There's a point

"There's a point..." - 2016, vinyl stickers, spray paint on paper - 18"x24"
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Spring at the Flat

Wow, it has been way too long since the car has been out in the hills.  It's been driven around town a bit but there's nothing an old Toyota Land Cruiser likes more than dirt.  So, today I took it out to it's old stomping grounds Rowher Flats or "Rowher Flat" as I discovered by actually stopping and looking at the sign.

I've ordered new rear shocks (the old ones were killed by the race) and I wanted to do a little before and after test. 

Rowher Flat has been cleaned up quite a bit.  All the bathroom structures were rebuilt and they've added a bunch of shaded picnic areas.  It seemed to help.  In the hour I was there I saw 2 jeeps, about 5 motorcycles and someone camping with a trailer.  That's a lot for a Tuesday morning.  

Even with that crowd it felt pretty empty.  I did find a gopher snake to keep me company.

The fj40 ran great.  All the high and low gears were where they were meant to be, no stalling and it seemed to enjoy going fast.  I mainly stuck around the flats.

One thing I did learn is that I might need to wrap my new steering wheel.  The spun aluminum really came off on my hand....I guess that's what gloves are for.

Review in Artillery Magazine!

My last show "Paintings" at Susanne Vielmetter got a very positive review in Artillery Magazine.  Read it here.

Car 28 - new steering wheel!

The steering wheel on the old zebra fj40 has been a source of irritation.  Once I got power steering I didn't need a giant steering wheel to get the beast moving in the right direction.  So I replaced it with a 13" steel dune buggy wheel.  I didn't really think about the dish of the steering wheel but, as you can see from this picture, it was pretty deep.

With the roll cage I can't move the seat back and at times I feel like I'm hunched over the black wheel.  So, I picked up a flat aluminum wheel from Chirco.   Being aluminum it's light and it does look a bit like a go kart wheel, but the rivets on the back give you a really good grip.  

so far so good!  I'll keep you posted when I give it a thorough testing.

Paintings - Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects 2014

I have a solo show up at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.  If you're in beautiful Culver City before August 23th please check it out.  

Room 2 installation view                                                  all photos Robert Wedemeyer

Summer Breeze

April in Jamul (yellow)

Room 1 Installation

The Las Vegas Story

Western Pipistrelle

 It was reviewed in the LA Times but they don't seem to want to put it on their website.  Here's a blurb from Christopher Knight - "About half the paintings were made as a kind of target practice;  paint pellets explode in spidery grid patterns, like late 1960s or '70s Post-minimal drawings by Eva Hess or Michelle Stuart reconsidered through aggressive and violent means.  The strongest works take a slightly different tack, using the gun as a high-powered drawing tool."

To clarify, I was shooting at paint pellets with an air rifle, not paint pellets with a paint ball gun.  Anyway it's nice to have Eva Hess mentioned in an article about my work.

If you can't beat 'em, bite 'em

detail

I can feel the whole world turn 'round

Rufous

here's a chunk of the press release!

Throughout his 20-year career, Duffy has been deeply engaged in a postmodern practice of recycling, reworking, and re-contextualizing found material. In his most recent exhibitions this practice has morphed into a recycling of his own work and ideas. This approach culminated in the artists last solo exhibition at the gallery during which he dissolved his studio (which had always been located in his garage) and sold all remaining objects from the studio as a garage sale. In Paintings we witness a distinct change in Duffys artistic strategy. He has transitioned away from a modality of looking back and re-contextualizing existing materials and ideas, and taken an active, forward-looking position. 

In 2013, the first public glimpses of this new way of working were revealed in the two works that Duffy included in our summer exhibition. The first, a piece in which viewers were encouraged to throw darts; the second, a series of prints that goaded viewers to steal the work off of the wall and exit the gallery immediately. Now it is Duffy himself who is taking action. He is shooting ammunition into, onto, and against the canvas so that the support of the painting becomes a surface of resistance. The result is a series of predominately monochromatic paintings, shot up with a range of guns: BB guns, pellet guns, and a shotgun. 

In the studio, Duffy established rules and structures to govern the process of making the paintings. For some of the work the artist created custom metal armatures that directed and constrained the trajectory of the ammunition to specific vectors. For others he shot blobs of wet paint onto the canvas, creating grids of spidery paint splatters and drips. Many of the paintings are layered monochromatic canvases, made with oils and lacquer that have then been carefully shot. In all of the paintings, the impact of the ammunition on the canvas reflects the force of the action that is controlled by the artists strategy of aiming the bullets. The works reflect forceful action much more than violence, even when the canvas is thoroughly perforated by bullets.

Duffys canvases evoke the legacy of Lucio Fontana in their violation of the sacrosanct surface of the painting, but they also reference Niki de Saint Phalles Nouveau Raliste Shooting Paintings, made from 1960 1963. (Saint Phalle was a point of reference for Duffy during his education at UCSD, where Saint Phalles Sun God watches over the campus.) This body of work reflects Duffys desire to actively impact and engage with his materials and the oscillation between creation and destruction inherent in the creative act. 

