BLAM – They Did It Again

By Angela Romeo

BLAM is the acronym for the art movement, Brooklyn Los Angeles Meet. The latest collaboration is Aperture, which opens June 4th at the BLAM Gallery, 1950 S. Santa Fe Ave., #207, in Los Angeles. The gallery is open weekends 12 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. Aperture features Brooklyn and Los Angeles artists. The exhibition runs through June 26.

Artist Peter Hickok curated the exhibition.  It features work from several artists including, Kio Griffin, Alissa Polan, Rachel Mica Weiss and Shirley Tse.

The exhibition, Aperture, concerns the object and the representation. “Using tactics from painting and sculpture, to video and photography, each work questions the creation process of meaning as it is translated between image and object. An aperture can be thought of not only as a space through which light passes to create a photograph but also as the opening through which an idea takes shape as it moves back and forth between two and three dimensions,” explained Peter Hickok.

“Each artist’s personal journey, their point of view, is what is important. Shirley Tse’s work is an interesting personal exploration of possible outcomes and multiple realties. It is a person living in a world of objects and not knowing what it could become,” continues Peter.

It is this multidimensional thinking, of the literal, the reality and the surreal abstraction that makes Aperture an intrigue conceptual journey. As BLAM pushes boundaries, we the viewers are compelled to question what we think we know.

The concept of three dimensionality is key to the exhibition. Whether 2 or 3 dimensional the works present a sense of touch and the power any object has to relate to the viewer as art. There is a push-pull effect and sense of relation of bodies in space.

That special relationship is evident in the work of participating artist Alissa Polan. Alissa has described her artistic journey as working with collage, photography and sculpture “to explore society’s fetishistic relationships with nature and its proclivity to equate nature with consumption, leisure and capital.” Alissa’s work does not disappoint.

For Aperture, Alissa used vintage postcards that she collages with high-end luxury goods, “the ones that state for pricing information please call, “laughed Alissa. “I am working with tongue in cheek humor with an element of sinister. The titles are indicative of that jolt I am trying to create.”

“My work is limited to the size of the post card. The text, mat and frame are incorporated to create the appearance of one solid object.  My work is based around photography and of the history of photography. Photography influences our perception of things. Western Expansion was fueled by photography showing fantastic places and larger than life figures. Photography created the fantasy.  I respect what the postcard represents more than the object portrayed,” said Alissa.

We’ve been around for over two decades (Red Chair and The Grand Canyon”) will be on view at Aperture.  The piece features a red chair that is suspended above the Grand Canyon framed by a rainbow. The imagery calmly soothes the viewer in to the absurdity of the scene. It shouldn’t work, but it does. Consumerism entwined with natural beauty is on display. G-rated fetish? That is for the viewer to determine.

Aperture, which opens June 4th at the BLAM Gallery, 1950 S. Santa Fe Ave., #207, in Los Angeles and runs through June 26. The gallery is open weekends 12 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. For more information visit www.blamprojects.com.