R2R0: anacardiumphiliathe exhibition catalog

R2R0: anacardiumphiliathe exhibition catalog

©2012 Larry Gassan, all rights reserved.

Other books by Larry Gassan:LA1980: A Photo Memoir (2009)LA:2012 (2012)

For more information contact:Larry@LarryGassan.comhttp://LarryGassan.com

introduction

introduction

Introduction

KDM Gallery curates a selection of recent installations and constructions by the trangressive and prolific composer-artist-commentator R2R0.

R2R0’s new 16-work installation, Anacardiumphilia, comprises a comprehensive summary of this seminal artist’s piercing vision.

R2R0 makes incisive, metaphysical, commentary-driven installation art in near-total darkness; moving from critiquing fashion and society à la Audubon to take on the towering populist anti-hero that is Lady Gaga; a tragic figure whom the artist sees as a spurned lover whose grief turns to ironic rage.

Fitness, fashion, politics, culture, and its mores are dissected by R2R0, known for his detailed, rather disturbing sculpturally narrative installations.

While R2R0’s exhibition supplies plenty of rarely seen pieces to admire—such as his square theatrical backdrop POLO (2011)—you’ll still find his most famous works among the loot. Be spellbound by the harsh brilliance of Interior III or the monumental chaos of House Beautiful IX. Beauty is hauntingly limned in Dior, while the catastrophic upheavals of the world economy are rendered with haiku elegance in Economist II: This Week.

R2R0 is solely represented by KDM Galleries of West Hollywood, CA and Westport, CT.

I.

The produce bins at the Silverlake Farmers Market seem an unlikely place to find modern art, much less avant-garde artists. But, as morning light tracks softly across the stalls, the installation artist known as R2RO engages all his powers of attention on the early season offerings from Ha’s Apple Farm. These organic apples from the mountains outside of Tehachapi are his favorite and his enthusiasm is obvious.

Having selected a sack of the Ha’s crispest Fujis, R2R0 joins me to discuss his recent opening at nearby KDM Gallery.1 Between apple bites R2R0 answers my prepared questions with short, exclamatory bursts – all the while keeping a weather eye on a steady current of the market’s more attractive female shoppers, dressed to take advantage of unseasonably warm weather. In this setting, the artist, whom those close to him consistently describe as “fiercely curious” and “tremendously disciplined,” is evidently at ease; the morning’s bright sun a tacit counterpoint to the studio where he works, which those same associates describe as dark and “cave-like.”2

Confounding as R2R0’s art often seems to be, it could as easily be his critics who are cloistered in proverbial dark closets.

II.

Open recent issues of Coagula, Artillery, or Art in America to the reviews of

R2R0’s anacardiumphilia exhibition and you are bound to come across a statement such as the following:

“The enigma of the artist’s images is considerable, and it is easy to be, or to pretend to be, baffled.”3

Of course, the source of this confusion is at once two-fold and obvious: First, insofar as artists conventionally work within shared traditions of problems and solutions, art (and artists) that depart from those conventions pose interpretive conundrums.4 Second, “criticality” has become the smokescreen for art’s absorption into capital. Thus, not a few commentators – and, indeed, some of the artist’s peers (if the term might be employed somewhat slackly) – have essayed on the linkages between criticality and materiality in R2R0’s most recent work. The resulting discourse generates more heat than light, but in the interests of impartiality, deserves consideration.

In this seemingly neo-classical view, the medium is the message, as it were. The Contentian ethic is to apprehend R2R0’s materiality and surmise criticality. Of course, it is descriptively correct that (B)odywork (see page 19) depicts an otherwise robust runner whose entire right leg has been removed; but the semiotic leap is to see in this a critique of hegemonic Western European body culture.5 Again, it is possible to view Economist II: This Week (see page 33) as a damning appraisal of contemporary political culture, and in particular of the “dialogical processes that underpin both the private and public economy.”6 But does this do the work justice?

Other critics seek interpretive traction by noting the individual works’ stark white backgrounds. The (dark)figure/(white)ground relation is perhaps most strikingly apparent in Dior (page 27) though it is evident in all. In this view, the artist’s resolute use of pale background is construed as transgressive commentary on “a politically and artistically homogenized past.”7

R2R0: anacardiumphiliaForeward by Dr. Wim B.H.J. van der Bönncke

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III.

