TORRANCE, CA — Torrance Art Museum (TAM) presents a bold summer exhibition exploring the intersection between art and warfare, enlisting 17 artists who reflect a world of increased military engagement across the globe. Utilizing a wide range of media in its artistic arsenal, GENERATION W(ar) deftly maneuvers through the defining trait of our conflicted times to investigate the invisibility of things in plain sight and the daily relationship to war that underlies the culture at large. Internationally renowned contemporary artists Vanessa Beecroft and Shaun Gladwell are among the assembled artists who focus their art practice toward political expression and social critique of the institutionalization of war into the fabric of society. 21-year olds have never lived during a time when the US was NOT at war. How and where can we see this reflected in the art works of our time? Where does patriotism end and nationalism begin? How much militarism in a democracy is too much? Curated by Ichiro Irie and Max Presneill. Featured artists: Shusuke Ao, Josh Azzarella, Vanessa Beecroft, Harun Farocki, Melanie Friend, Shaun Gladwell, Ben Jackel, Jerome Lagarrigue, Dinh Q. Lê, Hillary Mushkin, Simon Norfolk, Isabel Rocamora, Kim Rugg, Joaquín Segura, Allison Stewart, Dan Van Clapp, and Yoram Wolberger. GENERATION W(ar) will be on view from June 15, 2019 — August 24, 2019 at the Torrance Art Museum. The opening reception will be held on Saturday, June 15th from 6 pm — 9 pm A special screening of internationally celebrated filmmaker Harun Farocki’s “War at a Distance” will take place on Thursday, July 18 at 7:30pm. ******* Gallery Two — Run Straight Through Contemporary paintings by Tahnee Lonsdale, Kristy Luck, Michael Nauert, and Thom Trojanowski. Curated by Kate Mothes. How can contemporary painting register the experience of those who travel, migrate, and pass through borders of the world? Run Straight Through is a curatorial project conceived around the notion of physical presence and movement through an exploration of figuration, landscape, and the abstract. The exhibition features four artists based between Los Angeles and London whose works draw connections between place and body; the landscapes that we inhabit, and that inhabit us. The title Run Straight Through itself is a phrase with multiple meanings: someone may run from one place to another, or something can be run through like a blade in flesh–straight through–cleanly. Some of the paintings are purely abstract, and others represent specific actions, objects, or figures, yet all of these artists question what it means to be “here” and how to get there. Some works, such as those by Tahnee Lonsdale and Thom Trojanowski, present the figure as symbolically cartoonish, separating emotional experience or existence from the body. In the work of Michael Nauert and Kristy Luck, the abstract gestures and forms allude to movement and landscape as metaphor for the presence of the body.