Gene Beery, I Get It! I Don’t Get It?, 2010s, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Opening reception Saturday, December 16 6-9pm
In memory of Gene Beery (October 13, 1937 – November 19, 2023)
Presented in tandem with a solo exhibition by Lex Brown, featuring her film, Communication (2021).
In Zoe Barcza’s sharply illuminated painting, A Big Surprise (2023), a young woman with a twisted expression calls out via a comic strip bubble, “I GET SICK AND TIRED OF THE SAME OLD BOGUS I WANT A BIG SURPRISE!” At second glance the image seems to be projected over a closeup view of female genitalia. Alluding to historical provocations by Gustave Courbet and Roy Lichtenstein, Barcza participates in painting’s tradition of examining the elusive feminine ideal. At the same time, the work appeals for something different, something exciting.
Tell Me What You Want brings together 17 artists who wish for a little bit more from the art system and capitalist society. They might be playing with what theorist Chantal Mouffe describes as an agonistic model of subverting the dominant hegemony by visualizing that which is repressed. But it’s more like they are seriously joking, using humor to call out and question activities in the gallery space and beyond. Responding to present conditions but also commenting on previous ones, they examine historical frameworks to make more room. As critic Peter Schjeldahl points out: “The tighter the space in which you can swing your arms, the more precious is your liberty to do so.” These artists, aware of the relations that make art possible, via a highly mediated path create works that challenge the status quo by announcing their dreams.
In 1971 John Baldessari famously declared “I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art.” He instructed students at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design to scrawl the sentence repeatedly, “like punishment.” Poking fun at an educational system which prompted young artists to imitate rather than experiment, Baldessari deployed a wry wit to keep his students off-kilter. He urged them to embrace failure, or at least to not fear it. In a late print from a 2015 series entitled Engravings and Sounds, an enlarged image of a detail from a 15th century engraving depicts the splayed hand of a man in mid-air, captioned by the word, “ARG.” The figure, falling, appears to have been ejected from heaven.
Other artists in the exhibition also use text to boldly take aim at the etiquette of the art system. Gene Beery, Martine Syms and Alexis Smith write large to express how prevailing tastes and trends often keep others out, while Dan Mitchell’s posters use words and graphic imagery to expose the art world’s secrets and scandals. Amanda Ross-Ho plays with concepts of high and low art by recreating a T-shirt made by her father, an artist and a first-generation immigrant from Shanghai to Chicago, at a monumental scale. The garment features an idiosyncratic design rendered in Sharpie, as well as the words, “LESS IS NOT MORE,” parodying the dictum popularized by modernist architect Mies van der Rohe.
Some works are more demure, seeking space for the artist to experiment without being pinned down: Julia Yerger’s collaged work on paper using pieces of comic strips resists both a narrative and a punchline. Calvin Marcus’ paintings and sculptures articulate forms like blades of grass and red bricks, masterfully and devotionally. The effect is grounding, though the viewer is blocked from an easy read of the artist’s motive.
Chadwick Rantanen, Benjamin Reiss, and Ed Ruscha address the creative process and hint at the limits of what art can aspire to. Benjamin Reiss’ diagrammatic sculpture, Metronome (mom’s) (2021), ponders why the rhythm making machine has historically taken on the shape of an obelisk, pointing upward. By using crushed eggshells and food packaging as building materials, Reiss constructs tension between the need to constantly nourish one’s body and higher hopes. Chadwick Rantanen’s Press Fit (Staircase) (2023) series pieces together laser-cut plywood models of stairways, implying circuitous routes of ascension and descension, whereas Ed Ruscha’s YES (1984), appearing in faint letters on an orange sky, evokes the slow process of coming to an affirmative decision.
Looking outward, artists of different generations critique oppressive institutions that hold us in their thrall, preventing us from making our own choices, and formulating for us what we want. Isabelle Francis McGuire’s sculpture, Paranoia Sublime in the Wild Wild West (2023), and Alexis Smith’s framed collages relating to the Iraq War (2003) both use children’s toys to show American citizens roped into what they least support. Three paintings from Ben Sakoguchi’s ongoing Orange Crate Label series reveal historic links between Christianity and capitalism in marketed visions of heaven.