What I'm Working On - Shooting Art I Shot

Sean Duffy - "Paintings"

SUSANNE VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES PROJECTS PRESS RELEASE  SEAN DUFFY "Paintings" July 12 – August 23, 2014 Reception: Saturday, July 12, 6 - 8 pm   Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Sean Duffy. Throughout his 20-year career, Duffy has been deeply engaged in a postmodern practice of recycling, reworking, and re-contextualizing found material. In his most recent exhibitions this practice has morphed into a recycling of his own work and ideas. This approach culminated in the artist’s last solo exhibition at the gallery during which he dissolved his studio (which had always been located in his garage) and sold all remaining objects from the studio as a “garage sale.” In “Paintings” we witness a distinct change in Duffy’s artistic strategy. He has transitioned away from a modality of “looking back” and re-contextualizing existing materials and ideas, and taken an active, forward-looking position. In 2013, the first public glimpses of this new way of working were revealed in the two works that Duffy included in our summer exhibition. The first, a piece in which viewers were encouraged to throw darts; the second, a series of prints that goaded viewers to “steal” the work off of the wall and exit the gallery immediately.  Now it is Duffy himself who is taking action. He is shooting ammunition into, onto, and against the canvas so that the support of the painting becomes a surface of resistance. The result is a series of predominately monochromatic paintings, shot up with a range of guns: BB guns, pellet guns, and a shotgun. In the studio, Duffy established rules and structures to govern the process of making the paintings. For some of the work the artist created custom metal armatures that directed and constrained the trajectory of the ammunition to specific vectors. For others he shot blobs of wet paint onto the canvas, creating grids of spidery paint splatters and drips.  Many of the paintings are layered monochromatic canvases, made with oils and lacquer that have then been carefully shot.  In all of the paintings, the impact of the ammunition on the canvas reflects the force of the action that is controlled by the artist’s strategy of aiming the bullets. The works reflect forceful action much more than violence, even when the canvas is thoroughly perforated by bullets. Duffy’s canvases evoke the legacy of Lucio Fontana in their violation of the sacrosanct surface of the painting, but they also reference Niki de Saint Phalle’s Nouveau Réaliste “Shooting Paintings,” made from 1960 – 1963. (Saint Phalle was a point of reference for Duffy during his education at UCSD, where Saint Phalle’s “Sun God” watches over the campus.) This body of work reflects Duffy’s desire to actively impact and engage with his materials and the oscillation between creation and destruction inherent in the creative act. Sean Duffy received his BA in Studio Art and Political Science from the University of California San Diego and his MFA from University of California Irvine.  Solo exhibitions include: The Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; The P érez Art Museum, Miami, FL; the Luckman Gallery, California State University Los Angeles, CA; and Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ.   His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, CA; The Orange County Museum of Art, Orange County, CA; University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA; Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; CENAR Centro Nacional del Arte, San Salvador, El Salvador.  His work is included in the collections of the Orange County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Pérez Art Museum, Miami FL, The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, UT; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA.  This is his ninth solo exhibition with Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is located at 6006 Washington Blvd in Culver City, 1 block west of La Cienega at Sentney Avenue. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am - 6 pm and by appointment. 6006 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, California 90232.  (310) 837-2117   vielmetter.com

Old Gold - LAX wall

Seeing this week's Mad Men homage to Jackie Brown and the tile wall at LAX reminded me that at one point I spent too much time stitching together Jackie Brown's title sequence.

Inspiration - The Search for Animal Chin

I spotted this while walking down Lyon's Blvd in Newhall.

I wonder if Jenni, Steve and Fred Nelson ever found him.

Happy Holidays!

Album of the Week - A Christmas Treat

My gift to you this Christmas is "The Six Million Dollar Man, Christmas Adventures - The Elves Revolt"

which features machine gun toting elves, melting polar ice caps, under paid workers, action figure product placement and of course a union busting Steve Austin (who sounds a lot like George Bush).  The other tracks, The Toymaker, The Kris Kringle Caper and Christmas Lights.

enjoy and happy holidays!

Etch-a-sketch Brutalism

Thanksgiving at my parents house always brings out some of the best (and oddest) forms of creativity.  Just before leaving, I'd ordered Spomenik, Jan Kempenaers photo essay of brutalist monuments of the former Yugoslavia.  I found myself day dreaming about the monuments when I picked up an old Etch-a-sketch.

It's a perfect tool for sketching brutalism.  Hard edges mixed with crumbly corners.  Seemingly permanent but quickly discarded.  Every time I sat down I found myself drawing a monument,

Show I'm In - REVERBERATION

Depending on the day, I've got about a half dozen pieces in a show at the Huntington Beach Art Center.  It's called

REVERBERATION!

and it features- Christian Tedeschi, Evan Holloway, Kristen Morgan, Mason Cooley, Ruben Ochoa, Sean Duffy & Thomas Muller.

It was curated by Andre Woodward (who is awesome) 

it will be up until December 15 and there will be a panel discussion on November 23.

Anyway, they used an image of one of my darts pieces for the exterior banner and it looks pretty good.  I did try to get them to use this one

but it was a bit punky (but isn't that the point of being in Huntington Beach?).  Then I'd hoped they would use this one.

because the show really is the Velvet Revolver of the art world.  

Actually that's not true.  Even though the show is a bit of a supergroup of Los Angeles sculpture, unlike Velvet Revolver, the end result is really great.  Here are some images but really it should be seen in person.

Oh and theres' been some good press in the Huntington Beach Independent and Installation Magazine.

Group Show 12

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