Jonathan Griffin

Criticism and essays on art and culture

Tag: China Art Objects

September 28, 2019

Leo Mock

M+B, Los Angeles

Leomock

“A thought that never changes”, 2019 signed, titled and dated verso oil, oil stick and charcoal on canvas 48 x 36 inches

 

Back in January 2018, in China Art Objects’ fair booth at Art Los Angeles Contemporary, I saw some paintings by an artist then unknown to me that I liked. I remember an island, moody cloudscapes, bruised colouration. I asked the gallerist Steve Hanson about them, and while I don’t recall much of his vague response, I do remember that he couldn’t help me identify the historical painting one of these reminded me of. (I worked it out later: it was Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead, 1880.) Read the rest of this entry »

April 12, 2012

David von Schlegell

China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles

For all those (myself included) requiring an introduction to David von Schlegell’s art, the sculpture Five Birds and its attendant Untitled Study for Five Birds (both 1988) greeted visitors at the entrance to his exhibition. Birds in flight, cobbled from shards of aluminium tube and hanging on monofilament, cast fluttering shadows over the cut-paper studies on the wall behind. These were far from the most sophisticated works in the show, but they announced, for the uninitiated, the artist’s fascination with dichotomies of form and weightlessness, land and air, the man-made and the natural. Read the rest of this entry »