Chad Attie: Contempt
Dec 14, 2013 - Jan 18, 2014
Klowden Mann is very pleased to present our first solo show by Los Angeles-based artist Chad Attie,Contempt. The exhibition features collage works presented on paper, canvas and light box, exploring themes of idealized love, alienation, mythologized beauty, and loss of innocence through the use of found imagery of figure and landscape. The exhibition will be on view from December 14th through January 18th, with a reception for the artist on Saturday, December 14th, from 6 to 8pm.
In Contempt, Attie uses a variety of found materials that speak to our investment in (potentially false) ideals, and in the objects we create to represent those ideals. Vintage paintings purchased at garage sales, imagery from cinema (the title Contempt is an homage to Jean-Luc Godard鈥檚 film of the same name), children鈥檚 book illustrations, fabric, and needlepoint all become fodder for re-examination, as Attie layers his imagery and then tears it away to reveal what lies beneath (which is more surface, more idealized representation). Attie鈥檚 found representational objects themselves have been vested with hope鈥攐f reconciliation and wholeness through love, of childhood imaginings, of land that has not yet been overrun with industrialization. Attie鈥檚 manipulation and composition of those objects acts to invest new hope through dialogue, while simultaneously ripping apart the very ideals to which they speak. Presenting the moment of recognition as taking place exactly where the ideal meets its own impossibility, Attie continually focuses in on the destructive potential of desire to override all other modes of seeing and being. In the surfaces of Attie鈥檚 works, he shows us the unconquerable distance between subject and object, and the struggle to find agency while an idealistic hope for unity still maintains narrative power.
In Contempt, Attie uses a variety of found materials that speak to our investment in (potentially false) ideals, and in the objects we create to represent those ideals. Vintage paintings purchased at garage sales, imagery from cinema (the title Contempt is an homage to Jean-Luc Godard鈥檚 film of the same name), children鈥檚 book illustrations, fabric, and needlepoint all become fodder for re-examination, as Attie layers his imagery and then tears it away to reveal what lies beneath (which is more surface, more idealized representation). Attie鈥檚 found representational objects themselves have been vested with hope鈥攐f reconciliation and wholeness through love, of childhood imaginings, of land that has not yet been overrun with industrialization. Attie鈥檚 manipulation and composition of those objects acts to invest new hope through dialogue, while simultaneously ripping apart the very ideals to which they speak. Presenting the moment of recognition as taking place exactly where the ideal meets its own impossibility, Attie continually focuses in on the destructive potential of desire to override all other modes of seeing and being. In the surfaces of Attie鈥檚 works, he shows us the unconquerable distance between subject and object, and the struggle to find agency while an idealistic hope for unity still maintains narrative power.
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Klowden Mann is very pleased to present our first solo show by Los Angeles-based artist Chad Attie,Contempt. The exhibition features collage works presented on paper, canvas and light box, exploring themes of idealized love, alienation, mythologized beauty, and loss of innocence through the use of found imagery of figure and landscape. The exhibition will be on view from December 14th through January 18th, with a reception for the artist on Saturday, December 14th, from 6 to 8pm.
In Contempt, Attie uses a variety of found materials that speak to our investment in (potentially false) ideals, and in the objects we create to represent those ideals. Vintage paintings purchased at garage sales, imagery from cinema (the title Contempt is an homage to Jean-Luc Godard鈥檚 film of the same name), children鈥檚 book illustrations, fabric, and needlepoint all become fodder for re-examination, as Attie layers his imagery and then tears it away to reveal what lies beneath (which is more surface, more idealized representation). Attie鈥檚 found representational objects themselves have been vested with hope鈥攐f reconciliation and wholeness through love, of childhood imaginings, of land that has not yet been overrun with industrialization. Attie鈥檚 manipulation and composition of those objects acts to invest new hope through dialogue, while simultaneously ripping apart the very ideals to which they speak. Presenting the moment of recognition as taking place exactly where the ideal meets its own impossibility, Attie continually focuses in on the destructive potential of desire to override all other modes of seeing and being. In the surfaces of Attie鈥檚 works, he shows us the unconquerable distance between subject and object, and the struggle to find agency while an idealistic hope for unity still maintains narrative power.
In Contempt, Attie uses a variety of found materials that speak to our investment in (potentially false) ideals, and in the objects we create to represent those ideals. Vintage paintings purchased at garage sales, imagery from cinema (the title Contempt is an homage to Jean-Luc Godard鈥檚 film of the same name), children鈥檚 book illustrations, fabric, and needlepoint all become fodder for re-examination, as Attie layers his imagery and then tears it away to reveal what lies beneath (which is more surface, more idealized representation). Attie鈥檚 found representational objects themselves have been vested with hope鈥攐f reconciliation and wholeness through love, of childhood imaginings, of land that has not yet been overrun with industrialization. Attie鈥檚 manipulation and composition of those objects acts to invest new hope through dialogue, while simultaneously ripping apart the very ideals to which they speak. Presenting the moment of recognition as taking place exactly where the ideal meets its own impossibility, Attie continually focuses in on the destructive potential of desire to override all other modes of seeing and being. In the surfaces of Attie鈥檚 works, he shows us the unconquerable distance between subject and object, and the struggle to find agency while an idealistic hope for unity still maintains narrative power.
Artists on show
Contact details
6023 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA, USA 90232
