Lisa Tan / Mark Bradford

Lisa Tan: One Night Stand

For One Night Stand, New York-based artist Lisa Tan travels to a major international city, in this instance Paris, for a night, taking only a notebook and a change of clothes. Documenting the experience through the task of writing (as inspired by the “nouveau roman” style particular to names such as Alain Robbe-Grillet), One Night Stand is an opportunity to see the world through an intimate lens.

Text that mimics the strategies of image captions features prominently in the projected work, however, here these texts lack their visual support. The passing standardized subtitles are derived from Tan’s writing during her trip, and float in a projected field of monochromatic black that is devoid of moving image. This form of representation – both literally descriptive and visually oblique – competes with a myriad of easily conjured iconic images of Paris as experienced by a history of representation through film and photography. Willfully dislocating and disorienting herself, Tan observes the city’s surfaces, evoking her voyeuristic connection to the environment. In this way, Tan’s intention is to see how words themselves become iconic, and how they can support a vision of the intangible feelings associated with place through personal memoirs.

A site-specific sculptural installation, Roman Lovers, that includes a lamppost, plant and wrought-iron fence will complement the silent, moving textual installation. This environment is restaged from a photograph and engages the significance of both photographic memory and psycho-social projection, while investing mnemonic and emotional importance into inanimate objects. This urban moment is captured photographically and then theatricalized in the space of the gallery—the installation representing a cross-section of urban space as well as a psychological moment of suspension and longing.

Mark Bradford: Niagara

Mark Bradford, a Los Angeles based multi-media artist, will mount his L.A. debut of a new video entitled Niagara. Based on the 1953 Marilyn Monroe film of the same name, Bradford aesthetically documents a local flâneur sauntering down the sidewalk of Los Angeles. Niagara continues Bradfords’ examination of the city, attempting to represent the dynamism and diversity of the local landscape.

LAXART’s programs are made possible with generous support from Avalon and Maison 140, Grimm|Rosenfeld Gallery Munich & New York, James Irvine Foundation, JET, La Colección Jumex, Helen Lewis, Larry Mathews and Brian Saliman, Max Mara, Peter Norton Family Foundation, Peter Remes, Debra and Dennis Scholl, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Voce and Volume.

Pressetext

Lisa Tan / Mark Bradford