Lari Pittman: NUEVOS CAPRICHOS
Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce NUEVOS CAPRICHOS, an exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Lari Pittman. Known for dense compositions that merge bold graphic design with historical modes of figuration, Pittman intricately crafts paintings shaped by a collision of abstract, geometric, and figurative forms. The artist reimagines and renders cultural mores, imagery from the realms of politics, philosophy, and popular culture, addressing issues of identity and socialization with familiar imagery acting as narrative catalyst.
In this exhibition of eight large-scale paintings, Pittman pays homage to Los Caprichos, a suite of etchings by Francisco Goya, first published as an album in 1799. In these etchings Goya illustrates the brutality of human behavior to comment on oppressive social conditions in eighteenth century Spanish culture. Pittman offers vignettes in the form of painting as a vehicle to address a broad range of social political issues, updating and renewing Goya鈥檚 Caprichos as a contemporary response to increasing levels of violence collectively internalized.
In place of Goya鈥檚 staunchly critical voice, Pittman aligns his subjects with language from Emily Dickinson, employing the poet鈥檚 voice to express a secular vision of the body, pain, and death. Pittman sees in Dickinson鈥檚 proto-feminist writing a secular vehicle to ruminate on larger philosophical issues of contemporary trauma, while not essentializing pain for herself or within her body.
Pittman鈥檚 work is calibrated in its balance of effusive, colorful, and buoyant forms with the ominous and uneasy effects of the figure. The artist depicts violence and decay as well as utopian fantasy; rather than serving as extraneous embellishment, decorative elements such as scrolls, arrows, borders and patterning function as formal devices moving the eye like a magnificent mosaic.
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Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce NUEVOS CAPRICHOS, an exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Lari Pittman. Known for dense compositions that merge bold graphic design with historical modes of figuration, Pittman intricately crafts paintings shaped by a collision of abstract, geometric, and figurative forms. The artist reimagines and renders cultural mores, imagery from the realms of politics, philosophy, and popular culture, addressing issues of identity and socialization with familiar imagery acting as narrative catalyst.
In this exhibition of eight large-scale paintings, Pittman pays homage to Los Caprichos, a suite of etchings by Francisco Goya, first published as an album in 1799. In these etchings Goya illustrates the brutality of human behavior to comment on oppressive social conditions in eighteenth century Spanish culture. Pittman offers vignettes in the form of painting as a vehicle to address a broad range of social political issues, updating and renewing Goya鈥檚 Caprichos as a contemporary response to increasing levels of violence collectively internalized.
In place of Goya鈥檚 staunchly critical voice, Pittman aligns his subjects with language from Emily Dickinson, employing the poet鈥檚 voice to express a secular vision of the body, pain, and death. Pittman sees in Dickinson鈥檚 proto-feminist writing a secular vehicle to ruminate on larger philosophical issues of contemporary trauma, while not essentializing pain for herself or within her body.
Pittman鈥檚 work is calibrated in its balance of effusive, colorful, and buoyant forms with the ominous and uneasy effects of the figure. The artist depicts violence and decay as well as utopian fantasy; rather than serving as extraneous embellishment, decorative elements such as scrolls, arrows, borders and patterning function as formal devices moving the eye like a magnificent mosaic.
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