Circus Gallery, April 11 2009

My show at The Hammer comes down on the 12th of April. The museum sends me weekly attendance records which are as comforting as they are daunting. I haven't kept up with the tally but I think 6-8,000 people will have eventually seen that work. Knowing that it's had a good run tends to cut that anxious deflation I get when a show comes down.

But I've also been busy with my next solo show, opening on 11 April (7-9pm) in the mezzanine gallery at Circus, (7065 Lexington Avenue, Los Angeles 90038.) There will be an assortment of new images: drawings scratched into photographs, images destroyed - repeatedly run over by a car, folded at odd angles and mounted, etc.

For those familiar with how I draw on the photographs, you know that the resin surfice of the image is scraped away until the paper substrate appears bright white and fuzzy, so there's a contrast of textures as well as the stark white of the paper against the muddy color of the photograph. I've started to 'flay' the prints, peeling away the photographic image rather than scratching at it, so there is another type of texture in this new work.

The thing that I'm the most proud of in this show is a new edition of my text-wallpaper patterns. Each of the 4 have been redesigned as 22x28 inch swatches, signed, numbered and deliberately sized to fit pre-made frames. These will be available at a reasonable price, so that they'll be accessable to a larger audience. These prints are still a lot more than 'zines, but they cost 90% less than one of the photos in the show. (I find the price of art a little embarrassing.)

In other related news, I'm going through old lectures, trying to decide on a text to accompany each of the galleries on my web site. These should be updated with images from recent shows in the next 6 or so weeks. Steve Cioffi will be making a video tracing the progression of my work from The Hammer show through my installation in Drama of the Gifted Child: The Five Year Plan at the Armory Center in Pasadena, curated by David Burns this summer. If you regret missing my talk at the Hammer back in January you can now catch the video at the following link: http://hammer.ucla.edu/watchlisten/watchlisten/show_id/70760/show_type/video?browse=none&category=0&search=

Hammer Install

I've been meaning to post pictures of the Hammer installation, but time has gotten the better of me. Between my efforts on the LACE Benefit Auction and shows coming up in March and April, I've been too swamped to blog. (Probably a good thing!)

Nearly 2,000 people saw my show in its first three weeks, but I wanted to post images from the install. Franky Kong, Nick Kramer and Tim Butler did an incredible job putting it all together. Since the wallpaper is comprised of nearly 100 tiles, getting them all into place without obvious seams is very difficult, but these guys were determined!This was taken in the museum's storage. This is the biggest piece I've ever made, and it's completely overshadowed by the Matisse.
And curator Darin Klein taking a first look at the completed installation...

Preview of Hammer Show

I have all of the work together for my show coming up at the Hammer Museum.

Here's a preview:This is a detail of an image whose frame is partially filled with dirt and glitter.


This one I took a meat cleaver to.

Since the installation at the Hammer deals with the text of a novella about a deteriorating family relationship , I tried to impose upon these images of an empty room something like a psychological wallpaper. I've been interested in how wallpaper is used to ascribe values to an environment in order to provided a daily reminder of class-specific values. I was trying to do something similar without using a repeating pattern, to give a sense of how the characters in my novella react within their space.

And then there's discomfort within fortunate circumstances:

This one is about 7 feet tall.

The second and third pictures are courtesy of the Hammer Museum and were taken by Brian Forrest.

The first picture comes courtesy of Circus Gallery.

A Typically Awkward First Blog Posting

I'd like to begin by thanking the Zachry Horn, who designed and built this site for me. Left to my own devices the site would have been a repellent mixture of dark colors combined to make navigation as difficult as possible.

The full site will be active on January 1. Until then, links within the site may or may not be fully active.

This site provides information about Christopher Russell, the Los Angeles based photographer and writer who graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1998. If you are looking for Christopher Russell, the Bay Area painter who graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 2006, his site is chrisrussellart.com. We have never met, but I rather expect he's experienced the same confusion that I have.

My activities in the near future will be:

11 December 7-10 pm

Union Center for the Arts

120 Judge John Aiso St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

I will be speaking on the topic of personal evasiveness within an art practice.
Ami Tallman will be speaking on the topic of hope and hopelessness.
Darin Klein will workshop the one page book.

January 11-13 Noon to 8 pm
Photo LA
Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405

I will have work installed and in portfolio boxes at the Circus Gallery Booth.

January 13-April 12
Christopher Russell: Hammer Project
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024

When visiting the show, please remember that the bookstore will have a very limited quantity of my first book, Landsacpe. This volume has existed largely as rumor and a very limited quantity have been made available for this event. Also, the bookstore will have copies of Bedwetter Issue 5, and Against the Grain, the catalog for the show I curated at LACE during the summer.

January 15 7 pm
Artist's Talk
Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024

I will be speaking about my installation in the museum and making a first attempt to describe "literary installation," the term I've been using to describe my recent text/image projects.