Landscape

Gene Beery, Whitney Claflin, E'wao Kagoshima, Alexandra Noel, Ben Sakoguchi

June 30–July 30, 2021

Landscape collects work of Gene Beery, Whitney Claflin, E’wao Kagoshima, Alexandra Noel, and Ben Sakoguchi. The exhibition considers setting in a broad sense—placement both locally and temporally—drawing on work from 1969 through the present. Themes present in the twelve Sakoguchi works on view can be used as a guide to themes in other works throughout the exhibition: art, conflict, history, memory, reality, and fantasy, among others.

Gene Beery (b. 1937, Racine, WI) is a critically important conceptual artist based in Sutter Creek, California. His singular, eccentric practice—first developed in the late 1950s in New York—presaged much of the language-based explorations of the second half of the 20th century. Beery was recently celebrated with a career-spanning exhibition at Fri Art Kunsthalle in Fribourg, Switzerland, 2019 (organized by Balthazar Lovay), accompanied by the artist’s first monograph, published by Mousse. Other recent exhibitions include Stop Painting, an exhibition by Peter Fischli, Fondazione Prada, Venice (2021); Transmissions from Logoscape Ranch, Bodega, New York (organized by Nick Irvin and Jordan Stein, 2020); New Mythic Visualizations, Cushion Works, San Francisco (organized by Nick Irvin and Jordan Stein, 2019); Wall Dancers, Shoot the Lobster, Los Angeles (organized by Ebony Haynes, 2017); Logoscape/Visual Percussion, Jan Kaps, Cologne (organized by Gregor Quack, 2016); and Algus Greenspon, New York (2013 & 2010).

Whitney Claflin (b. 1983, Providence, RI) lives and works in New York, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include ADD SHOT, Bodega, New York (2020); By All Means You Can Have Two Halloweens, Drei, Cologne (2020); Lo, Central Fine, Miami (2019); Just Disco, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn; and Super Killer Instinct, Green Gallery, Milwaukee. Recent group exhibitions include -CORE, Sandy Brown, Berlin (2020); Dear Delia, Shoot the Lobster, New York (curated by Ebony Haynes, 2020); Holly Village, Bodega, New York (curated by James Michael Cardoso Shaeffer, 2019); Vista View, Galerie Buchholz, New York (curated by Caleb Considine, 2019); All’estero & Dr. K.’s Badereise nach Riva: Version B, Croy Nielsen, Vienna (curated by Saim Demircan, 2018); Painting Now and Forever, Part III, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York (2018); FOTG, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York (2017); and ak tu pięknie i niech cię nigdy nie zapomną, Dawid Radziszewski, Warsaw (curated by Rózsa Farkas, 2017). She will open a two-person exhibition with Rochelle Feinstein at Drei, Cologne in Fall 2021.

E’wao Kagoshima (b. 1945, Niigata, Japan) lives and works in New York, NY. Solo exhibitions include The Box, Los Angeles (2018); Office Baroque, Brussels (2018); Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich (2016); Algus Greenspon, New York (2014 & 2011); Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York (2008 & 1997); and The New Museum, New York (1983). Kagoshima has exhibited in institutional exhibitions including The Baltic Triennial, Vilnius (2018); Unorthodox, The Jewish Museum, New York (2015); Better Homes, Sculpture Center, Long Island City (2013); Greater New York, MoMA PS1, New York (2010); The Asian American Art Center, New York (1987); The Laforet Museum, Tokyo and Osaka (1985); and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1982).

Alexandra Noel (b.1989) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include Funny Looking, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2021); There’s always something, Bodega, New York (2019); Master Planned, Freedman Fitzpatrick, Paris (2019); Just a head, Atlantis, Marseille (2019); Theater Road, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles (2018); and From rafters, Bodega, New York 2016). Recent group exhibitions include La Boîte-en-Valise, Office Baroque, Antwerp (2021); Made in L.A. 2020: a version, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2020); The Sentimental Organization of the World, Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris (2020); Bolthole, with Orion Martin, Potts, Los Angeles (2019); A Cloth Over a Birdcage, Château Shatto, Los Angeles (2019); Metamorphõseõn, Galerie Sultana, Paris (2018); Kiss in Tears, Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles (curated by XYZ Collective, 2018); Tiger Poems and Songs for Hurricanes, Travesia Cuatro, Guadalajara (2018); By the Lakeside, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2017); Economy Plus, Balice Hertling, Paris (organized by Camille Blatrix, 2017); Instrument of the Homecoming, The Sunroom, Richmond, VA (2016); All at Once, with Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco (2016); and Aunt Nancy, Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2016). She will be included in Particularities, curated by Chris Sharp at X Museum, Beijing, opening Summer 2021 and The FRONT International Triennial, Cleveland, opening in 2022.

Ben Sakoguchi (b. 1938, San Bernardino, CA) lives and works in Pasadena. During World War II, Sakoguchi and his family were interned at a camp in Poston, Arizona. After the war, the Sakoguchis returned to Southern California and reopened their modest grocery store. He received his BFA and MFA from UCLA and taught at the Art Department at Pasadena City College until his retirement in 1997. He has exhibited solo projects at Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2021); Ortuzar Projects, New York (2020); POTTS, Alhambra (2018); The Skirball Center, Los Angeles (2016); The Alternative Museum, New York (1992); and San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco (1980). His work has been featured in institutional surveys and group exhibitions including L.A. RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles, 1945–1980, Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena (2012); Sub-Pop, Cardwell Jimmerson Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2011); Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2000); and The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s, The New Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, and The Studio Museum, New York (1990). He has been twice awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts.