Jackie Castillo: "Turning"

as is
past exhibition

June 17 - August 5, 2023

Turning consists of three works in which domestic tracts and remnants of infrastructure are unearthed and rebuilt; raised and collapsed. Turning is an excavation of the historical and material loss of the Southern California built environment. Three images—a hearth without a home, a tomb-like structure, and a mound of earth—are segmented and fused to the topmost layers of topographic stacks of reclaimed building units (reclaimed tiles, bricks, and cement pavers). The demolition sites erupt from the ground like a staircase, rapidly ascending into both mounds of debris and, alternately, the foundational layers of building. In moments of quaking tension, the edges of the photographic frame begin to fragment, breaking our habitual experience of photography and holding still the transience of the developing metropolis. Important to the work is the visual language of labor, called to mind by my physical act of solely assembling the modular sculptures when exhibited. The emphasis on the material evidence of construction reflects on the laboring class that built the structures around us.

Lenard Smith: Spatial Studies

as is
past exhibition

April 22 - June 10, 2023

There is a widely held expectation that an artist working from a distinct, perhaps under-represented, subject position—a youngish Black man, for instance—will make art that reflects, even foregrounds, his own racial identity. Appreciating the power of expectation, as he does, Los Angeles artist Lenard Smith codes his work with great subtlety. Indeed, his artworks are sometimes so subtle on the subject of race that they effectively ask the question: Is the Black content we find in this art “implied,” that is to say, placed there intentionally, if quietly, by the artist? Or is it “inferred,” present largely as the result of our determination to find the thing we are seeking?

George Porcari: "Things: A Story"

as is
past exhibition

April 22 - June 10, 2023

“These still life works were started in 2008 and continue, on and off, to this day. I have been in a deep immersion with books from early on when my dad would regularly take me to the Gardena Public Library – he hated buying books and loved to read. From being an avid reader I went to work at The Strand Bookstore in New York City in 1980. I was also the Acquisitions Librarian at the Art Center College Library in Pasadena from 1989 to 2017.

Tom Eatherton: “Memorial Exhibition”

as is
past exhibition

March 4 - April 15, 2023

Tom Eatherton (1934–2023) was one of the most accomplished of the California Light and Space Artists,  that cohort of 1960’s and 1970’s era figures who’s gallery-filling, controlled-light room environments directed attention to the specifically “perceptual” qualities of the art viewing experience. Even more than the others, Eatherton doggedly pursued the alluring if ultimately quixotic dream of producing a direct and unmediated art experience detached from history and cultural context. “Not ‘symbolic’ but entirely ‘experiential,’” he would insist about his own work. If the results sometimes diverged from the artist’s sweeping ambitions, if “the ideal” struggled valiantly against the limitations of “the real,” then this, as they say, was “not a bug but a feature,” as now, particularly with the passage of time, the surviving material artifacts of this practice are practically aching with poignancy.

Brian Sharp: The Wind Blew

as is
past exhibition

January 14 - February 25, 2023


“Poetics,” according to one old Structuralist, is largely a matter of reconciling “the pole of selection” with “the pole of combination.” Some hundred years later, and operating in a far more crowded media environment, Los Angeles painter Brian Sharp has come to a similarly stark conclusion: That making art might be a matter of finding things “hidden,” so to speak, in plain sight (selection) and then interpreting and presenting them in new and meaningful ways (combination).

Robert Wilhite and Guy de Cointet

as is
past exhibition

November 5 - December 23, 2022

Throughout the history of theatre, theatrical props and sets have been used to support and complement the actors performing on stage. The 1970’s era plays of artists Guy de Cointet (1934-1983) and Robert Wilhite (b 1946) challenged this hierarchy, provocatively suggesting that stage actors may sometimes be serving the interests of their sets and props even more than the other way around. Acting on this insight, as-is.la presents “Robert Wilhite and Guy de Cointet,” an exhibition featuring sets, props and artifacts from “Iglu” (first performed, Los Angeles, 1977) and “Ethiopia” (first performed, Los Angeles, 1976 and again, most recently in October of this year), the two plays co-authored by this pair of historically important if sometimes insufficiently recognized artists.

Ron Griffin: Paintings

as is
past exhibition

September 17 - October 29, 2022

Ron Griffin’s paintings have been aptly described as “readymades in reverse.” They deliver the cool alienation of Marcel Duchamp’s famous strategy while accepting none of the accompanying labor-saving advantages so prized within today’s neoliberal economies, art and otherwise. Quite the contrary. For while Griffin’s artworks are similarly under-committed along the axis of content—often featuring small bits of paper and plastic detritus casually plucked off the sidewalk—they are wildly over-committed along the axis of form, as Griffin exactingly “reproduces” his found objects in paint materials at a precise 1:1 scale. A related body of work begins with wax paper toilet seat covers (Duchamp again) of the sort found in public bathrooms.

Katy Crowe: A Wrinkle in the Macula

as is
past exhibition

July 30 - September 10, 2022

“Katy Crowe: A Wrinkle in the Macula” is presented in conjunction with “Paul Tzanetopolous: Silk Series.” Artists’ reception on Saturday, July 30, 2-5 pm.

This tightly focused exhibition consists of four medium-sized (52 x 40”) oil on linen paintings and a single smaller (16 x 22”) painting, all executed between 2019 and 2022. Here, irregular geometric shapes—often full or partial circles—jostle against passages of vivid if loosely applied paint color, resolving in a tense if finally stable equilibrium.



Paul Tzanetopoulos: Silk Series

as is
past exhibition

July 30 - September 10 , 2022

The centerpiece of “Paul Tzanetopoulos: Silk Series” is four hand-painted, rear-lit, wall-mounted painting constructions occupying two walls of the ever-so-slightly darkened main gallery. The show continues upstairs where similar plaid pattern imagery is presented in a wider array of “packaging,” so to speak: a vintage microfiche reader, video loops, a manual typewriter and, even, paint on canvas.n with “Katy Crowe: A Wrinkle in the Macula.” The artists’ reception is Saturday, July 30, 2 - 5 pm at as-is.la.

Eileen Cowin: see you tomorrow...

as is
past exhibition

April 23 - June 6, 2022

An arrangement of cut flowers: Hopeful or despairing? Wedding or funeral? “Why not both?” proposes Eileen Cowin in see you tomorrow, an exhibition of new and recent photo-based and video artworks by this veteran Los Angeles artist that opens on Sunday, April 24 and continues through Saturday, June 6 at as-is.la.



Load More