Until December 19, Depart Foundation is hosting the first major solo exhibition in the United States of Los Angeles-based artist Marc Horowitz. Curated by Nicola Ricciardi, Interior, Day (A Door Opens), features new paintings and sculptures. With a prescient instinct for the untapped cultural potential of populist mediums, notably Internet culture, commercial advertising and the entertainment industry, Horowitz looks to establish a social connection and reciprocity between viewer and artist.

In this new body of work, Horowitz stages encounters between the high and low, and the old and new, conflating art historical references and typologies in a mash-up of thrift store chintz and idiosyncratic commentary. Often funny, irreverently bawdy and even scatological, Horowitz’s sculptures start with formal references to Classical statuary which are then playfully corrupted with the inclusion of junky every day objects; everything from plastic cups to ceramic budgies and clown figurines.

Horowitz’s paintings are executed on canvas with a combination of oil, charcoal, pastel and acrylic spray paint. Combining abstract expressionist markmaking, vibrant color, and cartoonish shorthand, his works feel haphazard and precise, combining the best aspects of spontaneous notation and deliberate composition.

The artist book Phillips Auction Catalog published by NERO will be released in conjunction with the exhibition.

Marc Horowitz (b. 1976) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in photography, painting, sculpture, performance, video and social practice. Using visual puns, large-scale participatory projects, and viral social pranks, Horowitz creates environments of high energy that lift the most mundane to the status of grand event in complex interplays between subject, viewer, and participant.

 

 

Marc Horowitz, Interior, Day (A Door Opens)
Until 19 December, 2015
Depart Foundation 
9105 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles 
www.departfoundation.com

Marc Horowitz, Difficulty and leaves, 2015