Published by Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Edited and with text by Kelly Shindler. Interview by Helen Molesworth. Foreword by Lisa Melandri.
A Decorated Chronology accompanies the first American museum exhibition of Los Angeles–based artist Lari Pittman in more than 15 years. It comprises a range of recent work and a selection of earlier paintings. Over the past three decades, Pittman has developed a body of work that is internationally celebrated for its exuberant use of color and painstakingly rendered detail to address such contentious subjects as sexuality, desire and violence. His multilayered depictions of images and signs--ranging from human figures and body parts to animals, plants, furniture, text and even credit cards--meditate on the overwhelming richness and sadness of everyday life. Embracing the critical potential of figurative painting, Pittman provides incisive commentary on the medium’s ability to intertwine the personal with the political.
Published by Atle Gerhardsen/Gladstone Gallery/Regen Projects. Text by Anthony Vidler, Klaus Kertess.
Employing such decorative elements as scrolls, arrows and patterns, Los Angeles-based Lari Pittman--one of the most influential and challenging voices in contemporary painting--expertly directs our eye through his busy constellations of fragmented imagery (landscapes, domestic interiors, roots, flames, rope, spiderwebs), cobbling together a truly unique language. Critic Alex Farquharson has noted that Pittman's work is cut up, overlayered and elaborately stylized... The very excess of imagery in the paintings, and the innumerable narratives they spark off, has the comparable effect of flattening illusionistic depth. This echoes the horizontal sprawl of L.A.'s diverse communities, and the pluralistic languages of commerce and dwelling with which each gives its pitch and establishes its patch. This collection of works from 2005 to 2008 features texts by independent curator and writer Klaus Kertess and Anthony Vidler, Dean and Professor at The Cooper Union School of Architecture.
Lari Pittman: Paintings and Works on Paper