Lastly, several artists address how we communicate with each other, and wonder how art might bring us together. Joseph Grigely’s Conversations with Ellen (2018) displays notes exchanged with artist Ellen Cantor over a number of years, in their studios or at a happy hour. Grigely, who is deaf, has been archiving his everyday conversations with friends, scrawled across pieces of paper. Grigely comments, “I met Ellen C. a couple of years ago, and one of the things that I really liked about her is her uninhibited way with words. . . . A lot of people aren’t afraid to speak their mind, but to write your mind takes a different kind of effort.” Ellen Cantor’s 1996 video, Within Heaven and Hell (1996), cuts between scenes from The Sound of Music and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and examines how a language of desire exemplified by the iconic Hollywood musical also provides the script for violence against women and war.
EJ Hill writes a message in sizzling pink neon: “Consume with reckless abandon, this unholy communion.” The work entitled Kiss was made during pandemic isolation in 2020, when casual human touch was forbidden, and when George Floyd died with his neck under the knee of a police officer. It was a fearful time, to say the least. In his ongoing investigations, Hill uses the color pink to contemplate vulnerability and to explore how bodies/subjectivities are formed and valued within different social and cultural contexts. Furthermore, Hill is interested in how we may redefine the parameters that govern our freedoms. With Kiss, Hill signals his dream: to live courageously and unapologetically in survival and love.
Amanda Ross-Ho
LESS IS NOT MORE, 2013-2022
cotton jersey and rib, thread, acrylic paint
75 x 51 in (190.5 x 129.5 cm)
John Baldessari
Engravings with Sounds: Arg, 2015
archival inkjet print
44 x 59 1/4 in (111.8 x 150.5 cm)
Calvin Marcus
Untitled, 2023
oil on emulsified, gessoed linen/cotton blend
16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Gene Beery
I Get It! I Don’t Get It?, 2000s
acrylic and graphite on canvas
16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Benjamin Reiss
Metronome (mom’s), 2021
Plaster, acrylic, wood, cardboard, eggshells, urethane, epoxy, pva, aluminum, steel, paint, rubber, foam, cotton, colored pencils, pencil shavings, dirt, ash, zipper, glow bracelet
66 x 9 x 11 in (167.6 x 22.9 x 27.9 cm)
Isabelle Frances McGuire
Paranoia Sublime in the Wild Wild West, 2023
PLA plastic, porcelain doll, twine
33 x 10 x 8 in (83.82 x 25.4 x 20.32 cm)
Ben Sakoguchi
Heavenly Home Brand, 1995
acrylic on canvas, pine frame
10 x 11 in (25.4 x 27.9 cm)
Ben Sakoguchi
Sister Aimee Brand, 1995
acrylic on canvas, pine frame
10 x 11 in (25.4 x 27.9 cm)
Ben Sakoguchi
Hereafter Brand, 1995
acrylic on canvas, pine frame
10 x 11 in (25.4 x 27.9 cm)
Joseph Grigely
Conversations with Ellen, 2018
digital pigment print on Epson Hot Press Natural paper in two parts
15 3/4 x 22 1/2 inches (40 x 57.2 cm)
Ellen Cantor
Within Heaven and Hell, 1996
video
15:52 min
Ed Ruscha
Yes, 1984
lithograph on Rives BFK paper
22 1/2 x 30 in (57.2 x 76.2 cm)
EJ Hill
Kiss, 2020
neon
9h x 96w in (22.86 x 243.84 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Frieze, 2017
c-type print
23 3/8 x 23 3/8 in (59.4 × 59.4 cm)
Dan Mitchell
New Dead City, 2016
c-type print
46 3/4 x 33 1/8 in (118.9 x 84.1 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Larry, 2017
c-type print
46 3/4 x 33 1/8 in (118.9 x 84.1 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Revenge Gossip Orgasm, 2020
c-type print
23 3/8 x 33 1/8 in (59.4 x 84.1 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Studio Visit No Thanks!, 2023
c-type print
33 1/4 x 23 in (84. 5 x 58.4 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Ennui, 2021
c-type print
46 3/4 x 33 1/8 in (118.9 x 84.1 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Everyone, 2014
c-type print
33 1/8 x 23 3/8 (84.1 x 59.4 cm)
Dan Mitchell
Eat Sleep Wank, 2020
c-type print
23 3/8 x 23 3/8 in (59.4 x 59.4 cm)
Alexis Smith
Satisfaction, 2000
mixed media collage
30 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 6 in (77.5 x 113 x 15.3 cm)
Joseph Grigely