Perception at the fringe is dynamically meaningful.

—William James8

Each of the previously considered perspectives dances elliptically around a

pressing question posed by R2R0’s oeuvre: Do we recognize the difference between representation and presence? Representation (literally, that which re-presents) is a second-order phenomenon, whereas presence is of the first order (von der ersten Ordnung). To paraphrase Huggs’ canonical analogy: If you have a drawing of an ice-cream sandwich and I have an actual ice-cream sandwich, you’ll be hungry and I’ll be happy.9 No matter how veridical its appearance, the image is not the thing itself.

Interpretations of R2R0’s art focused on its content miss this distinction. Instead of the medium, we must look to the artist’s mode. R2R0’s exacting method employs what we may call “large particulate deconstruction.”10 Focusing on technical method allows us to appreciate familial resemblances with other artists and their work.11 To take a single exemplar: In both past and current projects, the Swedish-American artist Sasha Black employs techniques akin to R2RO’s. Both her Tucson installation Sad All Day I-IX (2008- 2010) and the ongoing works (Grassman, I- and Stol av Skräck) employ slashing, rending, and laceration to dramatic effect in a variety of media (e.g., tissue, bone, and dust in the Sad sequence; jute on wooden frame in Stol av Skräck). Much like R2R0, she too declines to comment on, or interpret, her own works.12

Recognizing similarities in technique yields further insight. With regard to R2R0’s work, such comparison leads us to see that it is the unity of technique, rather than the works’ protean content, that defines anacardiumphilia. His periodical de-construction is, finally, a way of discovering what else the materials have to offer.13 Whether the photographic representations collected here succeed in conveying the creative impulse behind, and the intense physicality of, R2R0’s works is a question that goes beyond this essay’s scope. As an artist, R2R0 is indifferent to the comforts of his audience or the needs of his interpreters. Say what you will about his art, it is irrefutably badass.

Dr. Wim B.H.J. van de Bönncke holds the F. van der Waal Chair of Kunst und Taalwetenslap at Universiteit van Nadorp. He is grateful to his colleague Dr. Sevende Sándia at the University of Tropides for helpful comments and encouragement in the preparation of this text.

Notes

1 Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations attributed to R2RO derive from personal communication with the artist, spanning September-November, 2011, Los Angeles.

2 On R2R0’s cave qua studio, one critic has noted: “The use of light, either natural or manmade, is not used, hence the studio is very dark” (Edvard Sandybanks, Frogmorton Gallery, Art in America, Fall 2011).

3 Dr. Johann Zuschuss, “Criticality of anacardiumphilia: Notes Toward a Dialectically Cleanest Line,” Artforum December 2011.

4 See, inter alia, Howard Becker, Art Worlds (University of California, 1984) and George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (Yale University, 1962).

5 See, e.g., Dr. Pamela Dingo, “R2RO and the Male Gaze,” Women & Performance, vol. 20, n. 3 (2011). The author is indebted to Bucky Kibble III (legal counsel, Academy of Lagado) for identifying the runner as Dean Karnazes.

6 Zuschuss, “Toward a Dialectically Cleanest Line,” Op. cit.

7 Dingo, “R2RO and the Male Gaze,” Op. cit. The history and significance of the emic/etic distinction, so essential to addressing – and, ultimately, dismissing – this perspective, must be reserved for the following section of the current introduction.

8 Quoted in Dawna Schuld, “Practically Nothing,” Phenomenal (University of California, 2011) at p. 113.

9 Dr. T.B. Huggs, Collected Papers, Vol. II (Spinner Cultural Center: Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, 1996).

10 My esteemed colleague, Sevende Sándia, coined this felicitous description. Cf. RSF Ferrnandes (forthcoming) vide infra, note 13.

11 On family resemblances, see Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Trans. by GEM Anscombe, PMS Hacker and Joaquim “Alte” Schule (Blackwell 2009[1953]).

12 There is no evidence that Black and R2RO have met, much less discussed their work. Indeed, even casual consideration of each artist’s biography and commitments must lead us to conclude that it is probably for the best that no such meeting has taken place.

