This 60SIX group show of paintings, drawing, sculpture, photography and video, features work around the theme of art as “fall-out shelter”... A place to contain or release energy. The exhibition takes place in an actual yoga studio housed in a historic artist live/work space. Notable musicians and artists have lived and worked in 455A Valencia, such as 60SIX artist and composer, Peter Whitehead, violinist, singer, Carla Kihlstedtand performer, comedian Whoopi Goldberg.
In Leigh Barbier’s drawing, “The Watcher” a cyclops-like woman observes the room, a quiet but
powerful presence. She is exposed but modest. Both victim and heroine, she has balls…for hands. Suppression of power, containment of power, forces reaching in to steal
or heal are illustrated in Barbier’s surrealistic work. Sally Smith’s drawings contain
cathartic alchemy. In the large drawing “Golden Shower” she concocts the charcoal by burning pages from
Trump’s “Art of the Deal” mixed with urine and Aunt Jemima syrup, and uses a template of a drain cover
to create a rhythmic vibrating field of yellow and grey. Donna Anderson Kam’s drawings juxtapose
her subjects’(young girls) delicacy and innocence with a graphic toxicity, speaking to our living with a
large level of daily denial. Oliver DiCicco’s kinetic sculptures are styled in a purist modernist form, which
contrasts with the unpredictable randomness of their sound and motion. German artist Jürgen Trautwein’s
video piece called “gif me a break” gives a nod to philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s ideas, questioning
(among other things) whether humans will eventually become machines. Brent Willson presents a large
abstract painting, “Entropica,” reminiscent of the painter Albert Oehlen’s energetic, automatic painting.
Other artists include Heike Liss, Isabelle Maynard, Steve Molnar, Anne and Laina Terpstra, Dave King
and Peter Whitehead.
