June 10th - July 25th, 2020
Wilding Cran Gallery is pleased to present It’s a sad and beautiful world…., an exhibition of figurative work by six Los Angeles based artists: Vanessa Beecroft, Michelle Blade, Karon Davis, Katja Farin, February James and Bari Ziperstein. The works reflect upon the current Covid-19 ‘safer-at-home’ order, and the collective state of uncertainty and isolation. *The gallery is open by appointment only. To arrange for a viewing, please click here. A portion of sales from It's a sad and beautiful world... will be donated to Black Lives Matter and The Underground Museum. Vanessa Beecroft born in Genoa, Italy, in 1969. Lives in Los Angeles, CA. Vanessa Beecroft’s work has been shown internationally since 1993, and has shaped performance art, the representation of the female body, and the sociopolitical discussions of art. Her performances (titled VB, followed by the number) have been an ongoing practice for over twenty-five years. Presented across some of the world’s preeminent museums and major contemporary events, Beecroft’s performances highlight the tensions between nakedness and clothing, constraint and freedom, the collective and the individual, and human strength and weakness. Vanessa Beecroft was one of the first artists to collaborate with fashion brands, starting in the 1990s, and since 2009 has collaborated extensively with musician and producer Kanye West. Now belonging to popular culture as well as the contemporary art canon, her work also manifests a deep dialogue with the history of art and representations across the traditions of Europe and of many of the world’s cultures. She is also a keen practitioner of photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture, using each medium to present perspectives on the body, as she brings Renaissance influences together with modern representation. Her art is a passionate field of experimentation, rooted in history, unraveling according to its own rules, and expanding into the world where it takes on many philosophical and political tones to in order to question the significance of our existence as human beings. Michelle Blade is a visual artist working in painting, sculpture and installation. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Arts; Santa Fe, The Bonnefantenmuseum; Netherlands, Jack Hanley Gallery, Southern Exposure; San Francisco, Western Exhibitions; Chicago, Roberts & Tilton; LA and The Torrance Art Museum, among others. Her work has been featured in The NY Times Magazine, The LA Times, The Paris Review, Juxtapoz, The California Sunday Magazine, and Art Maze Mag. Blade holds a BA from Loyola Marymount and an MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco. She currently lives and works in LA. Karon Davis grew up the child of Broadway performers in New York City, trained at USC film school, and credits her late husband Noah Davis with teaching her much of her cross medium practice. Davis is also the co-founder of The Underground Museum, a cultural hub and urban oasis located in Arlington Heights that serves low-to-moderate income communities in Los Angeles and cultivates the hope that increasing access to art will inspire, educate, and transform lives. Museum exhibitions include: Starless Midnight, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK; NEW SUNS, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, NL; and Reclamation! Pan- African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection at the Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA. Gallery solo and group exhibitions include: MUDDY WATER and Pain Management, Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles; POWER, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles; Rock my Soul, Victoria Miro, London; PEOPLE, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, New York & Los Angeles; CONDO London, Herald St., London; and Dreamweavers, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles. Davis is a recipient of The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2017 Biennial Grant. Davis' work is in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; The Bunker, West Palm Beach, FL; and the Rubell Museum, Miami, FL. Katja Farin (b. 1996, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Farin earned a BA in Fine Art from UCLA. Her work has been featured as a Critic’s Pick in Artforum, for her first solo show at in lieu, Los Angeles. She was featured as one of Cultured Magazine’s 30 under 35 artists for 2020. February James is a mixed media artist originally from Washington DC. Her work holds an autobiographical narrative, her paintings represent her own experiences and familial relationships. She asks the question, how much does the legacy of a family influence our everyday life, our vulnerabilities, our expectations, and explores the hidden emotions that exist between what we see and what we experience. James' exhibition When the Chickens Come Home to Roost is currently on view at Tilton Gallery, NYC. Most recently her work was shown in I Painted Flowers for You at Luce Gallery, Turin, Italy. Other exhibitions include Punch, curated by Nina Chanel Abney at Jeffrey Deitch gallery, Los Angeles, Mirror Mirror at Latchkey Gallery, NYC, and Collision Course at Band of Vices, Los Angeles. James lives and works in Los Angeles. James’ first solo show was A Place to Belong at Wilding Cran Gallery in 2019. Bari Ziperstein is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. Working in mixed media sculpture, Ziperstein’s primary focus is in ceramics. Her plural and fluid practice includes discrete objects, large-scale installation, site-specific public sculpture, and her line of functional ceramics, BZippy & Co. Materially experimental but conceptual at its core, Ziperstein’s practice engages ideas of consumerism, propaganda, and the built environment. Her objects and sculptural tableaux reflect her interest in the political dimensions of capitalist economies and challenge the construction of desire and aspiration in contemporary American culture through a historical lens. One-person exhibitions of her work have been presented at Bethel University, Minneapolis, MN (2018) and the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design, Santa Barbara, CA (2017); and recent one-person gallery exhibitions include Patterns of Propaganda, Charles Moffett Gallery, New York, NY (2019); and Propaganda Pots, Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2018). Recent group shows include Designing Women II at Egg Collective, New York, NY (2019) and All Hands on Deck at Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art & Design, Los Angeles, CA (2018).