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Edward Cella Art + Architecture presents Death and Life of an Object, a three person
exhibition featuring sculptures and installations by Lynn Aldrich, Laurie Frick and Tim Hawkinson.
The transformation of everyday objects and materials into artworks has been a pursuit of all three
artists in this exhibition. Whether they are materials found on the street, at a garage sale or
at
Home Depot, each of these artists has utilized the abundance found in a modern consumerist
society to their advantage.
The transformation is, however, the key to this exhibition and their work process. By re-
contextualizing and altering the materials or objects, the artists have made them their own.
Reference to the object’s or material’s original use may be relevant to the newly transformed
artwork, but it is what the artist has done with these items that induce new life, meaning and
purpose. Curated by Carl Berg, the exhibition offers insights into innovative strategies for additive
sculpture and installation.
Los Angeles based artist, Lynn Aldrich, features several sculptures using everyday materials
including a large-format work entitled, Hydra Hydrant (2009). The work is a direct
expression of
the possibilities of a particular, ordinary material to take on transcendent meaning through complex
associations. In Greek mythology, the Hydra is a many headed monster, a water snake, growing
back two heads for each one cut off, killed by Hercules who cauterized its reproducing tentacles.
For Aldrich, the do-it-yourself plastic downspouts are constructed into a “hydrant” which
seems
to emerge from the ground in a spurt of growth or energy. For her, it represents the problems
associated with a consumer-driven culture and the increasing urgency of unchecked growth
within a limited natural environment. Simultaneously, it is a humorous, yet wryly elegant “fountain”
which blesses the viewer with a kind of implied renewal.
Texas based artist Laurie Frick adopts a daily regimen of self-tracking that measures her activities
and body, and in doing so shapes a vocabulary of pattern used to construct her intricately hand-
built works and installations. Her quantifiable patterns, like her heart rate, the duration of
her sleep
or body weight are some of the metrics that inspire her colorful and complex works. In Walking,
Week- 42, Frick constructs an immersive collage recording the length and directions of her daily
walks with paperback book covers and scraps of paper she finds en route. One of the highlights
of the exhibition is a large format installation assembled from the surplus color and pattern
samples of an Italian manufacturer of laminates. Corresponding to her systematic tracking of her
moods, the mural of kaleidoscopic color chips reflects a familiar human rhythm and replays
something inherently unnoticed back into the physical world.
Tim Hawkinson is recognized for his transformation of everyday materials into complex sculptural
systems though surprisingly simple means. Hawkinson is an alchemist bringing life from the inert:
magically transforming common material into living artworks. This exhibition features three series
of his sculptural work that explore the human body. The first are portraits made from sculpted
foam and found eyeglasses. These three dimensional wall mounted works suggest topographical
maps but also are humorous caricatures with their shallow reliefs and bent eyeglasses depicting
facial
contortions.
Hawkinson's continued exploration of his own body is featured in the two remaining works in the exhibition.
The first is Foot
Quilt (2007), a large-scale sculptural work that is an enlargement of his actual footprint.
Draped from the gallery wall
extending onto the floor, the quilt presents an outline of his foot embroidered as its pattern.
Especially made for the
exhibition, the other work is the artist’s latest piece and represents an enlargement of his fingers
posed in an unusual
position. Accurately portraying his appendage, the details of every line of his fingerprints are
revealed.
EXHIBITION PROGRAMS:
In Conversation: Lynn Aldrich and Laurie Frick with curator Carl Berg
Saturday, February 25, 2012/ 4:00 PM
6018 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Join curator Carl Berg as he leads a conversation with artist Lynn Aldrich and Laurie Frick about
selected projects that lead
to a discussion of the intersection of materials and process, craft and aesthetics in each of the artist’s
practices.
Lynn Aldrich is a Los Angeles based artist who has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout
the world, with
large scale installations most recently seen at Art Center College of Design (2008), Otis College of
Art and Design (2009),
and a public fountain sponsored by the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena (2010). She received a City
of Los Angeles
Individual Artist Fellowship Award and the Art Here and Now Los Angeles County Museum of Art purchase
award. Aldrich
received her B.A. in English Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her MFA
at the Art Center College
of Design.
Laurie Frick was born in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in Austin, Texas and Brooklyn, New
York. Formerly an
executive in high technology, she holds an M.B.A from the University of Southern California. In
2007, she completed her
MFA from New York Studio School and has since completed many artist residencies, most recently at the
Headlands
Center for the Arts and the Djerassi Program. Her recent solo exhibition at Edward Cella Art+ Architecture, Sleep
Patterns
(2011), was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.
Carl Berg, the guest curator of the exhibition, has been deeply engaged in the Los Angeles contemporary
art community as
a curator and former gallerist. As Director of the newly formed experimental art space, THE PROSPECTUS,
which is part of
the Pacific Design Center’s DESIGN LOVES ART program, Berg provides artists, writers and curators
with a venue to
propose their ideas. Berg is also currently the curator at the Irvine Fine Arts Center the City of Irvine.
In Conversation: Lynn Aldrich, Benjamin Ball and Merry Norris with art critic Scarlet
Cheng
Tuesday, March 13, 2012/ 6:30 PM
Presented at and in collaboration with the Architecture + Design Museum
6032 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Join art critic Scarlet Cheng in a conversation with artist Lynn Aldrich, architect Benjamin Ball
and art consultant Merry
Norris about their recent public art projects and how they address the role of art in the built environment.
Scarlet Cheng received her BA from the School of International Service at American University, Washington,
DC, and an MA
in Film Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has worked in programming at
the Public Broadcasting
Service, in editorial at Time-Life Books, and during a sojourn in Hong Kong, she was the managing
editor of Asian Art News,
the first English-language magazine devoted to the contemporary arts of Asia. Currently, she teaches
film history at Otis
College of Art & Design, and writes about arts and culture for the Los Angeles Times, The
Art Newspaper, Artillery
magazine, and numerous other publications.
Benjamin Ball studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. He began his collaboration
with fellow SCI- Arc
graduate Gaston Nogues in 2004. Together, Ball and Nogues explore the nexus of art, architecture, and
industrial design.
Their works have been exhibited at major institutions throughout the world, including the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum; PS1; The Los Angeles County Museum
of Art;
the Venice Biennale; and the Hong Kong, Shenzhen Biennale; and the Beijing Biennale.
Merry Norris has been deeply engaged in the Los Angeles art community as an arts advocate, consultant,
and curator
through numerous roles, including being instrumental in the founding of Museum of Contemporary Art (1979-84)
and as
Executive Director of Gateway to L.A (1998-2001). She currently serves on the Board of Trustees
of the Southern California
Institute of Architecture, and as Founding Trustee for the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Founding
Merry Norris
Contemporary Art in 1978, Norris has provided curatorial services to private collectors, public institutions,
and developers,
facilitating public installations and permanent public artworks across Southern California.
For press inquiries, images, or general questions contact:
Jennifer Ko
Gallery Associate
jennifer@edwardcella.com
THE PROGRAMS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Seating is limited. To reserve please call 323.525.0053
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