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In Quest of Beauty: Assemblage in the Ahmanson Collection

Date/Time

 

Date(s) - Saturday 03/30/2019 - Saturday 06/15/2019
8:30 am - 5:30 pm

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Categories 

 

Art Exhibition

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Irvine, CA: Assemblage has its roots in a desire for assembling objects in a stream of consciousness. As a highly flexible art form, assemblage is still employed by many contemporary practitioners today. The selection of twenty-three works by seventeen artists in the Ahmanson collection, created during the last four years, encompass many media and perspectives ranging from meticulous digital photography to salvaged, rusted metal sculptures. Particularly within the realm of contemporary textile art, artists consciously use repurposed fabric for its embedded history and as a way to address environmental concerns.

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Upon entering the gallery, the viewer encounters two sculptures by Los Angeles based artist Barry Krammes. A big inspiration for the concept of this show, his method of collecting images and found objects is a long and considered endeavor, developed over several decades. Many of the works in the exhibition address the complexity of the creative process and how both images and ideas are sourced.

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In the second gallery the work of Ale Groen, Markus Brunetti and Sun Xun use various forms of assemblage to wrestle with the spiritual dimension of life. Groen’s “Madonna and Child” is a gut-wrenching abstraction of the classical religious theme and directly relates to the Dadaist love of reshaping forms. His recent series “Chairs Have Voices” is wonderfully mysterious and playful, while poignantly articulating the human need for nurturing. Ricky Swallow’s seminal work “Chair with Rope” illustrates an impossible relationship of give and take, symbolized by the rope and a chair, suggesting an other-worldly struggle is in the works.

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These objects, selected at different times over the past few years, stem from different vantage points yet are drawn together by their consistent value of harmony. The essence of assemblage references the syntax relations found in language—the way that a sentence is structured using syllables, words and punctuation. A beautiful essay is made up of multiple sentences that work together to create a meaningful whole. As the title suggests, Roberta Green Ahmanson is dedicated to finding beauty in the objects she collects and in the artists she surrounds herself with. Please join us on this extravagant journey.

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Collection Artists in the Exhibition:

Lynn Aldrich, Hermione Allsop, Diedrick Brackens, Markus Brunetti, Ale Groen, Sheila Hicks, Barry Krammes, Steven and William Ladd, Elad Lassry, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Amy Meissner, Wayan Novi, Phillip Stearns, Ricky Swallow, Betty Woodman, Sun Xun

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In Quest of Beauty: Assemblage in the Ahmanson Collection will run until June 15, 2019. The exhibition is free and open to the public during business hours (Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) For more information or to make a reservation, contact Ann Hirou at 949-474-1965.

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