Edward Cella Art & Architecture is proud to present Four-Dimensional Universe, a group exhibition including works by Jennifer Bolande, Michelle Grabner, George Legrady, Jeffrey Vallance, and Amir Zaki.
Four-Dimensional Universe explores conceptualism as a means for making art. The title of the exhibition refers to a quote by legendary conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp and is a nod to the accompanying survey exhibition concurrently on view of works by Buckminster Fuller.
Like each of the five artists of Four-Dimensional Universe, at the forefront of Marcel Duchamp’s work was a shift from the pure material aesthetic practice of object making to a practice rooted in language and premised on context. For Duchamp, he describes his process as a “mathematical, scientific perspective, based on calculations and on dimensions” in reference to one of his most iconic works, Large Glass, 1915-1923 now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He goes on to say, “If a shadow is a two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional world, then the three-dimensional world as we know it is the projection of the four-dimensional universe.”
Since the early 1980’s Jennifer Bolande has been pushing artistic boundaries, cultivating a distinctive and influential body of work that defies traditional categorization. Bolande works across mediums—photography, sculpture, sound, film—bringing rigor and poetry to her nuanced observations and framing of the objects, forms and relationships integral to our everyday lives. Bolande has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. A thirty-year survey of her work titled Landmarks, originated at INOVA in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, travelled to the ICA in Philadelphia, and to the Luckman Gallery, at Cal State, L.A. A monograph, Jennifer Bolande, Landmarks, was published by JRP Ringier in 2012. Her work was included in the recent survey of eighties art at the Hirshhorn, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the ICA in Boston. Her work is included in the public collections of MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Frac Corse, Corsica, France; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; MOCA, Los Angeles; LACMA, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Michelle Grabner’s work is derived from identifying, indexing, and tracing patterns that are the backdrop to a domestic sphere and uncomplicated geometries. These patterns—ranging from the complex to the simple—underscore the organizational structures and limitation within the banalities of everyday life. She holds an MA in Art History and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. She co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art along with Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer. Currently Grabner and Jens Hoffmann are working as co-artistic directors for FRONT, a triennial art exhibition in Cleveland and vicinity opening in July 2018. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, INOVA, The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Ulrich Museum, Wichita, Kansas; and University Galleries, Illinois State University, Normal. She has been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Tate St. Ives, UK; and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland. Her work is included in the permanent collection of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; MUDAM, Luxemburg; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
George Legrady is a new media pioneer who is most well-known for his complex time-based cybernetic works and experimental forays into interactive digital media. He has exhibited internationally and in the US, including solo exhibitions and installations at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, Pompidou Art Centre, Paris, France, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Canada, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taiwan, National University, Seoul, Korea, and has been represented in major European museum installations in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Rotterdam, Brussels, Munich and Hannover, among other major centers. Significant works have been acquired by The San Francisco Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Pro Ahlers Arte Foundation in Hanover, Germany, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Center for Art and Technology (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, the American Museum of Art at the Smithsonian in Washington, the Canada Council Art Bank, and the National Galleries of Canada.
Jeffrey Vallance’s work blurs the lines between object making, installation, performance, painting, writing and curating. Critics have described his work as an indefinable cross-pollination of many disciplines. Vallance has exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Centre d’édition contemporaine, Genève. Vallance received the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award. In addition to exhibiting his artwork, Mr. Vallance has written for such publications and journals as Art issues, Artforum, L.A. Weekly, Juxtapoz, Frieze and Fortean Times. He has published over 10 books including: Blinky the Friendly Hen, The World of Jeffrey Vallance: Collected Writings 1978-1994, Christian Dinosaur, Art on the Rocks, Preserving America’s Cultural Heritage, Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth, My Life with Dick, Relics and Reliquaries, and The Vallance Bible.His works are held in such public collections as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Moderna Museet, Sweden; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Vatican Museum, The Vatican, Rome; and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. His works are held in such public collections as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Moderna Museet, Sweden; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Vatican Museum, The Vatican, Rome; and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Amir Zaki explores the urban landscape across a range of media including photography, sound, and video. Reflecting his ongoing interest in the rhetoric of authenticity as it relates to photography as indexical medium, Zaki uses the transformative potential of digital technology to disrupt that presumed authenticity. Zaki received his MFA from UCLA in 1999 and has been regularly and actively exhibiting photographs and videos nationally and internationally since. He has had solo shows at the MAK Center Schindler House in West Hollywood, ACME gallery in Los Angeles, Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York, James Harris Gallery in Seattle, and Roberts and Tilton in Los Angeles. He has been included in many group exhibitions in significant venues including The California Biennial: 2006 at the Orange County museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Andreas Grimm Gallery in Munich, Germany, and the San Jose Museum of Art. Zaki’s work is part of numerous public and private collections across the country including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA Hammer Museum, the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, Washington, the Orange County museum of Art, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Recently, he has been included in both an Aperture anthology organized by Charlotte Cotton called “Photography is Magic,” as well as the anthology titled “Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles.”