Join us in the courtyard, to kick off Frieze LA 2024, for a party celebrating the openings of ‘Catherine Goodman. New Works’, ‘RETROaction (part two)’, ‘Jason Rhoades. DRIVE’ and ‘Implicit Explicit’ for MAKE, all at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles. Enjoy cash bars and food for sale by the gallery’s onsite restaurant Manuela as well as a special DJ set by KCRW’s Novena Carmel.
Galleries will be open for viewing from 6 – 9 pm.
This event is free; however, reservations are required.
About ‘Catherine Goodman. New Works’
On view in the South Gallery, this will be Goodman’s first body of predominantly abstract works, marking a distinct development for the artist, whose signature dynamic surfaces and energetic brushstrokes will occupy some of her largest canvases to date. In a career spanning over four decades, Goodman’s artistic process is rooted in a daily practice of observational drawing sourced from life, film and old master paintings. In these striking new compositions, Goodman continues her longstanding exploration of memory, place and the mystery of the unconscious.
About ‘RETROaction (part two)’
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of ‘Theater of Refusal’—in a social and political context that bears many similarities—this exhibition in downtown LA looks back at that seminal project and continues the theoretical investigation to understand its resonances today. Co-curator Homi K. Bhabha has called this process ‘retroaction.’ He suggests, ‘A conventional retrospective looks back from the summit of the present to synthesize the past by giving it a culminating shape. In contrast, ‘RETROaction’ brings forth the legacies of ‘Theater of Refusal’ in the early 1990s to interact with the lessons and lesions of art today. It takes a view of the present in all its decolonizing tumult—racial violence, pandemics, climate catastrophe, migration and displacement—pinpointing a critical moment of transition in the ‘90s from which to move forward.’
‘RETROaction’ presents works from the early 1990s by Charles Gaines, Lorna Simpson and Gary Simmons, who all participated in the original ‘Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism,’ as well as a new iteration of the exhibition, this time subtitled ‘Black Art and Reconstitution,’ presenting the work of ten artists who all embrace abstraction and materiality in their practice, selected by art historian, Ellen Tani, together with Gaines.
‘We speak less now of marginalization and refusal than of the world systems—historic and ongoing—that undergird those processes: capitalism, colonialism, racism. We consider Bhabha’s description of the way we can think of past work and its relation to the present moment through an investigation of strategies of marginalization from the ‘90s and how it has transitioned into a critical space—30 years later—now dominated by the issues of decoloniality, which in turn gives representation to those suppressed ideas of the ‘90s,’ says Gaines. ‘We chose to undertake an investigation of abstract art produced by Black artists to show that the controversies around representation—a significant context for the marginalization of their practices—continues today. Like the original project, ‘Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Reconstitution’ rethinks structures of artistic knowledge and the critical discourse that surrounds it.’
About ‘Jason Rhoades. DRIVE’
‘Jason Rhoades. DRIVE’ will be a year-long exploration of Rhoades’ art via cars and car culture. Known for the driving imagination and ambition of his work, as well, at times, its reckless provocation and overwhelming materiality, Rhoades (1965–2006) was a world builder for whom the making of sculptures and the creation of narratives were intertwined. His epic-scaled installations made him a force of the international art world in the 1990s while he was based in Los Angeles. ‘DRIVE,’ will unfold over a series of thematic iterations, an ever-changing exhibition of Rhoades’ sculptures, drawings, videos and multiples—enriched by archival materials, public programs and contemporary perspectives.
