November 18, 2023 - December 23, 2023
Gallery reception: Saturday, November 18 from 2:00 to 5:00 pm
We are pleased to announce the exhibition “Susan Singer: ‘Bodies’ (1977) and Related Artworks,” a presentation of photo-related images and objects by this still highly pertinent if now little remembered Los Angeles artist.
Join us for an opening reception on Saturday, November 18 from 2pm to 5pm. “Susan Singer: ‘Bodies’ (1977) and Related Artworks,” is presented in conjunction with “Gerard Brane: New Work.” Both exhibitions continue through December 23 at as-is.la
If the art of the 1970’s taught us anything it is that “scale is content,” that when an artwork is unusually large (or tiny, for that matter) size becomes an important part of its meaning. Susan Singer (then Susan Grieger) emerged as an artist and photographer at precisely this moment and she seized on this and other characteristically 1970’s insights with a vengeance.
In her brief career—she soon left art to teach elementary students in the LA Unified School District—Singer made one undeniable masterpiece and a cluster of related photo-based artworks which together exemplify the ethos 1970’s art thinking:
… That the camera can escape the narrow confines of Fine Art Photography and function as a tool in the toolbox of the contemporary artist; that the art book is not always a second-order document but can be a primary artwork in its own right; and, perhaps most importantly, that art making can be a richly social activity highly dependent on the assistance of collaborators, including here, in Singer’s “Bodies” project, artists Paul McCarthy, Barbara Smith, Allan Kaprow and curator Hal Glicksman, among others.
As much as anything made then, Susan Singer’s “Bodies” corrals an array of important new art developments, adds a selection of prominent and lesser known personalities and then condenses it all into a single expression that effectively represents its moment in time.