"new works"
Lauren Halsey
David Kordansky Gallery
5130 W. Edgewood Pl. Los Angeles, CA 90019 United States
Tel. 323.935.3030 Fax. 323.935.3031 e-mail:
Frieze London 2020
Regent's Park, London NW1 4HAT : +33 1 53 30 85 20 F : +33 1 53 30 85 25 e-mail:
9 > 16 October
David Kordansky Gallery is pleased to announce an online solo presentation of new works by Lauren Halsey for the upcoming Frieze Viewing Room, Frieze London Edition. A VIP Preview will take place from Wednesday, October 7, 4:00 am PT / 12:00 pm BST through Thursday, October 8. Access is available by logging into ViewingRoom.Frieze.com with a designated VIP account. Frieze Viewing Room will be available to all registered guests October 9 – 16, 2020.
Lauren Halsey produces both standalone artworks and site-specific projects—particularly in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles—that rethink possibilities of art, architecture, and community engagement. Combining found, fabricated, and handmade objects, her work maintains a sense of civic urgency and free-flowing imagination, reflecting the lives of the people and places around her and addressing the crucial issues confronting people of color, queer populations, and the working class. This presentation at Frieze Viewing Room displays a broad range of Halsey's studio-based work, featuring examples of three signature typologies: hair-extension paintings, gypsum engravings, and silver-insulation collages (both in three and two dimensions). Together, these works demonstrate Halsey's ability to operate in multiple worlds and registers simultaneously, which has become a hallmark of her boundless, far-reaching approach.
A series of new works are composed from an array of synthetic hair extension wigs, resulting in wall-based objects characterized by riotous palettes and rich sculptural texture. Hair extensions are elements that adorn the human body and transform it into something more ecstatic and visually bolder than it might otherwise be. Such extensions have been a major part of the costume of one Halsey's most important inspirations, the musician George Clinton of Parliament/Funkadelic fame. She translates the emotional timbre of Clinton's far-out, otherworldly persona into wall-based objects that celebrate local expression while maintaining a dialogue with numerous strands of art history, including Color Field painting and the soft sculptures of Mike Kelley.
Drawing from materials traditionally associated with architecture and construction, Halsey also creates wall-based works by hand-carving sheets of gypsum that combine the narrative vocabulary of ancient hieroglyphic markings, her love of vernacular forms, and her sharp eye for cultural signifiers. The works' compositions and varied surface textures place them in conversation with tendencies often found in painting, while their palpable materiality feels decidedly sculptural. The key to this particular typology is Halsey's understanding that each of these representations flow together in the public sphere and the collective imagination. The gypsum works function as documents as much as objects: inscribed images of local tags, for example, record neighborhoods and cultures in flux, steeped in both recollection and dreaming.
Similarly, in Halsey's latest "silver" sculpture blocks and wall panels, markings are recorded by carving—here into each foil-insulated foam surface—but also through a kaleidoscopic collaging of neighborhood ephemera, including materials such as local signage, CDs, and incense. This technique allows her to simultaneously address, on one hand, the sociological space of South Central Los Angeles, and on the other, the fantastical space that borrows from broader Afrofuturist contexts and myths. Inspired by childhood recollections of school and church corkboards, each reflective foil surface acts as a sort of memory bulletin board, allowing her to remix and reimagine layered—and often omitted—identities and histories. In doing so, Halsey collapses linear timescales regarding issues such as gentrification and political protests in Los Angeles to show that building the future is not only a transformation of the present, but also a reckoning with the past.
Lauren Halsey has presented solo exhibitions at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2020); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2019); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018). She participated in Made In L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018), where she was awarded the Mohn Award for artistic excellence. Her work is included in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Columbus Museum of Art. Halsey was the recipient of the 2019 Painter and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York. In 2020, Lauren Halsey founded Summaeverythang Community Center and is currently developing a major public monument for construction in South Central Los Angeles, where she and her family have lived and worked for generations.
Lauren Halsey produces both standalone artworks and site-specific projects—particularly in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles—that rethink possibilities of art, architecture, and community engagement. Combining found, fabricated, and handmade objects, her work maintains a sense of civic urgency and free-flowing imagination, reflecting the lives of the people and places around her and addressing the crucial issues confronting people of color, queer populations, and the working class. This presentation at Frieze Viewing Room displays a broad range of Halsey's studio-based work, featuring examples of three signature typologies: hair-extension paintings, gypsum engravings, and silver-insulation collages (both in three and two dimensions). Together, these works demonstrate Halsey's ability to operate in multiple worlds and registers simultaneously, which has become a hallmark of her boundless, far-reaching approach.
A series of new works are composed from an array of synthetic hair extension wigs, resulting in wall-based objects characterized by riotous palettes and rich sculptural texture. Hair extensions are elements that adorn the human body and transform it into something more ecstatic and visually bolder than it might otherwise be. Such extensions have been a major part of the costume of one Halsey's most important inspirations, the musician George Clinton of Parliament/Funkadelic fame. She translates the emotional timbre of Clinton's far-out, otherworldly persona into wall-based objects that celebrate local expression while maintaining a dialogue with numerous strands of art history, including Color Field painting and the soft sculptures of Mike Kelley.
Drawing from materials traditionally associated with architecture and construction, Halsey also creates wall-based works by hand-carving sheets of gypsum that combine the narrative vocabulary of ancient hieroglyphic markings, her love of vernacular forms, and her sharp eye for cultural signifiers. The works' compositions and varied surface textures place them in conversation with tendencies often found in painting, while their palpable materiality feels decidedly sculptural. The key to this particular typology is Halsey's understanding that each of these representations flow together in the public sphere and the collective imagination. The gypsum works function as documents as much as objects: inscribed images of local tags, for example, record neighborhoods and cultures in flux, steeped in both recollection and dreaming.
Similarly, in Halsey's latest "silver" sculpture blocks and wall panels, markings are recorded by carving—here into each foil-insulated foam surface—but also through a kaleidoscopic collaging of neighborhood ephemera, including materials such as local signage, CDs, and incense. This technique allows her to simultaneously address, on one hand, the sociological space of South Central Los Angeles, and on the other, the fantastical space that borrows from broader Afrofuturist contexts and myths. Inspired by childhood recollections of school and church corkboards, each reflective foil surface acts as a sort of memory bulletin board, allowing her to remix and reimagine layered—and often omitted—identities and histories. In doing so, Halsey collapses linear timescales regarding issues such as gentrification and political protests in Los Angeles to show that building the future is not only a transformation of the present, but also a reckoning with the past.
Lauren Halsey has presented solo exhibitions at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2020); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2019); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018). She participated in Made In L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018), where she was awarded the Mohn Award for artistic excellence. Her work is included in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Columbus Museum of Art. Halsey was the recipient of the 2019 Painter and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York. In 2020, Lauren Halsey founded Summaeverythang Community Center and is currently developing a major public monument for construction in South Central Los Angeles, where she and her family have lived and worked for generations.
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Lauren Halsey |
Invitation-only Preview: 7 October
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