Fantasia curated by Claire Milbrath || Brittany Tucker: Company || Herman Aguirre: Tejido
6830 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038
Saturday, July 20 at 6:00 PM 8:00 PM
Ends Aug 24, 2019
Fantasia: Ram Han, Maren Karlson, Chris Lux, Claire Milbrath, Alake Shilling, Alix Vernet Curated by Claire Milbrath July 20 - August 24, 2019 Opening reception: July 20, 6-8 PM Steve Turner is pleased to present Fantasia, a group exhibition curated by Claire Milbrath inspired by the experimental Disney film of the same name; it features painting and sculpture by six international artists. When released in 1940, Fantasia’s daring cinematic presentation of abstract and representational art combined with symphonic music was largely met with indifference by the public. Only decades later were Disney’s vivid, psychedelic images recognized as icons in the film canon. In making the film the animators were encouraged to listen to the music and to create whatever imagery they envisioned. The results included hallucinatory floral ballets, dancing centaurs, swirling planets—and menacing brooms. As much as the film tried to imagine a far-away dreamland, it could not escape some of the dark socio-political issues of the time. While the exhibition takes cues from the sprawling, magical visions of the film, it also acknowledges that utopian themes of one era can often result in apt political metaphors for the present. Like the film itself, this exhibition invites viewers into an imagination excursion, both playful and dramatic, one that encompasses a kind of chaotic delight reminiscent of childhood. Through a combination of three-dimensional, digital, and traditional painting, these six artists create their own kaleidoscopic versions of pictures you can hear. Claire Milbrath (b. 1989, Victoria, British Columbia) earned a BA in History from Concordia University. She had two solo exhibitions at Steve Turner in 2017 as well as a solo booth at Artissima Fair, Turin in 2018. She is the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of The Editorial Magazine, a print journal on contemporary art. __ Steve Turner is pleased to present Company, a solo exhibition by New York-based Brittany Tucker that consists of paintings combining the artist’s likeness with that of a cartoonish image of a generic white man. Tucker misrepresents the white figure in order to address the uneasy relationship between American blackness and whiteness and to offset the stereotype characters from minstrelsy. By rendering herself realistically, she makes herself the primary subject while the white man is the joke of the painting. Brittany Tucker (b. 1996, Brooklyn) received a BA at Bard College (2018). She had a solo exhibition at Spring Break, New York (2019, presented by Four-D Projects) and currently has work included in a group exhibition at Kravets Wehby, New York (2019). This is Tucker’s first exhibition at Steve Turner, Los Angeles. __ Steve Turner is pleased to present Tejido (Tissue), a solo exhibition by Chicago-based Herman Aguirre that consists of new paintings inspired by ordinary objects in his home that have strong sentimental value: family photographs, linens, articles of clothing belonging to him and his wife, a bouquet of flowers and other souvenirs. Aguirre delicately builds up his works so that they represent the fragility of life and of malleability of memory. Herman Aguirre (b. 1992, Chicago) grew up in the tight-knit Mexican American community of the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. He received his BFA (2014) and MFA (2017) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2017, he was one of eight awarded a $50,000 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship for the Performing and Visual Arts, and he was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He has had solo exhibitions at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago (2019); Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown (2018) and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha (2018). This is Aguirre’s first exhibition at Steve Turner, Los Angeles.
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