Ken Price and Larry Bell / Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Santa Monica, CA, USA
January 20 – March 3, 2012
Kayne Griffin Corcoran is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Ken Price and Larry Bell. The exhibition explores the divergent paths taken by these two artists who both started their careers in the early 1960s at the influential Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
Ken Price’s sculpture has defied convention since the 1960s. The colorful and willfully deviant ceramic sculptures in this exhibition refer to excavated landscapes, ancient architecture, and amoeba-like forms while at the same time remaining defiantly abstract. Price’s intention with these sculptures is to create “an organic fusion of color with surface form.” He applies layer upon layer of paint to the sculpture and then sands the surface to expose the various layers of color beneath. His sculptures from the late 1980s and early 1990s are an exercise in excavation. The organically-shaped sculptures appear to have been sliced open, revealing black polygons on the interior of the sculpture that read as voids. His later works are reminiscent of blobs with mottled surfaces often in a pearlescent finish.
The hard-edged geometry of Larry Bell’s works contrast sharply with Price’s organic forms. Bell’s glass cubes address the dematerialization of the object. Using a dichroic vacuum coating to line the interiors of the glass cubes, Bell creates objects that are at once reflective and seem to disappear. This emphasis on perceptualism aligned Bell with the Light and Space movement in California in the 1970s. This exhibition will include several examples of early Bell cubes as well as a shelf from 1970.
Kayne Griffin Corcoran is a participating gallery of Pacific Standard Time. Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months beginning October 2011. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
CONTACT
info@kaynegriffincorcoran.com
T: 310 586-6886
F: 310 586-6887
Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery
2902 Nebraska Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
www.kaynegriffincorcoran.com
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm
Above: Ken Price, Weatern, 1989, Acrylic on fired ceramic, 7 x 12 x 15 inches
