Grotjahn / Cvijanovic / Sawa

The Hammer Museum presents three concurrent Hammer Projects exhibitions showcasing emerging artists from the U.S. and Asia—Mark Grotjahn from Los Angeles, Adam Cvijanovic from New York, and Hiraki Sawa from Japan. The exhibitions present three distinct explorations of specific media, including Grotjahn’s large-scale color pencil drawings, Cvijanovic’s mural-size acrylic painting spanning the extensive Hammer lobby wall, and Sawa’s black-and-white video of miniaturized airplanes. Hammer Projects are a series of exhibitions that focus primarily on the work of emerging artists, and reflect the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art by providing international and local artists a laboratory-like environment to create new work, or to present existing work in a new context. Hammer Projects are curated by James Elaine.

Mark Grotjahn: Drawings, January 11 – April 17, 2005 Known primarily for his bold geometric paintings, Los Angeles-based artist Mark Grotjahn presents a group of seven new, large-scale drawings. Installed in the Museum’s Vault Gallery, the works are meticulous multi-colored as well as monochromatic colored pencil drawings on paper. The formal compositions employ various one-point perspectives that radiate and converge, mimicking the shapes of butterflies, flowers, and water. The elegance of Grotjahn’s large sheets is subverted by deliberate scuffs and markings that add important elements to the compositions. Mark Grotjahn was born in 1968 in Pasadena, California, and currently lives in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Recent solo exhibitions include Mark Grotjahn: El gran burrito at Boom, Chicago, and shows at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the London Institute Gallery and is on view in the Fifty-fourth Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, until March 2005.

Adam Cvijanovic, February 6 – August 7, 2005 Adam Cvijanovic’s large-scale painting Glacier, 2005, covers the entire expanse of the Hammer lobby wall with an arctic landscape evocative of the Hudson River School and 19th-century cycloramas. His room-sized installations—composed of individually painted Tyvek panels mounted side-by-side—portray beautiful yet charged natural scenes that challenge the seemingly sacred divisions between the mass-produced and the unique, the decorative and the profound. Adam Cvijanovic was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1960 and currently lives in New York. A self-taught artist, Cvijanovic is an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Ideal City at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; Hurricane Party and Disko Bay, both at Bellwether Gallery, New York; and New City Project at Steven Sclaroff. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Compact Art, Barcelona; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; and BAM Brooklyn.

Hiraki Sawa, February 22 – June 19, 2005 In his 2002 video Dwelling, Hiraki Sawa creates a dreamlike universe inside a nondescript apartment. Dwelling follows the dramatic slow and solemn flight patterns of roaring miniaturized Boeings, Airbuses, Concordes, jet planes, and commuter aircrafts as if documenting chaotic airport traffic. Using grainy black and white footage, Sawa’s video is as mysterious and evocative as it is comical. Set entirely in Sawa’s apartment, the work addresses notions of displacement and melancholy, and was completed while he was a graduate student at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Hiraki Sawa was born in Ishikawa, Japan, in 1977 and currently lives in London. He received his master’s degree in sculpture in 2003 from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. Recent solo exhibitions include shows at James Cohan Gallery, New York, and Ota Fine Arts Gallery, Tokyo. His work was included in group exhibitions at LIFT Contemporary, Cherokee, North Carolina; Lille2004, Lille, France; Placentia Arte, Piacenza, Italy; Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey; and Evo Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2004, Dwelling was presented as part of 59th Minute, a Creative Time Project and on view in New York City’s Times Square.

Pressetext

Mark Grotjahn, Adam Cvijanovic, Hiraki Sawa
Three Concurrent Hammer Projects Showcase Emerging Talent from Los Angeles, New York, and Japan
Kurator: James Elaine

11.01.05 - 17.04.05 Mark Grotjahn
06.02.05 - 07.08.05 Adam Cvijanovic
22.02.05 - 19.06.05 Hiraki Sawa