea received a BFA in 1995 from the University of Arizona. He continued his painting and drawing studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in1998-1999. In 2000, he received a first place award in the Ford Foundation's "Siqueiros-Pollock" Bi-national Painting competition. Over the past decade, he has exhibited at the Joseph Gallery in Tucson, AZ; the Museo de Arte e Historia in Juarez, Mexcico; and the San Diego Art Institute. His work was included in the First Annual Latina/o Art Symposia at the Hispanic Research Center of Arizona State University and published in Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art (Bilingual Press, 2002).

Adriana Gallego [b.1974, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico]
Adriana Gallego graduated Magna cum Laude from the University of Arizona in 1997, where she received the Robie Gold Medal Senior Award. Gallego has received numerous grants from the Tucson Pima Arts Council including the international Cultural Exchange Grant and the Rural Arts Project Grant for work in Amado and Sasabe, Arizona; and Pima County Youth Arts Grant. Gallego participated in the "El Papel del Papel," which originated at La Sala Central del Antiguo Arsenalde la Marina Espanola en la Puntilla" in San Juan, Puerto Rico (1999) and traveled to Taller Puertorriqueno and Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, PA; the Carribean Cultural Center and Taller Borcua in New York, NY; The Guadalupe Cultural Art Center's Visual Arts Annex in San Antonio, TX; The National Hispanic Center for the Arts, Albuquerque, NM. Gallego is co-founder Raices Taller 222 Gallery. Her work has been featured in Four Decades of Mexican American Art (Bilingual Review Press, 2005) and Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Work, Culture, and Education (Bilingual Review Press, 2002)

Sherin Guirguis [Luxor, Egypt, b. 1974]
Sherin Guirguis received her MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2001. She has been exhibiting since 2000, primarily in Los Angels, CA and Las Vegas, NV. Los Angeles galleries such as Patricia Faure Gallery, Space Gallery, POST, Miller Durazo have been home to Guirguis' solo exhibitions of the past four years. Her work has been in shown at numerous international art fairs such as The Armory Show in New York, NY and Art Frankfurt in Frankfurt, Germany. Guirguis currently teaches design fundamentals and history as well as color theory as part of the adjunct faculty at the American Intercontinental University and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Juan Logan [b.1946, Nashville, TN]
Juan Logan has participated in over 250 exhibitions in the southeastern Unites States over the last thirty years. He received a MFA in 1998 from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. His recent solo exhibition Whose Song Shall I Sing?, originated at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled to the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, Colorado, and the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois. Logan participated in the "First Beijing International Art Camp Open Exhibition" at the Sujiacun Art Center in Beijing, China (2005). His work is in the collections of the Whitney Musuem of American Art, the Musuem of African American Art, Los Angeles, the Philladelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery in Zimbabue. Logan is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Rachel Neubauer [b. 1968, Jacksonville, FL]
Rachel Neubauer's work can be found in the collections of the Berkeley Art Museum, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, The Oakland Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Neubauer studied at the the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture after receiving a MFA from Ohio State University in 1995. In 1999, Neubauer participated inÊBay Area Now 2, a triennial, multi-disciplinary art festival that recognizes current trends in the San Francisco area visual arts, held at the Yerba Buena Gardens Center for the Arts. Neubauer received a SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) award from The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which involved a solo exhibition at SFMOMAÊin 2001. ÊÊOther distinguished awards include the Fleishhacker Foundation's Eureka Fellowship in 2004.

Timothy Nolan [b. 1963, Tacoma, WA]
Timothy Nolan received an MFA in 1991 from Queens College in Flushing, New York, after spending two years at the Art Students' League in New York City. Nolan's work was featured in the Human Presence: Through the Geometry of Color exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art in 2004. Nolan has participated in the residency programs at the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY; the Stichting Kaus Australis in Rotterdam, Netherlands; and received a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Nolan has also contributed criticism to the New Art Examiner and zingmagazine. Nolan's work has been featured in the L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Artscene, and Artweek.

Max Presneill [London, England, b. 1963]
Max Presneill received an MFA from California State University, Fullerton in 2001, after completing a BFA and MA from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. Presneill has exhibited in major art fairs such as The Armory Show in New York, NY (2004) and Scope Art Fair in Los Angeles, CA (2003). His work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions globally at Borusan Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (2005); Kybidou Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2004); de Parel, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2004); RA Gallery, Kiev, Ukraine (2002); Deutsch Bank Gallery London, United Kingdom (2002). He founded Raid Projects, a non-commercial artist-run project space and curatorial organization, in 1999 and moved to the Los Angeles location in 2001. He is currently the director of both Raid Projects and Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles.

Jaime Scholnick [Brooklynn, NY, undisclosed birthyear] Scholnick acquired an MFA from the The Claremont Graduate University (Claremont, CA) in 1991. In 1997 Scholnick participated in an artist in residence program in Imadate, Japan. Scholnick is well-known for her Hello Kitty Gets a Mouth project(HelloKittyGetsAMouth.com) which was screened at numerous film festivals. She has had solo exhibitions at Kobo Chika Gallery in Tokyo, Japan (2004), and POST, Los Angeles, CA (2002). Her work has been featured in ARTWEEK, ArtScene, and The
Japan Times.