Carroll Dunham, “A Wrestling Place (1)” (2016-2017), mixed media on linen, 51 1/16 x 66 x 1 5/16 inches (photo by David Regen, courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo)
Since the early 1980s, Carroll Dunham has been pursuing his own idiosyncratic brand of figurative painting, drawing on Surrealism, Pop Art, and psychedelic cartoon imagery. A fascination with the erotic — or at least the carnal — runs through much of his work, so that even when abstraction overtakes representation, phallic and yonic forms are still discernible. Over the past decade, he has painted bucolic landscapes filled with female nudes, focusing on their sex organs instead of their obscured faces. With these works, writes John Yau, “Dunham seems intent on creating a topography of disdain and disgust.”
His latest body of work, opening this Friday at Blum & Poe, expands upon these themes, swapping out stylized female bodies for men acting out masculine rituals in his signature landscapes. Nude, bearded figures — recalling classical antiquity as much as hippie hedonism — grapple with each other under an unforgiving sun, as a stray dog looks on.
When: Opens Friday, April 28, 6–8pm
Where: Blum & Poe (2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Culver City, Los Angeles)
More info here.
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