Photo: Courtesy of 9f Subliminal Projects
It’s suspicious to name a show “XX,” give no explanation other than “it’s a show about eight emerging Los Angeles artists,” and leave it at that. “XX” very obviously refers to the female chromosome, however, and while all the artists in this show happened to be female-identified, is that really why they were curated together? Oh wait, it is even though the press release text doesn’t come out and say that. Additionally, the lack of curation just seems like the showcase of a gallery’s stable, as if plucking the goods from the backroom and arranging them, showing as many pieces as possible, without any real order or flow. Instead one just finds clusters of work by each of the eight artists, like a high school art show where every artist involved gets their own showcase or trophy area.
Christine Wang’s series of nine jokey post-ironic paintings all read OIL PAINTERS DON’T NEED WATER in stencil letters over a map of the state of California, nodding to the ongoing terror of the drought. These paintings remind of signage and taglines that say SAVE WATER DRINK BEER, but they have an art-y spin to them, and greet people upon arrival to the gallery. Suzanne Wright’s various large-scale drawings of feminine women with architectural elements either on top of, inside of, or entering into their bodies while said women masturbate or appear in varying states of arousal, offer both an erotic and off-putting take on violence (both welcome and not) that is put upon women under systemic sexism and the patriarchy. Curiously, her drawings seem to say get off on this! which makes them oddly humorous.
Read more at http://www.craveonline.com/art/906501-exhibit-terrible-premise-good-art-curatorial-conundrum-xx-subliminal-projects#8iCsevrBeMaXjtpB.99
