The two shows currently on view at the Night Gallery – Wanda Koop’s “Heartbeat Bots” and Michelle Rawlings’ “In the Garden” – represent opposite ends of the spectrum of contemporary art.

The larger show, “Heartbeat Bots,” introduces us to a fantastically vibrant and massive vision of the future. There are sweeping neon landscapes with a verticality heightened by the her trademark drips (or tears, as she calls them.) And in her portraits, Koop interrogates a basic understanding of humanity by confronting the viewer with deeply emotional robots. There is an uncanniness in viewing a painting of a cyborg which looks surprised or smug, bored or content. But the emotional quality of Koop’s work is, in the end, undeniable. Koop shows to us a potential vision of the future, rich in abstract emotional depth and vibrant color.

By contrast, Rawlings’ paintings do not have monumental scale, vibrant colors, or even a shred of abstraction. Rawlings uses an impressionistic style to render models lifted from photos from Virginia Viard’s Spring 2020 show in Paris as though they were hanging in the Salons of late 19th century Paris. Rawlings work is intimately small, with some of the accompanying instillation details no bigger than a postage stamp.

And since her work is so small, it draws the viewer in close to parse through the many fine details. I found myself going over every expertly rendered thread of the high-fashion clothing and trying (without success) to place an emotion – any emotion – onto the faces of the models themselves. The more I looked, the further away I was from elucidating any concrete sensation from the works.

But of course, that’s exactly the point of models on runways; they are paid to showcase the fashion, not emotion. They are the proverbial canvas upon which designers exhibit their work. And how are we to analyze a canvas upon a canvas? We don’t. All we can do then is just appreciate the work for what it is, and it is beautiful. It’s a pleasure to simply exist in the space that Rawlings’ works inhabit and to uncover the many treasures within.

Night Gallery
2276 E. 16th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90021
Show runs through Nov. 14th
Appointment Only—No Walk-Ins