Plastic Primitive
June 30 - September 28
IMG_4045
James Gilbert & Garth Bowden, Plastic Primitive, Paris, France

An exhibition of new sculptures, drawings and photographs from Los Angeles based artist James Gilbert and Paris based Garth Bowden.

This exhibition is the culmination of an on-going conversation between the two artists and their individual studio practices. For the first time, the artists have proposed a joint residency together in France where all work is created along side each other, in response to each other, specifically for this exhibition.

This dialogue between the two artists marries the language and structures of primitive visual forms with images from contemporary pop culture. Setting in play contradictory elements – objects of symbolic meaning used for ritual and cultural identity versus objects devoid of meaning – the products of consumerist pop society such as plastic toys, games and cartoons.

There is an interest in defining a period of our collective history and cultural understanding. Drawing from the vitality and power of primitive tribal art and the banal objects of pop culture, both artists seek to compress these apparently opposing elements into objects of meaning and humour.

“The conscious search in history for a more deeply expressive, permanent human nature and cultural structure in contrast to the nascent modern realties.” Stanley Diamond, “In Search of the Primitive”

LeStudio, Paris, France

Share