L.A. LOUVER
7 June - 9 September 2023
The Flower Show: Materiality
Featuring 55 artists, The Flower Show presents over 90 artworks of widely diverse materials, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, installation, video, and interactive digital technology. The works demonstrate the endless variety of process, approach, and interpretation, and allow a multiplicity of meanings to emerge through the common motif of the flower.
In this viewing room we highlight eleven artists from the exhibition whose material choices are integral to the meaning of their work.
Tony Berlant
Tony Berlant
Transfixed, 2005
found and fabricated printed tin collaged on plywood with steel brads
18 1/2 x 15 3/4 in. (47 x 40 cm)
signed verso
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Tony Berlant’s work opens a dialogue between subject and materiality. The poignance of this meditation is deeply felt in his depictions of flowers fashioned from tin and steel brads that capture the paradox implicit of the flower – fragility and strength existing simultaneously in a single entity. Berlant describes the flower as “tantric icons of the energy of the universe,” underlining the idea that this subject holds within it opposing yet complimentary forces.
From left to right:
Tony Berlant
Turn Around #55, 2005
found and fabricated printed tin collaged on plywood with steel brads
13 x 12 in. (33 x 30.5 cm)
signed verso
Sold
As It Is, 2008
found and fabricated printed tin collaged on plywood with steel brads
11 x 9 in. (27.9 x 22.9 cm)
signed verso
Sold
Yes, Yes, Yes, 2005
found and fabricated printed tin collaged on plywood with steel brads
18 x 16 in. (45.7 x 40.6 cm)
signed verso
Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Rescue, 2014
mixed media including ceramic birds, metal flowers, ceramic Basset Hound, and vintage settee
70 x 50 x 40 in. (177.8 x 127 x 101.6 cm)
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The sculptures in Nick Cave’s Rescue series (2013-2014) consist of discarded flea-market objects: ceramic dogs and birds, strings of beads, metal flora, crystals, and other kitschy accoutrements. The dogs are placed on their found-object thrones underneath a protective bower festooned with flowers.
This enthronement of the dog is a symbolic reversal of subject and object as canines have been used throughout the Western canon of art history as aristocratic accessories. Another layer of critique is presented through the elevation of the “dawg,” a prevalent signifier of respect and brotherhood. Cave’s invocation of both the historical and contemporary connotations embedded within dog symbolism poses challenging questions concerning the forging of power through symbolism, cultural knowledge, and ornamentation.
Nick Cave
Rescue, 2014 (detail)
Installation of The Flower Show at L.A. Louver.
Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer, 2023.
Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly
Cherry Blossom Seaform Set with Black Lip Wraps, 1998
blown glass
11 x 29 x 32 in. (27.9 x 73.7 x 81.3 cm)
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Dale Chihuly is renowned worldwide for his mastery of blown glass. The works in The Flower Show highlight skill and elegance in two different forms. The multipart, exuberant Cherry Blossom Seaform Set with Black Lip Wraps (1998) was created as part of Chihuly’s Persians series, a poetic and experimental undertaking which has become a signature element in his oeuvre.
In the more reductive Silvered Venetian with Gilded Sienna Leaves (1993) golden flecks appear resplendent within the glass that comprises the body of the vessel and its curling leaved adornment.
Dale Chihuly
Silvered Venetian with Gilded Sienna Leaves, 1993
blown glass
18 x 10 x 10 in. (45.7 x 25.4 x 25.4 cm)
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Petah Coyne
Petah Coyne
Untitled #1556 (Sylvia Plath), 2023
specially-formulated wax, silk flowers, pigment, tassels, silk/rayon velvet, pearl-headed hat pins, thread, foam, and glass vitrine
12 x 12 x 12 in. (30.5 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm)
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Petah Coyne’s work plays on duality to communicate complex experiences and ways of being. Untitled #1556 (Sylvia Plath) (2023) consists of silk flowers coated in specially formulated wax placed on a cushion of velvet beneath a glass vitrine. The tension held between ephemerality and preservation in this work expresses a desire to give form to and memorialize the unique pressures, expectations, and impossibilities of womanhood.
Rachel Lachowicz
Rachel Lachowicz
Gerberas (Orange), 2017
pressed eyeshadow on aluminum
24 x 24 in. (61 x 61cm)
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In Rachel Lachowicz’s artworks the medium is key to the message. The two bright, sunset-colored flowers of Gerberas (Orange) (2017) are presented in Warholian fashion but differentiated from the pop artist by their materiality. Lachowicz has created her composition from pans of eyeshadow which brings new dimensions of feminist critique to the flower as decoration, questioning the hierarchy of artistic medium, the contemporary and historic beauty industry, and the gendered understandings of appropriation as an artistic technique.