13 On “periodical de-construction,” see RSF Ferrnandes, “Shrub Rosa Chronologies of the Repetto Hills and Heels,” Annals of Botany, forthcoming.

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the plates

the plates

INT

Catalog No: 111010_4542_01

Dimensions: 228.6 x 304.8 mm

13

House Beautiful

Catalog No: 111010_4542_09

Dimensions: 215.9 x 279.4 mm

15

To one–from wrap

Catalog No: 111010_4541_07

Dimensions: 190.5 x 279.4 m

17

(V)anity Fair Style Issue (La)dy (Ga)ga

Catalog No: 111010_4541_07

Dimensions: 178 x 300 mm

19

(B)odywork

Catalog No: 111010_4543_08

Dimensions: 152 x 228.6 mm

21

Outside

Catalog No: 111010_4543_03

Dimensions: 127 x 229 mm

23

Liz Hatch

Catalog No: 111010_4543_05

Dimensions: 115 x 214 mm

25

Fear

Catalog No: 111010_4541_09

Dimensions: 180 x 305 mm

27

Dior

Catalog No: 111010_4543_03

Dimensions: 225 x 327 mm

29

Polo

Catalog No: 111010_4541_06

Dimensions: 228.6 x 330 mm

31

After Ira

Catalog No: 111010_4543_06

Dimensions: 199 x 301 mm

33

Economist II: This Week

Catalog No: 111010_4541_03

Dimensions: 202 x 305 mm

35

Cher

Catalog No: 111010_4543_02

Dimensions: 227 x 305 mm

37

Deficit

Catalog No: 111010_4543_11

Dimensions: 202 x 279 mm

39

Running Man Installation, Santa Monica, CA

Catalog No: 040807_5615_27

Dimensions: 6096 x 3048 x 2438.4 mm

41

The Artist, In His Own Rite: West Hollywood, CA

Catalog No: 111010_4542_12

Dimensions: 609.6 x 431.8 mm

111010_4542_12.tif

43

List of Plates

Page Plate Name Catalog Number Original Dimensions (in mm)

11 INT 111010_4542_01 228.6 x 304.8

13 House Beautiful 111010_4542_09 215.9 x 279.4

15 To one–from wrap 111010_4541_07 190.5 x 279.4

17 (V)anity Fair Style Issue (La)dy (Ga)ga 111010_4541_07 178 x 300

19 (B)odywork 111010_4543_08 152 x 228.6

21 Outside 111010_4543_03 127 x 229

23 Liz Hatch 111010_4543_05 115 x 214

25 Fear 111010_4541_09 180 x 305

27 Dior 111010_4543_03 225 x 327

29 Polo 111010_4541_06 228.6 x 330

31 After Ira 111010_4543_06 199 x 300

33 Economist II: This Week 111010_4541_03 202 x 305

35 Cher 111010_4543_02 227 x 305

37 Deficit 111010_4543_11 202 x 279

39 Running Man Installation, Santa Monica, CA 040807_5615_27 6096 x 3048 x 2438.4

40 The Artist, In His Own Rite: West Hollywood, CA 111010_4542_12 609.6 x 431.8

Design

Catalog designed by Larry Gassan. All photography by Larry Gassan.All works staged and styled by KDM Gallery, under the direct supervision of R2R0.

Technical Notes

R2R0’s works were photographed and documented in-situ at KDM Gallery using the following tools:

ɶ Hasselblad 500CM camera with Planar f-2.8 80mm lens

ɶ Kodak 160 Portra film

ɶ Tungsten-balanced flash for optimal archival rendering

ɶ Nikon LS9000 scanner for film scanning & archival conversion

Patrons and Sponsors

Exhibition and technical support was made possible by the generosity of the following individuals and organizations:

ɶ Bibi Miller Foundation

ɶ Sasha Black

ɶ Th. Malpissant

ɶ A.L. Röth, Ph.D.

ɶ Dr. Sevede Sándia

ɶ The Oehler Endowment

Purchasing Art

All items in this catalog are for sale as 30x40” Epson inkjet prints.

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“The enigma of theartist’s images is

considerable, andit is easy to be, or

to pretend to be,baffled.”