Los Angeles artist Meg Cranston exuberantly blows out the walls at Venetia Kapernekas Gallery for their inaugural show. Cranston transforms the space from the word "Go!" with a flood of pink in the entryway. Beyond that the left wall climbs itself in the main gallery with an onion/sun/hypno attack. Spread around the room are collages, drawings, and a sculpture. It's all too much (And I mean that in a good way.), like the sun in LA.
A week after seeing QED's half of Bring The War Home in LA, I was walking through Chelsea to see the other side of that split 7" at Elizabeth Dee, and I thought to myself, "God. The sun is so lame here." In Los Angeles it's just so very--like I said--much. Cranston's work feels like a celebration of that wild abundance. The large wall collage in the main room creeps over the wall into the back office. The collages seem like they're ready to spill out of their frames. A sculpture, with a base fashioned from an absurdly purple plastic box holds up a blowup of a beautiful LA rock boy taken from a local paper recently. He could have been taken from the 60's or 70's or 80's or 90's. In Los Angeles beauty is the base, the constant. Why trash it when you can make such good art from it.
LA is a circle, but it's not a jerk. When I visited for my first time I was expecting the absolute worst, and the city proved me wrong at every turn. Meg Cranston has put a lovely, bursting exclamation point on my experience. Which is, generally, what the best art always does. Go. Stare into the sun.
6 comments:
Deer HAA, you are always opening my eyes to new work! I just returned from Final Review Broads at NIPS, and saw your sweet shout-out of a few posts back. Likewise! & for the record, your blog is amazing, and your writing is sparkly like freshly-brushed teeth.
Big smile. Thanks. Welcome back.
L.A. is a circle but it's not a jerk?! As a 10-year L.A. resident, I must disagree with the former, as it implies clean boundaries and a center. However, as a fellow writer, I can appreciate your desire to indulge a good pun. (Smile.) Glad your experiences here proved so positive.
v2 Schnieder. Ha! Totally busted. The opportunity to bend a phrase AND make a reference to a great LA band was way too tempting. I have no will power.
But seriously, it's a point well taken and it's something that never fails to come up in conversation with LA artists: the lack of a center, the ragged boundaries.
No worries. Just wanted you to know someone was paying attention. (Wink.)
Keep up the lively work.
Many thanks, v2.
Post a Comment