BOOK: Doyle Lane-Weed Pots, David Kordansky Gallery

“Doyle Lane: Weed Pots” is an important new catalogue published on occasion of the eponymous exhibition curated by Ricky Swallow at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, in 2020. The exhibition and corresponding publication highlight Lane’s iconic ceramic “Weed Pots”, a form that the artist returned to time and again over the course of two decades. The catalogue, designed opens with an essay by Swallow that underscores the significance of this form to Lane’s practice and career, followed by text by ceramicist Lee Whitten in response to production images of Lane in his El Sereno. The weed pots, so named because they were designed to hold individual sprigs and dried flowers, were among his most consistent sites of experimentation. In a 2014 essay on Lane’s work, Swallow describes them as “jewels of California modernism [that] are most credibly understood and appreciated when viewed in groupings, which is how Doyle conceived and marketed them in both gallery presentations and architectural commissions. That Lane was able to maintain a long career and support himself by selling his art, without teaching or pursuing another profession, was itself a notable achievement, especially since opportunities were scarce in worlds of art and design that privileged the work of white artists. Circumstance and temperament alike seemed to inform his practical working philosophy. Rather than trying to garner attention with bombastic gestures, Lane took matters into his own hands by concentrating on the evolution of his technique and aesthetic intuition.-Efi Michalarou