FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Please join us this Saturday Evening, April 5th, for the Opening Receptions at Bergamot Station Arts Center.
These events are sponsored in part by LA WEEKLY.
C2 Gallery - Brad Benedict's SIDESHOW: Moods for Moderns
D5 Gallery - David Trulli, All Lines Are Busy
April 5 – 28, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 5, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Robert Berman Gallery
Bergamot Station Art Center
2525 Michigan Avenue, C-2 & D-5, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Phone: (310) 315-1937, Fax: (310) 315-9508
E-mail: berman@artnet.net
Web site: http://www.robertbermangallery.com
Gallery hours, Tuesday through Saturday from 11am until 6pm
Brad Benedict's Sideshow, Moods for Moderns
A group exhibition curated by Brad Benedict
Gallery C2
Featuring works of art by:
Van Arno
Attaboy
Anthony Ausgang
Bill Barminski
David Brinley
Lou Brooks
David Buckingham
Chris Buzelli
Dave Calver
Colin Christian
Sas Christian
Chris Crites
Daniel Davidson
Britt Ehringer
Ron English
Lori Field
Andrew Foster
Sam Gambino
Gregg Gibbs
Colin Johnson
Nancy Kintisch
Laurie Lipton
Everett Peck
Chris Peters
Judy Ragagli
Billy Reynolds
Joe Rocco
Cassandra Szekely
Brian Taylor
Bob & Val Tillery
Mark Dean Veca
Eric White
Barnaby Whitfield
Nate Williams
Robert Williams
Brian Zick
Sideshow includes over 150 works from over 30 diverse artists who share a common attitude, the genesis of which was the "New Pop" of the mid 1980s. That attitude -- over the years described by various names such as Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow, New Brow, Underground -- has been the hallmark of a generation seeking to stimulate, to grab attention, and occasionally to shock.
These artists, now as well as then, are eclectic in their techniques, media, styles, influences and ideas. Yet they are linked by their shared faith in the power of highly personal images in an increasingly faceless society. They don't smooth over the rough corners of their subjects, these creators express their unconventional and iconoclastic visions through irony, through turning familiar dimensions of the American Dream inside out or upside down, through brash colors, through exaggeration, and very often through humor. The humor is essential. It keeps self-righteousness and pretentiousness at a minimum, while highlighting the absurdity of so much of what passes as real life.
Writing for Juxtapoz Magazine, CR Stecyk III observed, "The Sideshow is Brad's unique extravaganza, with previous incarnations launching aesthetic revolutions. Sentient beings chart those original exhibitions as being ground zero for much of what is accepted as le culture moderne. Benedict's Sideshow is treatise on the old and true augmenting the forces of the new and bold."
Brad Benedict is founder of the influential Paper Moon Graphics and creator of the retail store, Heaven: The Supermarket of Pop Culture (with a retro luncheonette that offered Robert Rauschenburgers and Claes Oldenburgers on the menu). As Juxtapoz founder Robert Williams put it, "Brad was one of the seminal alternative artists from the 1970's through the1990's. Now is the time to pay proper respect to the man."
View Selected Images and More Information on Sideshow http://www.robertbermangallery.com/robertbermangallery/exhibitions/Benedict/selected_works.htm
Featured in Juxtapoz Janaury 2008 edition
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David Trulli, “All Lines Are Busy”, 2007, ink, clay and acrylic on masonite, 40 x 30 inches.
David Trulli, “All Lines Are Busy”
Gallery D5
Robert Berman Gallery presents a solo art exhibition from David Trulli titled “All Lines Are Busy,” a collection of new work that explores modern human networks and our ability to disconnect from them.
“Since the invention of the telephone we have become more and more inter-connected” says Trulli, “somehow, though, we still manage to find our own separate places, real or imagined.”David Trulli works in scratchboard: a white clay-coated board, covered with black ink. Fine knives are used to delicately scrape the ink away, creating the image.
A former cinematographer, Trulli compares working in scratchboard to lighting a film set: “it starts out black and you add light.” David Trulli was born in New York and came to Los Angeles in 1979.
He currently lives and works in Hollywood.
Whether by phone, computer or mere proximity, we are more interconnected than at any time in history. We exist in, and are surrounded by, invisible networks. Sooner or later, though, most of us would like to “disconnect” even if just for a little while.
It may not be possible to sever the links, but is it really necessary? There are so many connections, and with them so high a noise level, that maybe we can still find cover and comfort in spite of it all.
We are at once connected and disconnected, exposed and hidden. It is just one paradox of our modern lives.
--David Trulli
View selections from the exhibition and more information on David Trulli
http://www.robertbermangallery.com/robertbermangallery/artists/trulli_david/All%20Lines%20Are%20Busy/alllinesarebusy.htm
Featured this week on FLAVORPILL!
http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2008/4/5/david-trulli-all-lines-busy
These exhibitions are sponsored in part by