Untitled Conversation (Ellen in London), 2005
ink on paper
12 x 9 in (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
Gene Beery
Not Enough Style, 2000s
acrylic and graphite on canvas
20 x 16 in (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Martine Syms
Painter Head Ass, 2021
acrylic wall painting
58 × 40 in (147.3 x 101.6 cm)
Chadwick Rantanen
Press Fit (Staircase), 2023
laser cut plywood
2 x 9 x 3 in (5.1 x 22.9 x 7.6 cm)
Chadwick Rantanen
Press Fit (Stairway), 2023
laser cut plywood
3 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 4 in (8.9 x 26.7 x 10.2 cm)
Julia Yerger
Exam Lobby, 2023
various found paper, glassine, and matte medium in maple frame
27 3/4 x 22 in (70.6 x 55.9 cm)
Zoe Barcza
A Big Surprise, 2023
acrylic on canvas
51 x 63 in (129.5 x 160 cm)
Alexis Smith
Strong Arm, 2003
mixed media collage
19 x 22 in (48.3 x 55.9 cm)
Alexis Smith
Survivor, 2003
mixed media collage
21 x 21 in (53.3 x 53.3 cm)
Alexis Smith
Salvation Army, 2003
mixed media collage
18 1/2 x 21 in (47 x 53.3 cm)
Benjamin Reiss
Magic Drinking Bird (Again) II (Showtime), 2020 eggshells, feather, MDF, glue, paint
18 1/4 x 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 in (46.4 x 14 x 11.2 cm)
Calvin Marcus
Untitled, 2015
cel-vinyl on fired clay
8 x 10 x 5 in (20.3 x 25.4 x 12.7 cm)
Isabelle Frances McGuire
2024, 2023
PLA plastic, silver leaf, paint, ribbon
13 x 3 3/8 x 4 in (33 x 8.6 x 10.2 cm)
ARTIST BIOS
John Baldessari (b. 1931, National City, CA – d. 2020, Venice, CA) was born in National City, California, and worked in Venice, California. His extensive career comprised 200+ solo exhibitions and participation in 900+ group exhibitions across the U.S. and Europe, showcasing diverse projects such as artist books, videos, films, billboards, and public works. Baldessari received multiple awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (1986) and held honorary degrees. An influential educator, he taught at the California Institute of the Arts and later at the University of California, Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2020); Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach (2019); Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2017); Städel Museum, Frankfurt (2015); Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2013); Fondazione Prada, Milan (2010); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2011); and Tate Modern, London (2009), which traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona (2010); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2010); and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2010–2011). Select group exhibitions include the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) at which he was honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Whitney Biennial (1983); Documenta VII (1982); Documenta V (1972) and the Carnegie International (1985–86). Baldessari’s work is in the collections of institutions including Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Tate, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Denver Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Zoe Barcza (b. 1984, Toronto, Canada) lives and works in Los Angeles and Stockholm. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Clearing, Los Angeles (2023, with Liz Craft); Darren Flook, London (2022); Issues, Stockholm (2021); Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen (2021); Bodega (Derosia), New York (2020); Croy Nielsen, Vienna (2018); Bonny Poon, Paris (2018); and Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen (2018). Select group exhibitions include Group Exhibition, M. LeBlanc, Chicago (2023); Selficide Squad, Galerie Schmid, Chicago (2021); Minor Rationalism, Baader-Meinhof, Omaha (2021, curated by Eric Schmid); Zoe Gaia Blodsukker Sex Magi Kneipe, Haus der Kunst, Oslo (2020); Solna Centrum, The Loon, Toronto (2019); Digital Gothic, Centre d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme, Delme, France (2019); I Am Our Common Pronoun, SALTS, Basel (2017); and Donaufestival, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2017). She will open her second solo exhibition with Derosia in May of 2024.
Gene Beery (b. 1937, Racine, WI – d. 2023, Sutter Creek, CA) lived and worked in Sutter Creek, California. Beery moved to New York from Wisconsin in 1958, where he worked as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art, joining a network of artists and writers including Dan Flavin, Robert Ryman, Lucy Lippard, and Sol LeWitt. Beery’s early career highlights include Recent Painting U.S.A.: The Figure, a 1968 group show curated by Alfred H. Barr Jr. at MoMA and a subsequent 1963 solo show at Alexander Iolas Gallery, secured upon recommendation from Max Ernst. Recent exhibitions include the artist’s first solo institutional presentation at Fri Art Kunsthalle, Fribourg, Switzerland (2019); and solo gallery shows at Parker Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); Bodega, New York (2020); Cushion Works, San Francisco (2019); Shoot The Lobster, Los Angeles (2017); and Jan Kaps, Cologne (2016). Recent groups exhibitions include Rules & Repetition, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT (2023); The Drawing Centre Show, Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2022); Stop Painting, Fondazione Prada, Venice, Italy (2021, organized by Peter Fischli); and Drawing Dialogues, The Drawing Center, New York (2016). Beery’s work is in the permanent collections of Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA; Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT.
Ellen Cantor (b. 1961, Detroit, MI – d. 2013, New York, NY) Born in Detroit, Ellen Cantor lived and worked in London and New York. Cantor has exhibited internationally with solo exhibitions at institutions including Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2015); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2015); Gallerie Arnaud Deschin, Marseilles (2011); Participant Inc, New York (2008); and White Cube, London (2008). Cantor’s work has been exhibited in group exhibitions including Over You, 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2015); Looking Back: The Eighth White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York (2014); Your Tongue in My Mouth, Stanley Picker Gallery, UK (2014); K Acker: Ruling ‘N’ Freakin, Triangle, Marseilles (2011); Zombie Surfers, Cell Project Space, London, 2008; and Cinema Cavern, MoMA PSI, New York (2007).
Joseph Grigely (b. 1956, East Longmeadow, MA) is an artist and writer based in Chicago. He has a D.Phil. from Oxford University and is Professor of Visual & Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Grigely has been featured in solo exhibitions at Nogueras Blanchard, Madrid (2018); Air de Paris, Paris (2012, 2005, 2002); Tang Teaching Museum & Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (2008); and Whitney Museum of American Art (2001). Recent group exhibitions include That Which is Not Drawn, Marian Goodman Gallery, London (2019); Take Me (I’m Yours), Villa Médicis, Rome (2018); Beautiful world, where are you?, Liverpool Biennial 2018, Liverpool (2018); and Please Come to the Show: Invitations and Event Flyers from the MoMA Library, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014). Grigely received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005. His books include Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism (1995), Conversation Pieces (1998), Blueberry Surprise (2006), Exhibition Prosthetics (2010), MacLean 705 (2015), and Oceans of Love: The Uncontainable Gregory Battcock (2016), and essays on disability theory and body criticism.
EJ Hill (b. 1985, Los Angeles, CA) is an artist born, raised, and based in South Central, Los Angeles. He received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 and a BFA from Columbia College, Chicago in 2011. Hill has had solo exhibitions at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA (2023); Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2020); and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2019, 2017, 2014). Select group exhibitions include Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2022); Prospect 5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, New Orleans, LA (2021); View From Here: Recent Acquisitions, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2021); Lost Without Your Rhythm, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2018); Made in L.A. 2018, and Future Generation Art Prize, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice (2017). Hill’s work is in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Much of what he knows, he has learned from: Estelle Thompson, Karen Thompson, Ernest Hill Jr., Margaret Nomentana, Joan Giroux, Adam Brooks and Mat Wilson (Industry of the Ordinary), Andrea Fraser, Mario Ybarra Jr., Matt Austin, Young Chung, Adam Feldmeth, Jordan Casteel, TLC, Lauryn Hill, and Augie Grahn. He is forever indebted to these educators and thanks them endlessly.
Calvin Marcus (b. 1988, San Francisco, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Marcus has been the subject of solo exhibitions at K11 Musea, Hong Kong (2019); The Power Station, Dallas (2017); Peep-Hole, Milan (2015); and Public Fiction, Los Angeles (2014). Recent group exhibitions include New Works in the Collection – From Abramovic to Warhol, Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2021–2022); Just Connect, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2020); Whitney Biennial 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Trick Brain, Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2017); and High Anxiety: New Acquisitions, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2016), among others. His work is in the permanent collections of the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Marcus lives and works in Los Angeles.
Isabelle Frances McGuire (b. 1994, Austin, TX) lives and works in Chicago. Select solo and two-person presentations include What Pipeline, Detroit (2023, with Nolan Simon); King’s Leap, New York (2023, 2021); Scherben, Berlin (2022); Mickey, Chicago (2021); Et al., San Francisco (2020, curated by Good Weather); From The Desk of Lucy Bull, Los Angeles (2020), and Prairie, Chicago (2017). Recent group exhibitions include Descending the Staircase, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2023); Group exhibition, M. LeBlanc, Chicago (2023); Death Bearing, Hans Gallery, Chicago (2023); I feel like a bootlegger’s wife. Look!, Apparatus Projects, Chicago (2022); Banquet, In Lieu, Los Angeles (2020); and At the End of the Game You Will Be Forgotten, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York (2018).
Dan Mitchell (b. 1966, Great Britain) lives and works in London. He is a founding member of the Artist’s Self-Publishers’ Fair (ASP) and the publisher of Hard Mag – the ‘Stronger Than Reason’ specialist magazine. His recent contributions include, The Money and the Madness, Galerina, London (2023); Jenny’s Gallery presents Dan Mitchell’s Studio Visit, Provence, Zurich (2023); PARTY DE CAMPAGNE, The CAC – la synagogue de Delme, France 2021; These Days, Wembley Park Civic Centre and Library, (2020); The End, with Edith Karlson, Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2019); New Dead City, Oracle, Berlin (2016); and Alcoholism, Celine Gallery, Glasgow (2016). Mitchell has been subject of exhibitions at Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn, Estonia (2019, with Edith Karlson); Ludlow 38, New York (2017); 3236RLS, Catford, United Kingdom (2017); Oracle, Berlin, Germany (2016); and Celine, Glasgow, Scotland (2016). Group exhibitions include Theft is Vision, LUMA Foundation, Zurich (2017); Everybody Knows, Jenny’s, Los Angeles (2017); and The Library Vaccine, Artists Space, New York (2014).
Chadwick Rantanen (b. 1981, Wausau, WI) lives and works in Los Angeles. He holds an MFA from University of California, Los Angeles in 2010 and a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2003. Rantanen has been featured in solo exhibitions at Michael Benevento Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Institute Funder Bakke, Silkeborg, Denmark (2022); Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2022); Standard (Oslo), Oslo (2022); Overduin and Co., Los Angeles, (2019); Secession, Vienna (2017); Museo Pietro Canonica, Rome, Italy (2017, with Benjamin Hirte); and Clearing, Brussels (2016, with Calvin Marcus). Select group exhibitions include Cool Invitations 10 and Catch Me if You Can, XYZ Collective, Tokyo (2023, 2018); Read No Read, Tanya Bonakdar, Los Angeles (2022); Plus One, Luhring Augustine, New York (2021); Grand Ménage and M*A*S*H, Clearing Paris and Clearing Brussels (2021; 2016, with Calvin Marcus ); Tick Tock, Lehman College Art Gallery, The Bronx (2018); and 99 Cents, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2017).
Benjamin Reiss (b. 1985, Los Angeles, CA) is an artist based in Los Angeles, working primarily in sculpture. He received an MFA from University of California, Irvine in 2022 and a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. Reiss has been featured in solo and two-person exhibitions at Hunter Shaw Fine Art, Los Angeles (2023, with Michael Kennedy Costa); Harkawik, Los Angeles (2021); Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2018); and Actual Size, Los Angeles (2014, with Connor Thompson). Recent group exhibitions include Life Like, JOAN, Los Angeles (2022); No More Land West, Visitor Welcome Center, Los Angeles (2020); and Deeper Than Inside, High Art, Paris (2019).
