2024 Exhibitions at our Los Angeles gallery
Please join us for "Alternate Monuments / Monumentos Alternativos"
Opening Reception Saturday April 27, 7-10 pm
Curated by Carolyn Mason and OJO MX ARTE
Artists: Carlos Álvarez-Montero, Ismael de Anda III, Lana Duong, Alfredo Esparza Cárdenas, MAPA Visual Lab (Mara García + Juan Pablo), Martha Naranjo Sandoval, Alicia Piller, and Stephanie Sherwood
In an era when monuments are being reevaluated and dismantled as cultural mores evolve, it’s an interesting time to look to artists for alternatives in our human quest to concretize our values and perhaps quell the inevitable impermanence around us. The artists in the exhibition are seeking out – even scavenging for – new grounds to explore meaning and fragility in the objects around them, all with a spirit of play.
Thank you to the Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles for their support.
Thank you to 400 Conejos & Creyente Mezcal for providing complimentary Mexican mezcal for the opening!
Please join us for "Internal Affairs"
Opening Reception Saturday April 6, 7-10 pm
Curated by Brian Thomas Jones
Internal Affairs is group exhibition of Durden and Ray members.
Come see what our members have been doing with their own practices.
Sunset in a shoebox is our collaboration with artists from Helsinki( Finland) , exploring bohemian philosophy by Galleria Raanka and Durden and Ray. Co-Curated by Stephanie Sherwood and Galleria Rankka
Artists: Mikko Paakkola, Marika Kaarna, Petri Hytönen, Aarno Rankka, Jyrki Riekki and Pekka & Teija Isorättyä (Helsinki) Justino Loza Gomez, Debby and Larry Kline, Stephanie Sherwood (Los Angeles)
Sunset in a shoebox features paintings, sculptures, installation and robotic art that track the lost wisdom of bohemians. It's a wild quest for perceiving the beauty of how one can ramble free on the Earth — free from institutions, restrictions, deadly taboos even though surrounded by the grayness of everyday life. This exhibition is a collaborative exhibition by a group of artists who are based in Helsinki (Finland), alongside artists from Los Angeles.
“Bohemians sought to live a life of creative freedom outside of materialism, violence, and other aspects of society they felt were corrupt.” This balancing on the fringes of one's own sanity and entering new worlds whilst keeping one's feet on Earth is apparent in the series of landscapes by Mikko Paakkola, which were painted at shoebox scale. Repeating a single act such as a small-scale landscape painting can allow you to recognize small moments of change and nuance in a way you may not if each action was wildly different from the previous.
Traveling from Helsinki, Finland, are seven artists from the rich community that has congregated around Galleria Rankka, an artist-run space with nearly 10 years of exhibits in the city. The magical realism of Marika Kaarna’s large paintings consist mainly of incidental encounters of mundane life. They imply a search through the altar of art, in the auroras borealis of visions and in deep dreams without negating everyday life. An installation of paintings by Petri Hytönen balance between the living, the dead, and madness. Hytönen’s ecstatic search spawns a Bohemian alter-ego who creates his path on the road yet stays on the surface without sinking completely into oblivion. The work of Aarno Rankka grapples with themes of labor: its intensity, the time it costs, necessary tools, commerce and faith. Laborious in their appearance, detailed figures hint at the amount of time and concentration necessary to create such objects; time which slips quickly through our fingers. Beasts and minions feast in the paintings and drawings of Jyrki Riekki. At most it can be reminiscent of baroque painting, but cut and shaken up for our own brutal, frightening age. Bohemian robot, portrait of the poet Charles Bukowski is an interactive robot sculpture by artist duo Pekka & Teija Isorättyä. The robot’s destructive features present the sublime imperfection of humanity.
Included in Sunset in a shoebox are four artists from Los Angeles, Justino Loza Gomez, Debby and Larry Kline and Stephanie Sherwood. Debby and Larry Kline, known as the Juggling Klines, create works which are political in nature and critical of larger systemic issues in America. Exemplifying a bohemian attitude, Consecrations of Gratitude by Justino Loza Gomez is a body of works created at bus stops around Los Angeles—star signs honoring friends made out of chewed bubble gum. Continuing the thread of works created in public without permission are works from Stephanie Sherwood’s Confine In Situ series which render loose, expressionistic paintings in sunset tones onto discarded furniture on streets and sidewalks.
Sunset in a shoebox honors the tradition of a bohemian lifestyle, which takes bravery and a commitment to following a creative path regardless of permission.
ADJACENCIES is a survey of the artists who work out of studios in the Bendix building.
Curated by Steven Wolkoff
Artists: Mark Acetelli, Jennifer Berkowitz, Gary Brewer, Cole Case, Jonah Elijah, Megan Geckler, Andrea Joki, Katy Krantz, Sophie Lee, Cybele Lyle, Aline Mare, Hagop Najarian, Nellie King Solomon, Robert Standish, Surge Witrön, Andre Yi
This exhibition examines the neighborhood of artists who share the Bendix building with Durden and Ray’s gallery. This show examines - and aims to foster - the community of artists within the Bendix building, and explores the wide variety of approaches to art making that occurs within the Bendix’s art studios.
Beyond Horizons
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 13th, 2024, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Show Runs January 13th through February 4th, 2024
Curator: Jet Pascua
Artists:
Marsil Andjelov Al-Mahamid
Jojo Austria
Arezoo Bharthania
Tanya Busse
Joe Davidson
Dani Dodge
Eva Faché
Stein Henningsen
Ged Merino
Ina Otzko
Jet Pascua
Stephanie Sherwood
In "Beyond Horizons," we invite you to embark on a multifaceted exploration of landscape, transcending traditional perceptions to delve into the intricate interplay between geography, climate change, and political dynamics.
The exhibition unfolds against the backdrop of the collaboration and exchange between Los Angeles based artist collective, Durden & Ray and Small Projects, an artist-run initiative based in Tromsø in the Arctic Circle, a region emblematic of both natural beauty and geopolitical complexities.
Here, landscapes cease to be mere vistas; they become integral players in a narrative that unfolds at the intersection of climate change, border conflicts, and political polarities.
This exhibition challenges us to broaden our understanding of landscape beyond the picturesque, encouraging a nuanced appreciation of its role as a dynamic force that connects us all. "Beyond Horizons" beckons us to engage with landscapes not as passive observers but as active participants in the unfolding drama of our shared planet, urging us to contemplate the intricate relationships between location, climate change, border conflict, and political polarities that shape the landscapes we inhabit and, in turn, are shaped by.