May 24th Opening Recap

Ending an evening of art openings at a karaoke bar in Korea-town with dealers, artists, and collectors is by far one of the best ways to be amused, embarrassed, and see the less serious side of your artworld friends. So that’s what we did Saturday evening and, I will just say, you haven’t experienced fine karaoke until you’ve seen Angela Dufresne do “Come Together.” For real.

But back to the beginning…I started the evening out at Regen Projects II space for Andrea Zittel’s Energetic Accumulators, and Token Exchanges. The Token Exchanges part of the exhibition involves the public directly - moving from viewer to participant in just a few small steps. Objects placed on top of tables are available for exchange; meaning you can place (replace really) one of your own objects you think is of equal value to the object of Zittel’s you’re taking. Ranging from stones to photographs to felt pieces, the overall piece directly questions ideas of value, commodity, and exchange. Myself still trying to escape the correlation between art and commerce (a side-effect still lingering from being a dealer), I felt too guilty to exchange anything I had on me. Nothing seemed good enough or what if I put something silly, like the dog bones hiding in my purse I had just bought, and someone thought unworthy. L.A. artist Josh Levine echoed this sentiment saying that he would be coming back to exchange something from his studio. Token Exchange has “participatory instructions” therefore also exploring rules and rules following; something I don’t do very well. So although the shark purse was calling out to me, I just couldn’t be bothered.

So onward we went to Culver City for the receptions for Angstrom, Kim Light, Liz Oliveria, and Dufresne’s Twilight of Mice and Men at Kinkead Contemporary where it seemed everyone seemed to be buzzing about Annie Lapin’s solo debut at Angeles Gallery in Santa Monica that opened last week. But in Culver City Austrian artist Tillman Kaiser’s first U.S. show at Honor Fraser is definite not miss - his abstract simultaneously simple and complex paintings play with ideas of forms with bits of text and cut out eyes peer back at you. Corresponding floor sculptures inform the paintings although I’m not sure how well they would work on their own. Kaiser’s work is intriguing, still processing it really, and it makes wonder why contemporary European artists do abstract so well.

Honestly, I’ve been a little disappointed in what I’d been seeing lately at galleries but it seems as if it’s picking up in L.A. just in time for summer. I look forward to next weekend and, just perhaps, more karaoke.

Image: Tillman Kaiser at Honor Fraser Gallery.