Movements of artistic production, an arm reaching up then swinging down, brush in hand, streaking a canvas with a deep red, a body lying floor bound then animated by the slow progression of music, a strange choreography ensues, clay stacked high in a precarious structure falls and is then reassembled only to fall again to the floor smacking the cement, a model is posed in situ, limbs curled, a photographer mutters commands composing form from behind a camera. These movements serve as the material for Brice Bischoff’s photographic works entitled, The Glassell Park Series.
The series is named after the neighborhood where Bischoff has a studio and where all the work for this exhibition was produced. Bischoff is interested in the site of the artist’s studio, as well as questioning how, in the modernist sense, is a mythic place where materials, actions, and artist combine in an alchemic process of ideas and intentions; a place where art begins. Here he attempts to record these beginnings through the medium of photography. In doing this, Bischoff assumes the role of creator (painter, sculptor, dancer, photographer, any medium rooted in a studio practice) and performs the act of creation for the still camera. The resulting artwork offers a glimpse into process and performance, a blurry, ghostly mess of artistic production.
This exhibition presents large format photographs installed alongside the props Bischoff created and used during the various performances represented in the photographs. A variety of the non-photographic elements on view are a result of artistic collaboration. Bischoff asked friends, Swiss artist Charlotte Herzig to paint a mural on his studio wall, Los Angeles/Austrian based artist Seth Weiner to use his sculptures as props, and Los Angeles based model Jill Henderson to pose. Both Herzig and Weiner will have work represented in the exhibition, a mural and sculptures respectively. Accompanying the exhibition will be an illustrated catalog with an essay by Austrian writer Claudia Slanar.