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Indepth Arts News:
"Sex in Deep Space: The Art of Dianna Cohen, Jason Eoff, Barrie Goshko, David Allan Peters, Michael Salerno"
2003-08-08 until 2003-08-30
City Gallery
West Hollywood, CA,
USA United States of America
Even with the over-saturation of sexual imagery in commercial culture, in
the hands of artists it can serve as an entry point to tremendous depths of
feeling and perception. That feeling of being utterly transported by a work
of art unites the pieces of five disparate artists in a special exhibition,
Sex in Deep Space, at City Gallery in West Hollywood. Mounted by Marc
Arranaga and Chip Tom, two of L.A.s most innovative independent curators,
Sex in Deep Space features the art of Dianna Cohen, Jason Eoff, Barrie
Goshko, David Allan Peters, and Michael Salerno.
Dianna Cohens medium, the plastic shopping bag, may seem to be the farthest
thing from a sensual magic carpet. In her hands, they become playfully
asymmetrical and joyously multicolored constructions, offering tactile
temptation as they lay flat against or spill off the wall in voluptuous
folds. Still embodying the abstract principles that drive a consumer
economy, Cohens ostensibly trashy materials take on undreamed-of seductive
qualities.
Jason Eoff plays with resins to create pieces with glossy, candy-like
surfaces replete with stars and asteroids. His paintings, with their
lickable glazes, simultaneously connote the interrelated, transporting
pleasures of the palate and the pudenda.
Combining traditional media with digital technology, Barrie Goshko
manipulates small pieces of the natural world to expose the intricacies and
oddities of the everyday. Ordinary flowers resemble alien fauna; and for all
of her scientific examination, Goshkos lush imagery, often with bright
blood-red backgrounds, evokes the surge and pulse of sex and reproduction in
nature.
The paintings of David Allen Peters represent excavations into a brilliantly
sensual geology. He applies layer upon layer of paint, finishing off with a
slick, high-gloss black surface. He then chisels into the black surface to
expose riotous colors, suggesting our fascination with diving into space and
the need to discover and connect with new forms of life.
Michael Salernos simple lines strive for an authentic experience free from
any concern other than self-exploration. Automatic and repetitive linear
gestures build overall compositions of atmospheric color fields, each
generating a building tension for the eye, leading the viewer to distant
landscapes, situations and locales of the imagination.
Art historian Marc Arranaga became the curator of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian
Centers Advocate Gallery in 1999. Under his leadership, the Gallery has
undertaken collaborative work with community organizations to explore a wide
array of histories, cultures, and worldviews. In 2002, he created an
academic lecture series aimed at providing first-hand opportunities to
engage with emerging scholarship in the fields of art history and cultural
studies. An independent curator, he now serves as the Gallerys Curator in
Residence.
Chip Tom is an independent curator with 20 years experience in the
contemporary art field. He has curated exhibitions at the Centre Dart
Contemporain in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as at numerous museums and
galleries in the United States.
IMAGE
Jason Eoff
The Kraken of the Seas (detail)
Oil on resin on panel
2002
20 x 96 inches
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