Birdie Lusch
Birdie Lusch (1903-1988)
Untitled, 1977
collage and marker on found paper
paper: 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (36.8 x 26.7 cm)
framed: 16 1/8 x 12 1/8 in. (41 x 30.8 cm)
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Biridie Lusch (1903-1988)
Untitled, 1977
collage and marker on found paper
paper: 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (36.8 x 26.7 cm)
framed: 16 1/8 x 12 1/8 in. (41 x 30.8 cm)
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Self-taught artist Bertha “Birdie” Lusch (1903-1988) devoted herself to the subject in the mid 1970s, making minimal opaque collages with a focus on flatness and volume. Using Hallmark sales catalogues as her canvas and collaged fragments of the Columbus Dispatch, these works present questions of the artist’s intention – were these simply materials most easily accessible or were they chosen to depict a specific experience through literal representation?
Thom Mayne
Thom Mayne
XCD_20230509_110847_310, 2023
UV ink on aluminum
48 x 48 in. (121.9 x 121.9 cm)
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Thom Mayne has created drawings utilizing computer algorithm, guided by the principles of willfulness and chance. Consisting of a series of geometries augmented by variables that rotate or stack, direct opacity metrics, and determine which forms might be added or subtracted, each work represents an interconnected network in which one shift can randomly produce new and unanticipated results.
These works are physically manifested through an advanced printing technique in which multiple layers of UV ink are deposited onto a metal surface and build upon one another. The UV inks accomplish remarkably fine line work, the resulting effect is at once visually digital and texturally sculptural.
Installation of The Flower Show at L.A. Louver.
Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer, 2023.
Zemer Peled
Zemer Peled
In Bloom, 2019
cobalt blue china paint on porcelain plates
each plate: 12 3/8 x 12 3/8 in. (31.4 x 31.4 cm)
signed and dated verso
each plate sold separately
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Two bodies of work by Zemer Peled are represented in The Flower Show, approaching porcelain in unexpected ways. The plates in the In Bloom series were manufactured at Bernardaud in Limoges, France, hand-painted by Peled during the artist's residency. Wielding deep and luscious cobalt, Peled created hypnotic floral compositions that lie perfectly against the soft porcelain surface and within the circular confines of the plates.
In contrast, Peled’s Hold Me series presents a unique three-dimensional flower form made of multicolored shards inserted into a perfectly curved base. Although made entirely of porcelain, the sculptures mimic the behavior of fabrics and plastics and tempt a forbidden tactile encounter with the work.
Zemer Peled
Hold Me Collection Works, 2020
porcelain
each sculpture: 5 x 7 x 7 in. (12.7 x 17.8 x 17.8 cm)
each sculpture sold separately
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Alison Saar
Alison Saar
Black Eyed Susan, 2023
acrylic and charcoal on found seed sack and fabric
76 x 22 in. (193 x 55.9 cm)
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Alison Saar chooses materials not only for their visual appeal but also for the meanings and histories they embody. In Black Eyed Susan (2023), Saar has sewn together seed sacks with a denim border, physically attaching the figure - a representation of resilience - to strong materials used for protection and durability in harsh environments. The figure appears regal in her pregnancy as black eyed susan’s sprout from the ends of her hair, adorning her as metaphor and crown.
Alison Saar
Black Eyed Susan, 2023 (details)
Don Suggs
Don Suggs (1945 - 2019)
Fleurs du Mall #9, 2007
plastic objects and acrylic paint
16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
signed, dated, and titled verso
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A play on Baudelaire’s concept of les fleurs du mal, Don Suggs (1945 - 2019) created a series of fleurs du mall – flowers made of found plastic mall objects that lengthen three dimensionally from the wall - literal representations of monstrous flowers that speak to the disturbances of consumer culture relative to the wellbeing of the environment. This stacked protrusion extends into the gallery space and features a small painted tondo at the stamen’s point.
Don Suggs
Fleurs du Mall #9, 2007 (detail)
Faith Wilding
Faith Wilding
Leaf Ark, 2020
watercolor and ink on papyrus
38 x 25 in. (96.5 x 63.5 cm)
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Faith Wilding
Passionflower, 2019
watercolor, gold leaf, ink, and collage on papyrus
54 x 27 in. (137.2 x 68.6 cm)
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Faith Wilding’s paintings embody the artist’s concept of becoming, a spirited, perpetual rebirth allowing for multiple transformations to unfurl through the scroll-like form and emergent composition. The use of papyrus in Wilding’s work wields double meaning in its allusion to the deterioration of the natural world in her lifetime, particularly in South America and her native Paraguay, while also being an exuberant example of human creation and organic material coexisting.
Installation of The Flower Show at L.A. Louver.
Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer, 2023.