past exhibition
Le Vent d’Est: New Work by Stephen Lapthisophon
6.16.2013
Le Vent d’Est: New Work by Stephen Lapthisophon
Aroma - Elephant
Opening Reception: Sunday, June 16, 2013 4-7 PM
Tautology- Actual Size
Opening Reception: Friday, June 14, 2013 7-10 PM
Elephant is pleased to present new work by Dallas-based artist Stephen Lapthisophon, organized by Vincent Ramos. For this project, the gallery will be collaborating with Actual Size in Chinatown to create a dual venue interrelated exhibition.
Stephen Lapthisophon has never been to Los Angeles. His relationship to L.A. thus far has been through the various facets of exported popular culture experienced throughout his life, from the gritty narratives found within the pulp crime novels of Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain to the raw poetic filmmaking of John Cassavettes.
He works in a space where process-driven gestures, clues leading to nowhere, and fragmented layers of meaning are forced to co-exist. Legally blind since 1994, he relies heavily on his other senses to initiate ideas that disrupt notions of cultural memory, via the creation of site-specific installations that embrace a vast range of disparate materials. This project will be no different, as it will encompass drawing, text, found objects and unorthodox items such as coffee and salt. According to the artist, “My works are impromptu responses to where I am -- what I have been reading and thinking about mixed with the set of associations that come with the place”.
Considering that Los Angeles is nothing but a unique “set of associations” jumbled and mangled together and left to cohabitate over time, his actions and subsequent evidence should be both familiar and foreign, steeped in an outsiders logic that in and of itself is very much representative of here.
Stephen Lapthisophon received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. Recent solo exhibitions include Isolation, A Slender Gamut, New York, NY (2012), The Construction of a National Identity, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL (2011), Las Palabras en la Sombra de Esta Fecha, El Escaparate, Barcelona, Spain (2009), and DESIGN, Zagreus Projekt, Berlin, Germany (2008). Recent group exhibitions include, Variations on Theme: Contemporary Art 1950’s-Present, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (2012), The Café, SHOW Studio, London, UK (2011), and Archival Impulse, Gallery 400, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL (2011). His work has been written about in ARTFORUM, Frieze, Art in America, Art News, New Art Examiner, and ART LIES. A collection of his essays entitled, Writing Art Cinema 1988-2010 was recently published by Green Lantern Press. He is currently a senior lecturer in art and art history at The University of Texas at Arlington.
Vincent Ramos is an artist from Los Angeles. He received his MFA from CalArts in 2007 and his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2002. Recent exhibitions include Made in L.A. 2012, Hammer Museum and LAXART (2012), Pachuco Cadaver or There Are No Heavies in America, Las Cienegas Projects, Los Angeles (2011), and Outsider Art: Others from Elsewhere Doing Something Altogether Different…Sort Of, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica (2011). Curatorial projects include, After The Gold Rush: Reflections and Postscripts on the National Chicano Moratorium of August 29, 1970, Vincent Price Art Museum, ELAC, Los Angeles (2011), River, Elephant, Los Angeles (2011), Chasing Shadows, The Onion (The Church of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society), North Hills (2010), The Sharon Show & 1969, Dan Graham, Los Angeles (2009), and Call Me Lightning: An Evening of Performance-Based Work, FOCA, Los Angeles (2008)
Special thank you to Max Presneill and the Torrance Art Museum, Chloë Flores, Tim Lefevre and GuestHaus, Irene Tsatsos, Natilee Harren, John Berdel, Aaron Wrinkle, and the collective artists/directors of Actual Size and Elephant for their support in bringing Stephen to Los Angeles
Related Programming
Dark Warehouse: Videos by Stephen Lapthisophon
Location: Actual Size, 741 New High Street, Chinatown, 90012
Date and Time: Thursday, June, 20, 2013 8:00 PM
A selection of his videos will be screened, as well as select clips culled from YouTube and other sources that are inspired by and reflect upon a certain Los Angeles aesthetic, one that possibly shares a formal logic with his time-based work. Interspersed with an informal discussion between the artist and exhibition organizer.
