Superficiality and Superexcrescence
An excrescence is a prominent growth, like a goiter. I guess a superexcrescence is a really big one. Less interesting to me than the titles of group shows are the reasons curators cook up for choosing them. I’m sure each of the 13 LA-based artists in this show fit the title “Superficiality and Superexcrescence” in some obscure way, but more important is the fact that Elliott Hundley is one of them.
A recent graduate of UCLA’s MFA program in Painting and Drawing, Hundley’s work has already become part of the permanent collection at the MoCA, the MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Saatchi Gallery. I saw his first solo show at the Hammer in LA the same summer the MoCA had their retrospective of Rauschenberg’s combines and now I can’t see one without thinking of the other.
Part sculpture, painting, drawing and collage, Hundley’s work is usually composed of thousands of small, delicate and complex parts that make up a whole. His piece in this group show at the OTIS Ben Maltz gallery (which you can barely see in the above photo) is 5 un-gessoed canvases side by side, a common practice of Rauschenberg’s (see “Rebus“).
You can see the real thing at the OTIS Ben Maltz Gallery until September 12th with work by Amy Adler, Rebecca Campbell, Marcelino Gonçalves, Lia Halloran, Salomón Huerta, Kurt Kauper, Elad Lassry, Blue McRight, Joel Morrison, Kori Newkirk, Tia Pulitzer, and Catherine Sullivan.
