Veteran Los Angeles artist Renee Petropoulos exhibits a new body of work at as-is.la. Here Petropoulos takes a set of elite cultural references —— the artworks often allude to literary figures important to the 20th century avant-garde —— and sets this sophisticated content into tension with simple, demotic forms —— seventeen elegant, if modestly scaled, works on paper and a single sculptural maquette. The result is a presentation that holds the artist's almost bombastic promise of monuments and monumentality temporarily in abeyance and slyly offers a richer, more subtle experience in its place.
Installation view #1
Installation view #2
Installation view #3 - Bouquet Flower Girl
Installation view #4
01-For_Gertrude_Stein
02-Georges_Perec
03-M.S._Marie_Silkeberg
04-For_Cortazor-Belgium-France-Argentina
05-For_Clarice_Lispector
06-For_Leslie_Dick
07-For_Thomas_B_Bernhard
08-For_Eileen_Myles
09-If_I_only_make_it_on_time
10-For_Hannah_A_Arendt
11-For_Roberto_Bolano
12-For_Renee_Gladman
13-For_Chris_Kraus
14-Virginie_D_Despentes
15-For_John_Berger
16-For_Pedro_Almodovar
17-Amiri_Baraka
18-untitled_bench
19-Bouquet_Flower_Girl-front
20-Bouquet_Flower_Girl-back