Left image, Adrien Missika, Untitled, from the series Safari Classique, 2006, C-print, ed. 3, 18 x 24 cm - Right image, Aya Saito, Untitled, 2007, Oil, acrylic and China ink on paper, 135 x 119 cm.
Le Flâneur.
Joshua Callaghan, Christopher Davison, Christiane Feser, Bas Louter, Adrien Missika, Aya Saito, and Ami Tallman.
September 7 - October 13, 2007.
Opening Reception for the Artists | Friday, September 7, 2007, 6-9 pm.
http://www.fette-gallery.com
fette’s gallery is delighted to present Le Flâneur, a group show with Joshua Callaghan (us), Christopher Davison (us), Christiane Feser (de), Bas Louter (nl), Adrien Missika (ch), Aya Saito (jp), and Ami Tallman (us).
For this exhibition, we invited seven artists to visually discuss their relation with the flâneur - a 19th century character portrayed by the French as a well dressed man, strolling through the Parisian arcades to pass the time, free to explore his surroundings to gather inspirational substance.
According to Walter Benjamin, the flâneur rose to prominence primarily because of an architectural change in the city. While Baron Haussmann was redesigning boulevards and tearing up many of the old twisting streets, the flâneur became the anonymous face in this revived crowd.
Re-defining flânerie in a current context within the Los Angeles boundaries appears quite foolish, yet it is rather compelling.
While the urban sprawl that is the city of LA remains fairly discouraging to the strolling of the Beaudelarian character, it still allows for a new genre of wandering poetry to be generated. Artists such as Ed Ruscha, Charles Bukowski and Andrea Zittel, whose work is heavily influenced by the atmosphere of their surroundings and daily routines, come to mind. The anonymity, compartmentation and luxurious façade of the vast LA suburban area greatly influenced new artistic vocabularies.
With this new exhibition we will gather alternative meanings associated with the historical flâneur in this current context of changes.
Los Angeles based Joshua Callaghan re-appropriates plastic and other found objects and solicits the viewers to reshape their experiences toward the medium. Often cynical, Callaghan’s installations ressemble allegoric landscapes from consumers’ reports. For this show, the artist will create a site specific installation revising the concept of flânerie from a suburban point of view.
Callaghan was recently included in the group show Rogue Wave ‘07 at LA Louver.
Christopher Davison is based in Philadelphia where he graduated last year from Tyler School of Art. His body of work includes mostly drawings and paintings on paper, their colorful and naive quality resonating within the narrative. Inspired by Bosch, his pieces carry layers of dark humor and disturbing accounts.
Davison’s work was recently included in two paper based group shows, one at Tower Gallery in Philadelphia and another at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen.
Christiane Feser lives in Germany. She takes photographs which she subtly alters digitally to question our aptitude to recognize truth and habits. The two images featured in the show are from the series Strassen (Roads) in which traces of the human interaction between the inside and the outside have been removed. By reducing the buildings and roads to their surface, these landscape describe new journeys and unfamiliar uses.
She recently received the Charlotte Prinz Fellowship from the city of Darmstadt in Germany.
Often, the protagonists drawn by Amsterdam based artist Bas Louter, are depictions of power and absurd arrogance. For this show, Louter will present a new charcoal drawing on paper. The character in this piece, although fictional, carries the aesthetic of the classic surrealist’s muse. She posses the attributes of a willful, dark, yet sensitive and imaginative individual. One can reflect on her radiance and witness the changes her historical figure embodies.
The artist just had his first solo show at fette’s gallery which was in part founded by a grant from the Fonds BKVB.
Adrien Missika will present four photographs from his series Safari Classique. These intimate sized works picture the wild dioramas, sans animals, which one can observe at the Natural History Museum in New York. These inanimate sceneries reflect on our aptitude to romanticize, yet organize our surroundings.
Missika just graduated from ecal in Lausanne, Switzerland. This is his first show in the US.
Japanese artist Aya Saito creates large oil, acrylic and ink works on paper. By mixing these mediums, she achieves an intricate and expressionist palimpsest of texture and matter. Often dark and engaged, her work grabs the viewer to question what he recognizes.
A catalogue of her recent work was recently published by Little More. Last year, she participated in the 8th Gunma Biennial for Young Artist at the Museum of Modern Art of Gunma, Japan.
Los Angeles based Ami Tallman draws opulent interiors and failed aristocratic gatherings. She colorfully rewrites history, combining elements of decor, ornamented generals, politicians in drag and disappearing fame.
For this exhibition, she will present new works on paper.
Her work was recently shown at Cirrus Gallery’s Naive Set Theory group show curated by Catherine Taft and was also included in the last MOCA’s silent auction. 2nd Cannons also published a book of her drawing.
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