As political forces tighten their grip on cultural institutions, Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE stands as both a rebellion and a celebration of fearless self-expression. Opening at Durden and Ray on March 22, 2025, this exhibition confronts state-controlled narratives, censorship, and the suppression of creative autonomy.

Drawing from the Trump administration’s intervention in the Kennedy Center and the NEA and evoking the legacy of the Nazi Party’s 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition—used to vilify and silence artists—this show reclaims the term as a symbol of resistance. Featuring a diverse group of contemporary artists, Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE challenges power structures, disrupts social taboos, and amplifies voices that refuse to conform.

Polly Borland, Joe Davidson, Tom Dunn, and Randi Matushevitz manipulate familiar gestures and shapes, distorting the human form in ways that simultaneously seduce and unsettle. Through photography, Keith Boadwee, Robert Andy Coombs, and Dakota Noot expose the private as public, questioning the norms that dictate how bodies should be seen and used. Likewise, Trulee Hall’s playful yet provocative videos and squeaky mechanisms, with their surreal imagery, blur the line between desire and taboo. Zak Smith’s ink paintings pull us into intimate, behind-the-scenes moments from porn sets and bedrooms, while Dylan Ricard’s vision of a post-Anthropocene world plays out in a close-up video of his mouth and skin, displayed on a Shibari-bound screen. Steven Wolkoff bridges past and present, drawing on historical references like Holocaust book burnings and Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ to confront the ongoing threats to artistic and intellectual freedom.

Spanning painting, sculpture, digital media, and performance, the exhibition delves into themes of gender fluidity, bodily autonomy, and sexual taboos. Degenerate Art in the Age of DOGE is not just a challenge to repression—it is a reclamation of creative freedom in a world that too often demands silence.

Content Warning:

This exhibition contains nudity, depictions of sex acts, and explorations of social taboos. Some works may be provocative or challenging. Viewer discretion is advised.

Exhibition Details:

Artists: Keith Boadwee, Polly Borland, Robert Andy Coombs, Joe Davidson, Tom Dunn, Trulee Hall, Randi Matushevitz, Dakota Noot, Dylan Ricards, Zak Smith, Steven Wolkoff

Curated by: Jenny Hager, Ty Pownall, Steven Wolkoff

Durden and Ray

Address: Bendix Building, 1206 Maple Ave. #832, Los Angeles, CA 90015

Show Runs: March 22 – April 13 2025

Opening Reception: March 22, 7:00pm – 10:00pm

This Saturday February 15, 7-10 pm

Please join us for Just a “TIEZE”

Highlighting the work of Durden and Ray artist/curators

Organized by Arezoo Bharthania, Dani Dodge, and Hagop Najarian.

Soft Opening: Saturday February 15, 7-10pm

Opening Reception in conjunction with Bendix Night: Saturday February 22, 7-10 pm

Open Hours: March 1 and 8, 2025 12-5 pm

Closes: March 8

Featuring Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Arezoo Bharthania, Jorin Bossen, Gul Cagin, Sijia Chen, Joe Davidson, Dani Dodge, Vita Eruhimovitz, Jenny Hager, Regina Herod, David Leapman, Atilio Pernisco, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic, Carolyn Mason, Hagop Najarian, Ty Pownall, Max Presneill, Dylan Ricards, Stephanie Sherwood, Curtis Stage, Valerie Wilcox, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, and Steven Wolkoff.

While February may be all about the prestigious Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles for some, Durden and Ray is making its annual play on that idea with TIEZE.

TIEZE features the Durden and Ray artists and shows what working artist curators are creating in the basements, garages, and studios of the city of Angels.

Founded in 2009, Durden and Ray is made up of artist/curators who work together to create tightly curated exhibitions at their downtown Los Angeles gallery as well as in concert with artist groups and galleries around the world. The shows are organized by the members, and host international artists as part of a commitment to global exchange and alternative networks. The members share in the fiscal support of its programs to further the influence of art here and abroad. The annual TIEZE show is the only show each year dedicated to highlighting the Durden and Ray artists’ work as a group.

‘Who Held Their Heart In Their Hands, and Ate Of It’

Art at the meeting point between opposite poles.

Please join us for the Opening Reception this Saturday Jan.18, 7-10pm

Run of show: January 18– February 2, 2025

Hours: Saturdays, noon-5 p.m

Curated by Regina Herod, Emily Lucid, and Alexandra Wiesenfeld

Artists: Ciana Anita Lee, Jamison Carter, Joe Davidson, Vita Eruhimovitz, Nancy Evans, Emily Lucid & Gosia Wojas, Atilio Pernisco, Levon Riggins, Gloria Sanchez, Molly Segal, Lior Shamriz, Rae Tweed, Olga Urbanek, Sammie Veeler, Kira Xonorika

Durden and Ray is thrilled to announce “who held their heart in their hands, and ate of it”, an exhibition featuring a diverse group of artists exploring interstitial moments of paradox using a wide variety of media. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, January 11th, 2025. Additional programming includes a video screening and discussion January 18th, and a night of performances on January 25th.

“who held their heart in their hands, and ate of it” takes inspiration from philosopher and writer Georges Bataille, whose work mines the terrain between opposites – atheism and faith, terror and ecstasy, the sacred and the profane. He considers the realms of the erotic and death as sacred, because both have the power to erase the boundaries that exist in the realm of the profane. The exhibition curators believe the everyday is marked by self- interest and self-control, which turns people into separate beings with separate thoughts. In moments when we approach impossible states—when everyday habits and ways of being are swallowed up by chaos, in instances of frenzy and ecstasy, eros and death-- life and consciousness temporarily fade away to create a meeting-place of terror and joy, where bliss, suffering, horror, and divine encounters can fuse into one. This is what Bataille calls the “great paradox.”

The artists in this exhibition exuberantly and courageously delve into that paradox, embracing inherent contradictions and eschewing predictability. In their works sensual beauty meets existential terror, matter meets energy, destruction meets creation.