Artillery Magazine review. by Genie Davis | Aug 5, 2020
To view article on their website: https://www.artillerymag.com/semblance-sunshine-and-music-to-my-eyes-at-torrance-art-museum/
Two lush summer shows are blossoming online at Torrance Art Museum. Both exhibitions are visual stunners; and they continue the museum’s ongoing aesthetic for cutting edge, culturally resonating art.
Semblance | Sunshine co-curated by Josh Hashemzadeh and the Torrance Art Museum, is a group exhibition that offers a concise history and progressive overview of minimalist art from the 60s through present, Southern California style. The artists include Lynn Aldrich, Math Bass, Juan Capistran, Laddie John Dill, Sam Durant, Lauren Halsey, Anna Sew Hoy, Alex Israel, Claudia Parducci, Helen Pashgian, Kaz Oshiro, Aaron Sandnes, and Roy Thurston.
As much an insightful look at artistic style and shifts of the minimalist movement, the exhibition also pays homage to the California dream of this period as well, and specifically the influence of Los Angeles itself upon it. With the world seemingly caught on “pause” before change upon change, this is both a contemplative show and a call to action.
Lynn Aldrich offers a dazzling sculpture, “Streams in the Desert.” The blue enamel coated galvanized steel work is both water and aquaduct; a puzzle piece that is as entwined and convoluted as the history of water and water rights in the region. It seems to flow through the entire exhibition, both in its curated position on the gallery floor, and in its simple but thought-provoking energy. Laddie John Dill’s “Ohio Blue Tip” is a cool blue, green and golden work of argon, glowing hottest at both ends, like an LA sunset/sunrise, or a candle burning at both ends. Sam Durant’s illuminated green textural art “You Are on Indian Land, Show Some Respect” vibrates with both rage and a call to return to a different sort of life. Lauren Halsey’s “Untitled” gypsum on wood is an enigmatic image, very much of the moment – ghostly, petroglyph-like, and other worldly, as if dropped into exhibition from another planet. If only the world was more like Alex Israel’s “The Bigg Chill” – a jumbo soft serve, made from marble and a Styrofoam cup, a perpetually frozen memory of a quintessentially Californian good time.
In Gallery Two: Rob Grad and James Van Arsdale make the aural become visual in Music to My Eyes. The sculptural mixed-media two-person exhibition sings with seductive pleasure. The layered assemblages are filled with a kinetic sense of motion; it is as if, when the gallery closes, the music comes out to play. Van Arsdale’s “Circle Zap,” comprised of denim, faux leather, and patch is both rock n’ roll emblem and tribal tattoo; his “Electroexplosive Time Machine to the 70s” is an homage to the road musician: bursting from a road case are shapes of wood, foam, and acrylic, a fever dream for would-be roadies transformed into art. Grad’s lush and shimmery plexiglass and aluminum “Switching Lanes” is a kind of visual jazz; a brilliant palette bursting with promise. The artist’s “Tomorrow Colored Glasses,” UV cured ink on layered, die-cut plexiglass is like a vision of blossoming sound; his “Like Home” is both collage and assemblage, an overture to the city and its music.
Finally, the museum’s Dark Room exhibition space is now online as well, with video art to view from home. Now through September 5th, TAM presents a new video program each week from NewMediaFest 2020, with the Seven Memorials for Humanity, curated by Wilfried Agricola de Colgone. It is an absorbing retrospective of global video art from the last twenty years. It makes a worthy companion piece to both gallery shows.
