LAST Projects is proud to present Line Starts Here, a collaboration between Alexis Branger and Devin Andersen, two artists working respectively as a Set Designer and Production / Art Fabricator in Los Angeles. Their jobs facilitate a unique perspective on both the Fine Arts and the Commercial production world. In both spheres there tends to be a lot of overlap between material, tools, and general skill that goes into making the two oddly similar products. Painting, carpentry, metal working, and the ability to creatively transform a space are the “bread and butter” of what goes into executing a production job. These skills are directly transferable into the making of art in every traditional discipline. In Line Starts Here Branger and Andersen explore the confluences and contradictions of using ones skilled trade in the “industry” and in their own practice in a gallery setting.
As Fabricators and Fine Artists, they acknowledge the shift in the role of the artist from historically hired craftsmen to the contemporary view of the artist as genius. Through the use of industrial material and colorful design in a gallery setting, the show opens a dialogue about the production of art, the artist’s role, and what it means to be a maker. Blurring the border between the creation of an object and the romanticized view of the artist, they begin to pose questions such as: Who really makes the art that you see?