Amanda Ross-Ho (b. 1975, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Los Angeles. She is an interdisciplinary artist and a professor of sculpture at the University of California, Irvine. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Southern California. Ross-Ho has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway (2019); Lamar Dodd Gallery, University of Georgia, Athens, GA (2017); Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, Louisville, KY (2017); Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middleburg, Netherlands (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions including 13 Women: Variation II, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA (2023); Our Selves: Photographs by Women Artists from Helen Kornblum, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022); Double Dare Ya: Burns, Kurland, and Ross-Ho, View Points Series, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2022); and Crack Up Crack Down, the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts (2019, curated by Slavs and Tatars). In 2024 she will install her first permanent public sculpture on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University, and will publish a ten year career monograph with the Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg, Netherlands. Ross-Ho’s work is in the collections of institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; the San Francisco Museum of Art; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Ed Ruscha (b. 1937, Omaha, NE) lives and works in Los Angeles. With a career spanning more than six decades, the artist’s practice spans artist’s books, drawings, films, paintings, photographs, and prints. A critical figure in the Pop Art and Conceptual Art movements, Ruscha’s work has been the subject of many museum retrospectives: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (forthcoming); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); Hayward Museum, London (2009); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2001); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2000); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1989); and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1983). Recent solo exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023), Oklahoma Contemporary, Oklahoma City (2021), Blanton Museum of Art, Austin (2020), Secession, Vienna (2019), National Gallery, London (2018), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek (2018), KODE Art Museum and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2018). Landmark group exhibitions include the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), where Ruscha represented the United States and New Painting of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum (1962), the first survey of American Pop Art in the United States. Ruscha’s work is in institutional collections including The Art Institute of Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Ben Sakoguchi (b. 1938, San Bernardino, CA) lives and works in Pasadena. He received a BA and MFA from UCLA in 1960 and 1964 respectively. He was a professor of art at Pasadena City College from 1964–1997. Recent solo exhibitions include Ortuzar Projects, New York (2023, 2020); Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris (2023); Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2021); POTTS, Alhambra, California (2018); the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles (2016); and Cardwell Jimmerson, Culver City (2012). His work has been featured in institutional surveys, including L.A. RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles, 1945–1980, Pasadena Museum of California Art (2012); The 46th Biennial Exhibition: Media/Metaphor, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2000); Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2000); and The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s, New Museum, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (1990). His work is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C., among others.
Alexis Smith (b. 1949, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Smith studied at the University of California, Irvine. Notable solo exhibitions include her extensive retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2022); Garth Greenan Gallery, New York (2015, 2019, 2020); Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles (2013); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (1997); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1975, 1991); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1986); Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles (1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2009); Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles (1978, 1980, 1982); Holly Solomon Gallery, New York (1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1983); Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles (1977); and Riko Mizuno, Los Angeles (1974). Smith’s work has appeared in group exhibitions including Los Angeles: Birth of an Art Capital, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2006); WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2007); Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2000); Sunshine & Noir: Art in L.A., 1960-1997, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark (1997); Image World: Art and Media Culture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989); Making Their Mark: Women Artists Move Into the Mainstream, 1970-1985, Cincinnati Art Museum (1989); and American Narrative: 1967-1977, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (1977). Smith’s work is featured in the collections of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Syms has earned wide recognition for an artistic practice that combines conceptual grit, humor, and social commentary. She has shown extensively including solo exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2022); Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway (2022); Saint Louis Art Museum; St. Louis, MO (2020); Secession, Vienna (2019); Art Institute of Chicago (2018); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017). Select group shows include Fuck, Michel Majerus Estate, Berlin (2023); Signals: How Video Transformed the World, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); Black American Portraits, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2021); Underexposed: Women Photographers From The Collection, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; and Manual Override, The Shed, New York (2019). She is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship in Film-Video and the recipient of the 2022 Herb Alpert Award. She is also the recipient of a Creative Capital Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, the Tiffany Foundation Prize, and the Future Fields Art Prize. She is in a band called Aunt Sister and hosts CCartalkLA, a monthly radio show on NTS. She also runs Dominica, a publishing imprint for artist books.
Julia Yerger (b. 1993, Rockville, MD) lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. Select solo exhibitions include Château Shatto, Los Angeles (forthcoming); Clearing, Brussels (2023); Paid, Seattle (2023); New Low, Los Angeles (2022); and Johannes Vogt, New York (2018). Yerger’s work has been featured in group exhibitions including At the Wolford House, Wolford House, Los Angeles (2023); An Index of Being Alive, Paul Soto, Los Angeles (2023); If it’s good for you, it’s fine for me and Speech Sounds, Harkawik, New York and Los Angeles (2021); and Group Show, Apartment 13, Providence, RI (2019). Yerger’s work has been featured in CULTURED and Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles.
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