LA Summer

Keith Tolch07/20/2025≫ Art

LA Summer

It’s difficult to look at art in this moment, whatever this moment actually is. Unprecedented to be sure. Stunned, furious, hmmm. A bit paralyzed by the volume of changes that are all nearly as shocking as the previous. Hypernormalization? From an article I scanned in The Guardian, I gathered that the term means something like a condition of helplessness in the face of institutional failure, but the key is not that they’re failing, it’s the character of the failure. They just don’t care about you, they just don’t give a shit. What’s present, and I don’t think it’s pure projection, is a feeling and a sensation of depersonalization. It’s a defense mechanism that develops in response to trauma. I was observing myself observing a tower of cats. You see the bottom one? If you get on your knees and position your ear close to his mouth, you can hear him singing to himself. “It’s okay to eat fish, because they don’t have any feelings”. The rest of the cats are humming along with him. “Something in the way, hmm-mmm”.

Vincent Fecteau, Chorus #4, 1994; Collage

I walked up to this piece and two feet in front of it sat a rumpled up, crumpled up napkin, you know the square ones you can buy at the 99 cent store. I thought it was brilliant and funny and that alone was worth the drive out to the gallery to see what I knew was going to an uninspired summer show. Safe, unchallenging, just stay the course. I asked the lady sitting at the front desk if the napkin was a part of the piece and she seemed a bit confused at the question and confirmed that it was definitely not. I want to think that someone dropped it in front of the piece to help inject it with some activity and life. The front desk employee later came in, reached down and picked up the napkin with a napkin and threw it in the garbage can full of other napkins. I assumed a lot about her as I watched her face contort as she bent down. Did she just eat a Warhead? Is it wrong to think that the manner in which someone reaches down to pick up another person’s napkin can give you insight into the class that person belongs to? Perhaps that’s being unfair. There was no shortage of uptight, poor adults from my childhood who would have made the same face.

Joan Brown, Bather #1, Bather #2, Bather #3, 1982; Enamel on Canvas

It’s always a treat to see Joan Brown’s paintings, but I’m not sure how much I even like looking at them. It sounds snobby to say something like that, but the feeling I get has to mean something. That’s really the only reliable measure that's left. Unpacking a sensation, or the feeling of being around a painting can tell you so much about what you need from the world, what you need from people. I think that maybe her paintings are wild and matter of fact, in a way, but they’re also so dry and lifeless. There’s no connective tissue that holds them together other than space itself. That space is completely silent where maybe at this particular time, I need some confirmation that what I’m looking at is actually alive. She’s really great at what she does. What’s your space? That’s what I would ask her and I think if I asked any painter they would immediately know how to answer such an oddly phrased question and it would tell you everything you needed to know about them, which also means their work (if they’re a good painter). I want to say more, but I'm distracted by the muffled murmurs repeating in my head, “...the animals I’ve trapped… have all become my pets”.

Katharina Fritsch, Apple, 2009-2012; Bronze and Paint

Here’s an apple sculpture that’s pretty beautiful. It’s made of bronze and painted. It makes me think that the object isn’t real and that I’m existing in the ultra-flat space of the surface of a photograph. I’m actually a camera and living in a simulation. This could also be symptomatic of the hypernormalization I spoke of earlier in the article. Dissociation. This piece is called Apple. Thanks Matthew Marks Gallery. The show is titled “Cats and Apples” or “Apples and Cats”. Typing out that title prompted me to ask ChatGPT if it’s safe for cats to eat apples and to my surprise it is safe, but eaten in large quantities can cause digestive issues. This show, seen in large quantities, is causing psychological issues and I’ve become acutely aware of the physical sensation of my life slowly ticking away. I left and on the way out, asked if there was a press package available for the show because I wanted to write about it. The front desk person seemed confused and told me that the images are on the website. I explained to her that sometimes galleries have images they send out to people. I left my email and assumed I would never hear back.

Henry Taylor, The Land of Huey (P. Newton), 2025, Oil on Canvas

I needed fresh air and headed back to my 2004 Hyundai Accent Hatchback and thought about the Henry Taylor paintings I saw at Hauser & Wirth. I’m still processing those paintings but I know for sure they fill me with optimism when I’m taken by their forms. They have rhythm, they each dance within the space of their own flatness. They do it in the face of the absolute tyranny of the rectangle, the edges of the frame. They’re a celebration of the possibilities of a picture. I have never met this man, but when I imagine asking him, what’s your space? I get the feeling he would start laughing and dancing around the gallery and singing to himself, just like those forms and brushstrokes are doing on his canvas, confirming that they are actually alive.