Chinatown Gallery Hop

I just moved to the West coast from the East coast and am fairly new to navigating the sprawled out nature of the Los Angeles art scene. I recently found out about an Eric Yahnker's exhibition in Chinatown and decided to explore. The show was titled Cracks of Dawn and took place at the Kunsthalle L.A. on Chung King Rd. Before I go on any further about the show, and other galleries in the general vicinity, I must mention that I have trekked through Chinatown on quests for Bao Buns and Taro Bobba Tea quite a number of times and was amazed (and a little ashamed) that I had somehow missed this section of it before. There are quite a few galleries that have transformed the spaces that were once import item stores and Kung Fu Societies into really clean and excellent exhibition spaces. This particular section of Chinatown is not as heavily decorated with paper lanterns, wishing fountains, and novelty items such as the familiar lucky cat statues pouring out of store fronts. In fact, many of the stores, aside from a restaurant where the movie Rush Hour was shot (as proclaimed by giant painted letters on the side of the building facing the street) seemed permanently closed. It's a little sad that this portion is a tad neglected, however on the plus side it tends to be much quieter.

On to Eric Yahnker:

Cracks of Dawn is a satellite exhibition taking place in Chinatown and presented by Ambach & Rice - a gallery in Seattle Washington. I am a sucker for exceptional use of gallery space and this show was all about that. The whole minimalist exhibition approach just doesn't work for me sometimes. As a painter I have a natural love for the painting + blank wall combo but sometimes that just isn't enough and I need some sculpture to fully activate the space and make my experience less sterile.

As you can see there are sculptures, large drawings, small drawings, drawings hung over other drawings, and cutouts of canned food pinned a few inches away from the opposing walls like specimen wallpaper. If you have any inkling of a sense of humor,an interest in history, or a particular affinity towards well executed artwork then Eric Yahnker's work is for you. This artwork is socially relevant and historically critical yet manages to be humorous in a way that doesn't undermine the visual statements.

Bonus: The postcard you can take away from all this is an image of the pizza drawing titled Cheese Slice on Garland on a squared card so you can hang it on our fridge at home. Perfection. If you are in L.A. or even within 5 hours driving distance from L.A. you should see this show before it closes on Feb 12.

Another show I would like to mention is currently on view at Charlie James Gallery until the 12th as well.

Eske Kath's There Are Houses Everywhere was another notable use of space with a combination of sculptural elements and paintings. While I wasn't a huge fan of the graphically flat but brightly pigmented painting style, I did appreciate the subject matter. The paintings are depictions of simplified housing structures that have been loosened from their foundations and are ominously floating in jumbles and lit by rays of a hot pink, orange, and yellow sunrise/sunset. The houses are shown in differing levels of submersion, in what we can assume is the aftermath of flood conditions or other anonymous body of water. What I really enjoyed were the two sculptures, one a pile of the same simplified houses made from cut plastic and veneered wood. Each house contained a colored light which at times remained static and glowing and at others points began blinking according to a set pattern. Instead of being shoved under a cover or otherwise camouflaged, the electrical chords were incorporated nicely into the whole of the piece, and to me functioned as an anchor. 

   

There was a glowing pink light emitting from a concealed part of the gallery (which you can see in the leftmost part of the picture on the right) and upon entering the tiny room, which only fit one viewer at a time (and may have previously existed as a storage closet) I found a wonderful, solitary house emitting a constant glow of pink light on the floor of the space. 

Aside from being an interesting use of a strange, and I imagine rarely used bit of the gallery space, this little pink house allowed for a quiet moment of reflection.