An annual assemblage show runs through August 22 at the Loft at Liz’s on La Brea. The 9th annual such show, this year’s collection, Diverted Destruction, features five artists participating in the Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence (AIR) Program. For the past 26 years, the Recology AIR program offers artists access to studio space at San Francisco’s transfer station, and access to materials in the public dump. Along with supporting artists, the program encourages children and adults to think about their consumption practices and recycling and reuse. Recology plans to offer a Los Angeles Artist in Residence Program in the future.
Above, gallery owner and curator Liz Gordon, left, Recology artist in residence director Deborah Munk, right.
Deborah Munk, Director of the Artist in Residence Program at Recology calls her program “the first artist in residence program located at a dump. Artists scavenge materials and use them to create a body of work for exhibition.” She notes that “we work with artists in all different mediums including video, painting, and multi-media.” Student shows are also a part of the program, and Recology maintains a three-acre sculpture garden.
At Loft at Liz’s, curator Liz Gordon offered up a vast selection of free-for-the-taking assemblage materials in front of and behind the gallery on opening night, and will offer this wealth of material again on August 20th along with free recycled-materials workshop.
Above, the recycled woodwork of Barbara Holmes.
Exhibiting Recology artists are Kristin Cammermeyer, Mark Faigenbaum, Jeff Hantman, Barbara Holmes, and Karrie Hovey.
Above, Mark Faigenbaum.
Faigenbaum says “I love old movies and old movie magazines, which goes along with a theme of Hollywood and movie stars. I like people to fit things into their own narrative, whether I’m using old detective magazine style or old Chinese-type boxes. I work on a gut level.”
Above, artist and animal activist Karrie Hovey.
Hovey says “Recology is all material diverted from the trash, and here I used medical materials, such as bandages. I hold on to a lot of stuff, and it is difficult sometimes to know what I am going to do with it. In this case I could’ve wrapped the whole room in bandages, but went in a different direction.” Hovey works with the environment, focusing on Project Thron, which helps with the conservation of rhinos. “That focus helped me create this Trophy Room. All the animals represented here are endangered or used for ornamentation or medical purposes, such as ivory. The bandages specifically relate to my work with the rhinos. If they are poached for their horns they are often not killed, but abused horribly to remove the horns, their faces. Bandaging can save them.”
Above, artist Doug Pearsall.
Doug Pearsell describes his work as “repositioning material. These are pages from articles in Vogue. Normally, I work with ads, but these pieces are strictly text. I just use both a figure, stories, a poem, and visually piece it together. It’s minimalism. What I want to do to synthesize down to its quintessence, an idea that is essentially to converge out of ether.”
Don’t miss the August 20th workshop, or this terrifically artistic and ecological show.
The Loft is located at 453 S. La Brea in mid-city.
- Genie Davis; all photos: Jack Burke