'Fluff War' and 'Wildlife' are on view through June 15, 2019 at Anton Kern Gallery. All images courtesy the gallery. Lead image: 'Untitled (Exhibition of Dust)' David Shrigley.
Fuhr’s work, sealed air tight with nuanced intentionality, utilizes a creative process that echoes the titillating atmosphere present in the show. Beginning with the layering, whipping, and rubbing of handmade latex onto the photos, she later peels off this latex to expose the final work — according to her, evoking a type of spiritual climax. However, this intense tactility doesn’t just stagnate after the work is finished, it continues on through the viewers who are encouraged to touch the works that include sex-positive and queer icons such as Abella Danger, Mia Khalifa, and dominatrix Nila Fix.
This unique luxury of touch, an extremely rare occurrence in the gallery space, allows for the otherwise intangible voyeurism found in the celebrity worlds Fuhr is exploring to transcend into a relationship of tactility, exploring the connection between audience and the previously “untouchable” celebrity.
Considering its emphasis on the contemporary, the show practically functions as an aesthetic marker on the historical timeline of eroticism. The choice to not only bring this dialogue into the public sphere, but to confront it in such an explicit manner — literally encouraging the touching of works — brings the baggage of the past into the light, expanding the reach of the show from merely an observance of contemporary sex culture into a larger scale examination of contemporary sex culture in relation to its daunting history. The recognition of this historical descent that painted eroticism as debauchery exists implicitly in the margins of the show, providing a backdrop for the works on view to penetrate even deeper.
Marina's curation added a female gaze, which pierced the veil of what is usually defined as a male-centric and masculine space to reclaim street culture and bring focus to the emotion, creativity, and radicality of Lee and Pablo's work.
The two artists, who value the process above all else, draw on memories and images of the past to guide subject matter, but ultimately leave themselves free to channel moments of divine inspiration and artistic spontaneity. Their works aren't particularly masculine. Nor are they loud or boastful, rather personal and compelling— full of color, movement, life, and a rhythm that is authentically street and raw.
Photos of SPRING/BREAK Art Show LA 2023 by Samuel Morgan Photography.
In Connoisseurs of Street for Spring/Break, the two artists each embodied a wall and collaborated on a third wall to integrate their histories into one space. The wall is a seamless blend of their separate worlds, married through spray-painting, skateboarding, and urban exploration. There was also a video component that took us into the lives lived between the artists: across cities; across self-expressions of skating and graffiti; across personal painting practices.
Lee Smith
An ex-pro skater who took up painting during the pandemic, Lee Smith creates rich associations through his paintings based on photographs of friends, mostly from the skate world. Lee grew up in San Francisco during the height of the Mission School, a movement that emerged in the early ‘90s, which was strongly influenced by mural and graffiti art, comic and cartoon art, and folk art forms such as sign painting and hobo art. As a teenager, he discovered the famed plaza “The Embarcadero” and became infatuated with skateboarding and the group of kids that hung out there. While obsessed with drawing and graffiti and almost going to art school, he instead became a pro skateboarder at twenty-three and traveled the world.
At the beginning of 2021, he was hired to clean out the studio of artist Jean-Philippe Delhomme who left New York because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a form of gratitude, the artist left him art supplies, which ignited his personal painting practice. Marina associates his practice to what Baudelaire identified as the flâneur in his essay The Painter of Modern Life (1863) as the dilettante observer. Lee's immersion in the community he depicts in his paintings offers him key insight as to how to best capture the emotional layers of the neighborhood and its people. As much as he is part of the culture, he is also a herald of its true essence.
Pablo Power
Immersed in street culture from a young age, with his surroundings nurturing an interest in graffiti, Pablo Power gravitated toward graffiti writing as his form of creative expression. He recognized the city as a layered space, that was already painted, in a myriad of ways. His practice led to his photographic documentation of the people and places that live — largely unseen — between his creations. Pablo embeds himself in marginalized communities, lives with his subject matter and comes to a better understanding of their daily life. He compresses these periods of communion with others into large-scale murals that represent personal moments of reflection and fixation.
The collection paintings on display at Spring/Break, titled Compass Points/Forming Patterns, are both autobiographical and seemingly abstract. Photographs are layered with drawn and painted textures until all elements are virtually indistinguishable. The various turns, abrupt shifts, and bursts of color that are at the core of his work speak to the artist's vibration and psyche as well as his creative ethos. He believes that simple creative acts must impact humanity in a positive fashion.
When speaking with Lenard, I realized how humble, ever-inspiring, and uber-stylish he really is; he continues to explore a multitude of creative outlets out of sheer curiosity.
You're a native Californian with Ghanaian parents so tell me a little bit about your childhood and family heritage.
As a young child, I was turned on to sciences and fine art by both of my parents. We ate traditional Ghanaian food; seafood was a family favorite. They did a good job of always reminding me where they came from, and where other family members resided. As far as I can remember, I was excited about geography. When I was seven, my father put me on a flight to London on a TWA 747 Jumbo Jet by myself in the care of a TWA chaperone to spend time with my family members from both sides. My Parents were born and raised in Ghana, West Africa, but our family has a heritage in Switzerland and Brazil as well.
