October 30, 2021 - December 18, 2021
Artist’s reception: Saturday, October 30,
2:00 - 5:00 pm
Los Angeles artist Bob Burchman (b. 1946, New York, NY) makes medium size paintings (often 48 x 36,” though sometimes larger) in the style of the 1970’s American photorealists. And like his predecessors, Burchman favors images of transparency, translucency and reflectivity. But whereas the original photorealists would often focus on the department store display windows, diners, gas stations and car dealerships of the commercial American streetscape, Burchman refocuses the photorealist project onto the sites of high culture—art galleries, private collections and, most notably, the art museum. There he directs his camera phone at protective plexiglass frames and other reflective surfaces, capturing both the underlying image and surface reflections—other artworks, attentive viewers, gallery architecture, lighting devices—and then represents these interactions in the series of oil-on-canvas paintings which follow. And it is there too, inside the museum, where this artist’s work takes an unexpectedly personal turn as it becomes apparent that Burchman, a largely self-trained outsider, is motivated by a complex mixture of respect and resentment. “Pick me! Why aren’t I in the museum? Why them and not not me?," Burchman’s paintings seem to ask. Such raw emotions, which other more thoroughly trained and professionalized artists frequently share but are careful not to express, expose a sense of vulnerability that gives these already thoughtful and expertly realized artworks an additionally haunting power.
installation view no. 1
Untitled (Roy Lichtenstein with Andy Warhol, Marisol and
viewers in reflection), 2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
72 x 48 inches
Untitled (Roy Lichtenstein with Andy Warhol and viewer
in reflection), 2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Untitled (Vija Celmins with viewers in reflection)
2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Untitled (Craig Kauffman with Dan Flavin in reflection),
2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
installation view no. 2
installation view no. 3
Untitled (Piet Mondrian with unidentified artworks and
viewers in reflection), 2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Untitled (Jasper Johns with Donald Judd and viewers
in reflection), 2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
72 x 48 inches
installation view no. 4
installation view no. 5
Untitled (Michael Asher with Dan Flavin in reflection),
2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 inches
installation view no. 6
Untitled (Ed Ruscha with unidentified artworks and viewers
in reflection), 2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 inches
Untitled (Jasper John’s with unidentified artworks and
viewers in reflection), 2010 - 2020
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 inches