Bellows and Whispers: The Large and Small Effects of Structure, Its Presence and Absence
July 11–August 8, 2009

Cherry and Martin
2712 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-559-0100

Claude Collins-Stracensky
Mari Eastman
Erik Frydenborg
Noah Sheldon
Torbjorn Vejvi

The exhibition Bellows and Whispers: The Large and Small Effects of Structure, Its Presence and Absence brings together the work of five artists interested in abstraction. While abstraction as an art historical category is relevant for some of the artists, all of the artists included in the show are interested in the abstract as a day-to-day experience. These artists use the process of considering something independent of its fixed associations as a method to test the overarching structures that guide viewers through artworks. Confident, yet unexpected or incomplete structures can create interesting situations, and while interpretation is what art is all about, of course, the generally-speaking paratactical syntax of the works in this exhibition—a technique in which ideas and images, usually disparate, are placed side-by-side without clear connection—here forces viewers to navigate obliquely in order to come to the conclusions implied. At stake is a sense of mystery, the evocation of memory, a questioning of concreteness and a sense of things less well defined. The resulting artworks facilitate new ways of seeing the world outside of the art context as well as new structures with which to examine the artworks themselves.

Erik Frydenborg, Tomus Repetitus b/w Ossa Minor, 2009. Latex rubber, U/V-shielded polyurethane plastic, brushed chrome hanging stand, hardware, 81 × 45 × 12 inches.