The Magic 8 Ball is a novelty toy that holds the answers to all of your questions, assuming you ask the right questions. This show considers what you might uncover when using a particular lens, or school of thought, or line of questioning while gazing at walls. Eight Ball envisages the line between: figuration and abstraction; human and object; sign and signifier, and incites your own associations to symbols, colors, materials, and authors.
Math Bass’s tall canvases combine line and color to shape an experience. The work slips past the didactic and into an undefinably vague place, if you let it. Here, the instinct to assign meaning to what might look like a familiar object is discouraged and looking from a different angle might better answer your questions.
From afar, Edith Baumann’s work feels limited in tonal variation, but the competing brushstrokes create a lush surface of color, shadow, and texture. Through both stillness and repetition, the work looks almost transparent, but you will not actually be able to see past these lines. Rather, they tap into something larger: the whole within the whole.
Lindsay Burke combines landscapes, patterns, geometry, and genitalia in dozens of layers of paint and symbolism. Burke’s compositions create a familiar space but, with a deconstructed gaze, gender is fragmented and figuration is subverted. The tableaux are playful and satirical and consider tradition, though are far from rigid or traditional.
By utilizing and abstracting iconography, Anne Neukamp harnesses the potential of sudden visual cues, a sort of meta-language, and urges you to read between the lines. Neukamp begins her paintings with an open-ended direction, while employing similar subconscious reflexes. They confuse perception and are not as smooth as they appear on screens.
Math Bass (b. 1981, New York, NY) received a BA from Hampshire College, Amherst in 2003, and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2011. They currently live and work in Los Angeles, CA.
Select exhibitions include: “My Dear Dear Letter,” Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY (2018); “Domino Kingdom,” Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany (2017); “Off the Clock,” MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY (2015); “Lies Inside,” Overduin & Co., Los Angeles, CA (2014); “A Page from My Intimate Journal (Part 1),” Gordon Robichaux, New York, NY (2018); and “New Modernism,” Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR (2017)
Edith Baumann (b. 1948, Ames, IA) received a BFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1975, and an MFA from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 1985. She currently lives and works in Santa Monica, CA.
Select exhibitions include: “Edith Baumann: Early Works,” Parrasch Heijnen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2018); “White Album,” George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2015); “Magnifici anni,” Art 1307, Napoli, Italy (2013); “Ed’s Party: Spheres of Influence in the LA Art Scene,” William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2012); “Skin Freak,” Inman Gallery, Houston, TX (2011); “The Shape of Space,” 222 Shelby Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (2010); “Red Paintings,” Newspace, Los Angeles, CA (1996); “The Shape of Things to Come,” Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA (1993); “Intimate Universe,” Michael Walls Gallery, New York, NY (1992); and “Art Rental Gallery,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (1983)
Lindsay Burke (b. 1991, Ames, IA) received a BFA from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in 2014, and an MFA from Hunter College, New York in 2017. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Select exhibitions include: “Another History,” Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY (2018); “Weird Ways,” Marinaro Gallery, New York, NY (2018); “Friends You May Know,” Ortega Y Gasset Projects Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2017); “Cats Without Claws,” Mom’s Gallery, New York, NY (2017); and “Dead Summer,” Rose Gallery, Redhook, NY (2016)
Anne Neukamp (b. 1976, Dusseldorf, Germany) attended the University of Fine Arts Dresden and received an MFA from Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, Germany in 2007. She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Select exhibitions include: “Gamberge,” Galerie Valentin, Paris, France (2018); “Doors of Paradise,” Union Pacific, London, UK (2018); “Late Breakfast” Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis, Bregenz, Austria (2017); “The Familiar Object,” Marlborough Contemporary, New York, NY (2017); “Faux Amis,” Galerija Gregor Podnar, Berlin, Germany (2015); “Jo Baer, Anne Neukamp and Diane Simpson,” Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY (2014); “Circuit,” Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, Germany (2013); Wilhelm Hack Museum, Rudolf-Scharpf-Galerie, Ludwigshafen, Germany (2012); “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” Horton Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2011); “I no longer love the color of your sweaters,” Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris, France (2009); and “German Spirit,” Air Garten, Berlin, Germany (2006)
