Speculative Materialism:

Abstract Art and Its Conditions

Burley, 78" x 66" acrylic on canvas, 2011

Opening: April 9th, 6-9pm, D-Block Projects, 218 N. Promenade, Long Beach, Ca.


Press Release:

This survey of sixteen abstract artists looks at how abstraction has become a speculative practice in the wake postmodernism. At the level of form many of the artists included in this show mix different mediums, participate with site specific concerns and embrace an aesthetic that doesn't view the architectonic and the organic as mutually exclusive. Outside of these formal similarities each of the artists in this survey is invested in negotiating a distinct set of conceptual problems that range from kitsch to technology to entropy and beyond. While there is no defining ethos for twenty-first century abstraction the artists in this exhibition continue to provide a relevant set of conditions for continuing to speculate about the nature of the abstract.

Artists in the show: Brandon Anschultz, Seann Brackin, Hollis Cooper, Alan Disparte, David French, Richard Galling, Kent Familton, Steve Hampton, Greg Kozaki, Ashley Landrum, David Michael Lee, Alison Rash, Samantha Thomas, Chris Trueman, Grant Vetter and Stephan Walters.