Alexandra Wiesenfeld’s when i when if when lie when life (Xavier Villaurrutia) in art ltd. magazine’s 2015 Top Tens 1.23.16

TOP TEN 2015: LOS ANGELES

By Shana Nys Dambrot

1) The Box, “Eugenia Butler, Eugenia P. Butler, Corazon Del Sol: Let Power Take A Female Form”
Emotional and scholarly three-generation matrilineage yields an esoteric, witty, conceptual, indelible masterpiece of cake, underpants, bread, flies, and understated theatrics.

2) ACE, “Ben Jones”
Art historical, neon-hued multimedia romper room spectacle merging Op Art and 8-bit.

3) Anat Ebgi, “Jen DeNike: If She Hollers”
Dream, nightmare, escapism, reality merge in slow-motion melo- drama of hypnotic video trilogy and culled still photographs.

4) Gavlak, “Vincent Szarek: Like a Rock”
Desert landscape strangeness takes abstract geometrical form; from planar color studies to plein air rebellion.

5) Marine Projects, “Salon No. 13”
All-women group show of avant-garde ceramics, shaped canvases, eccentric paintings, and areas in-between exploring nature and un-naturalism.

6) C. Nichols Project, “Rory Devine: Iconoclastic Works of the Early 21st Century”
Gloriously fine, goopy poodles; a colorist’s dream of a hirsute bikini- clad trucker; color-study wall of party balloons like pixels of joy.

7) The Mistake Room, “Cao Fei: Shadow Plays”
Epic Second Life-generated simulations of modern/historical Beijing’s real-life surreality.

8) Walter Maciel, “John Bankston: Sundry Stories”
Paintings like children’s books illustrations reveal grown-up allegories, starring fantasy furries and real-life chimeras.

9) Mark Moore, “Julie Heffernan: Pre-Occupations”
Luscious, alarming self-portraits and symbolist landscapes; trees in captivity, humans in the wild, climate change in art history.

10) Klowden Mann, “Alexandra Wiesenfeld: when i when if when lie when life (Xavier Villaurrutia)”
Human experience in landscape form: awkward, intense, saturated, dystopic, dyspeptic, and prismatic.

click here to view original article