Hello fellow printers,
On a fairly recent trip up to the west side of Hollywood, I stumbled upon the glamoured remains of an old Masonic-temple-turned-gallery that is now home to the beloved Marciano Art Foundation. The museum has been in service for about thirty-five years and houses a multitude of exciting experimental contemporary works. During my visit, Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei held the floor for his solo exhibition which featured a new large installation, “Life Cycle,” which was composed of elaborate linear bamboo and twine sculpture, on display alongside his famous “Sunflower Seeds” and “Spouts”. Brilliant work continued to permeate every space of the museum’s three accessible floors. Many of my favorites there were the few different avant-garde digitally-altercated performance videos. There was even a painting-sculpture duality piece which allowed you to scratch and sniff the sculpture to know what “fear” smells like. A strange addition to the museum was the invitation to photograph the work and yourself with it; a usual prohibition for most traditional art spaces. All of which added to the “experimental” manifesto the foundation intends for.
However, out of all the brilliant pieces, I took immediate intrigue to the soft illustrative works by Swiss-born artist, Nicolas Party. Party had two pieces on display, one painting and the other a 2-D marble arrangement (pictured below).
Both works are equally haunting, depicted in stiff portraits with dead gazes that bore into the viewer's skull as they walk through the Foundation's windowed halls in the third floor's "Mad World" exhibition. First, I will formally analyze the painting to the right, then, the left, and try to dig at their intrinsic meaning overall afterwards. With delicate modeling to the sullen pink skin and organic shapes that rot over the head of the subject, Party illuminates a dim and dark narrative to the context of his piece. The lips are a dark red, its eyes sunken-in and alert, the background a cold neutral gray, a golden strip along the shirt collar ties in the wilted fruit-shapes into harmony.
As for the marble "Portrait", a similar display is presented in a different medium and subject. The portrait's subject is dark-skinned, wearing a striped V-neck (possibly a jersey?), and looks on more sternly than the other. A beautiful mismatch of colored marble are lain together in perfect shapes.
Perhaps the wide-eyed strangers fit into the overall theme of "Mad World" in that they are both impenetrable beings; the two leave very little distinct clues as to who or what they mean. The audience is trapped within their disillusioned worlds. In some ways, they remind me of the ancient Sumerian's votive figure statues that acted as placeholders in temples to always look attentive under the watch of a divine being. However, it is unknown if Party intended to make religious reference, which would open the (maybe) unnecessary Pandora's Box of theological readings.
As for the marble "Portrait", a similar display is presented in a different medium and subject. The portrait's subject is dark-skinned, wearing a striped V-neck (possibly a jersey?), and looks on more sternly than the other. A beautiful mismatch of colored marble are lain together in perfect shapes.
Perhaps the wide-eyed strangers fit into the overall theme of "Mad World" in that they are both impenetrable beings; the two leave very little distinct clues as to who or what they mean. The audience is trapped within their disillusioned worlds. In some ways, they remind me of the ancient Sumerian's votive figure statues that acted as placeholders in temples to always look attentive under the watch of a divine being. However, it is unknown if Party intended to make religious reference, which would open the (maybe) unnecessary Pandora's Box of theological readings.
In both the work's placard descriptions there is a lack of contextual apprehension, instead we are given a biography about the artist. To sum up the blurb and further research I conducted about the artist:
Nicolas Party has formal training in several artistic mediums including, but not limited to: painting, mural-work, charcoal, and marble. He was born in 1980 in Switzerland, lives and works in Brussels and New York, and was formerly a graffiti-artist. Each of his works tend to evoke some surrealist nature while tying together a formidable style with his use of vibrant colors and flat graphic style. Party states that he derives his inspiration from references to the medieval styles and late nineteenth century painters such as Félix Vallotton and Ferdinand Hodler. The selected works apart of the Foundation's display seem only to dip into Party's ideal art-setting which would prefer to occupy the walls with paint.
Party's work struck me instantly in the gallery (hence my inclination to snap a photo) as I am drawn to flat design and portraiture, hence the reason why printmaking has its alluring qualities. Combining the two pulled at my desire for calming aesthetics, even though the work I saw at the Foundation was somewhat bleak. I do believe if Party began a project with the focus on making reproductions of a piece, his style would resonate heavily with the printmaking medium and be a seamless addition to his oeuvre.
Sources:
Hammer Projects: Nicolas Party - Hammer Museum. (2017, June 12). Retrieved from https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2016/hammer-projects-nicolas-party/
Nicolas Party. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://frieze.com/article/nicolas-party
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