Opening on Tuesday, February 1, 1995, the gallery will feature the work of Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, and Franz West.
All four artists have been and continue to be important for a younger generation of artists working today. While these artists are versatile in their use of a variety of mediums; from works on paper; to large-scale sculptures; to video, it is interesting how performance has been a continuous element in their work.
Mike Kelley's banner, "Untitled" from 1990 is derived from the simple paper flyers pinned on college notice boards and coffee houses that the artist found at the Art Center in Pasadena and UCLA. By transferring these mundane advertisements from their short-lived existence into a work of art, Kelley once again states his continued interest in peripheral everyday activities.
Paul McCarthy's large-scale oil stick drawings underline his reputation as one of the most important contemporary draughtsman. The drawings, executed with enormous energy onto dividers which he took from public bathrooms, are almost like an exclamation mark adding to the continuing discussion of high/low.
Bruce Nauman's Untitled (Four Small Animals) from 1989 is a major work from the period in which the artist used taxidermist models for his sculpture. This work, a group of de- and reconstructed cats and dogs suspended from the ceiling by wires exemplifies Nauman's ability to place the audience off-balance, thus challenging the viewer's preconceptions.
The group of four Franz West's "Passtuecke" exhibited here, date from 1983 to 1994. These works were recently exhibited in this configuration at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris as part of their large-scale survey of twentieth-century performance art entitled, "Hors Limites". They constitute a miniature retrospective ofhis performance-based "Passtueck" practice.