Opening reception: Saturday, July 16, 6-8pm
With DJ Mulldozer in attendance
It just kind of happened.
It's too easy to play up some notion of nostalgia, and create a situation where one did not exist and try to backhandedly conceptualize a moment. This is not about that. It is about simpler times and taking old memories and putting them together to create a new one. It's also about showing something to those who may not of seen it, even if they were there at the time.
It was a time before the market had exploded. The late 80's don't count. That was too small, too dependent on painting, too narrow. Since all expectations had gone to shit, the beginning of the 90's brought about a place where artists could breathe. And the end of that decade could be the last time that art was slightly off the map. It was not widely discussed or assimilated like it is today. There wasn't the grand whiff or stink (depending on your nose) of financial opportunity fueling collecting. It was before institutional explosions, before brand, before artists' symptoms became muscle memory, before the audience snowballed, before three-page Microsoft advertisements with Takashi Murakami in The New Yorker.
The Sunshine and Noir exhibit, which did a very safe, professional, and correct job of defining art in LA from 1960 – 1997, featured none of the artists included in Think Blue. These artists probably would have contaminated it (a good thing, by the way). But these artists (and more making work at that time, there is always more, we just don't have the space) have come to define Los Angeles from that moment forward.
Still, here, always, you can wake up in the morning and go skiing, have lunch in the desert and dinner overlooking the ocean. We all know that. Everything and nothing at all. A place where form and function get all fucked up -- high and low stroll hand in hand and if you kill someone you can probably walk. Not a lot of innocence here. It’s still a frontier. And the dreams are wide awake.
Sam Durant
Mark Grotjahn
Evan Holloway
Jason Meadows
Dave Muller
Laura Owens
Jorge Pardo
Monique Prieto