What inspired you through your teenage years?
Throughout my teenage years, I had a very active lifestyle playing basketball, hiking, and skateboarding. In the '90s, I was listening to soul, hip-hop, punk, post-punk, classical, and my all-time favorite genre reggae music from Jamaica. I amassed a collection of just over 4,000 LPs, including over 500 seven-inch records and ten-inch singles.
When did you first realize that art, and specifically photography, was going to be your chosen path?
I was twenty years old, and working full-time for a well-known action sports footwear brand, and I would spend my entire paychecks on film, archival storage supplies, and making prints of my early photographic work.
What about your entry into Bard’s College and the MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies course that you completed there?
In 2006, while living and working in NYC, based in Brooklyn, I was given a life-changing opportunity — to apply for an MFA degree without having an undergraduate degree. I applied and was accepted and graduated in 2008 from Bard College with an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies.
What was the incentive to move to London? What are your most memorable moments during that period?
I was living in Bologna, Italy in 1999, and was interested in moving to London to rekindle my relationships with the family that I had visited when I was a child. At that time of my life, photography was at the helm, and all I wanted to do was to pursue more opportunities and learn more about contemporary art and photography. Soon after arriving in London, I held a position with Carhartt WIP at Covent Garden. On my off days, I would explore the city with my camera, visiting my favorite galleries (Wapping Project, Hayward Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, The Photographer’s Gallery), sometimes taking the train to Brighton to visit Photoworks and even record shopping. London was a really great place to be living and working in throughout the early 2000s. I recall laying in the tall blades of grass at Hyde Park staring into the clouds; spending dark rainy days flipping through pages of photography monographs at Claire de Rouen books; picking up magazines at Magma; expanding my record collection as a regular patron of Camden Market, Spitalfields Market in East London; my favorite record shops (Sounds of the Universe, Honest Jon’s, Reggae Revive, Daddy Kool, and Dub Vendor in Brixton.
And then New York City, the Big Apple, where you spent ten years. Could you name a few highlights?
My first jobs in New York were balanced between three days in an office as a photo editor for TRACE Magazine, and two days teaching photography to high school students in Brooklyn. In 2009 and 2010, I published two small books with Eric Elms; he ran the imprint &Press.
Your earlier photographic work contains very beautiful portraiture work that has since been archived and is no longer visible on your website. Is there a rationale here?
In 2017, I started making a shift in my studio practice — focusing more on landscapes and still-life, painting, and sculpture. In terms of what's visible on my website, I am always updating the site and moving things around. I guess it was an impulse to edit the work that I am interested in putting out into the world currently. Portraiture has allowed me to connect with people from diverse walks of life and inspired me to master the genre.
Now onto your current photographic series which appears to be primarily divided between still life and landscapes.
Yes, exactly. Over the last few years, I have been balancing the two modes: studio and fieldwork. The entrance point to my work consists of deep exploration into still-life, sculpture, field recordings, video, and painting.
Since visiting the studio I now fully appreciate how interdisciplinary your work really is so can you explain briefly how your photography, fine art, sculptures, film, and sound recordings are all interconnected?
I have a keen interest in architecture, ecosystems, infrastructure, design, and historical markers that have shaped my identity. These topics intersect in both my studio practice and fieldwork.
Is there a specific thread that runs through your sculptural work? The Maquettes, 2022 series is amazing; do you envisage them being turned into large-scale installations?
The recent Maquettes, serve as individual prototypes for monumental sculptures as public works of art. I am always thinking about composition and how balanced materials and forms serve as an exercise for understanding public space, architectural theory, and structural engineering. As an extension to this work, I am working with 3D renderings of these new sculptures for site-specific projects.
What are the ideas attached to some of your recent paintings?
Some of the work explores safety zones for people of color. Pointing to an endless quest through landscape and infrastructure to find peace and equality. The shapes in the paintings acknowledge observations I make in the world of systemic injustice.
Are the environmental sound recordings purely explorations for the time being?
I started compiling sounds in 2018 while working on a series of photographs in the Santa Monica Mountains and the Angeles National Forest. In 2020, my attention to making field recordings was to further my technical knowledge in working with sound. Building an audio library of various sounds, and experimenting with ways of transforming the sounds into experimental installations is where I am now with this work.
You also just completed a residency where you worked on the book, Melancholy Objects, published by Perimeter Books — a series of compositions made up of personal and found objects. Was this your plan or did the idea arise organically after your arrival?
The first couple of months of my residency were dedicated to scouring a floor in the residency building filled with objects left behind. Every day, I would collect objects and bring them to my studio. It was there that I was able to interrogate the purposes of these various inventions and start to exercise my interest in sculpture by creating compositions that reflected assemblage ideas. Yes, Melancholy Objects published by Perimeter Editions came to life in a very organic way. The publisher and I had got on a call discussing the work, and it was their idea to debut the book at the Printed Matter's 2022 NY Art Book Fair.
What are your top five tips for LA?
Explore Beaches; hikes in Santa Monica Mountains and Angeles National Forest; regularly visit Arcana Books on the Arts; go to Collapsing Scenery shows at Zebulon; go to art openings at Central Server Works and Artist Curated Projects.
