ART CITIES:L.A.-Kenneth Price

Kenneth Price, was a prolific Los Angeles ceramic artist and printmaker, whose work with glazed and painted clay transformed traditional ceramics while also expanding orthodox definitions of American and European sculpture. In the decades following World War II, Price was among the first generation of iconoclastic L.A. artists to attain international stature.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Matthew Marks Gallery Archive

With over 40 drawings, all from the estate of the artist, the exhibition “Ken Price Drawings” at both spaces of Matthew Marks Gallery in L.A., also is the West Coast’s largest presentation of Price’s works on paper to date. Also is on view a small selection of sculptures from the estate of the artist dating from the ‘60s to the ‘00s. Prior to finding his voice in ceramics, Price was initially trained in illustration and cartooning at the Chouinard Art Institute (now the California Institute of the Arts). Price’s drawings provide a counterpoint to his sculptures while imagining a world they might inhabit. “Two Sofas” (1991), for example, shows an imaginary domestic interior with a view of anonymous downtown high-rises. Nature became the dominant force in the drawings from the early ‘00s, which feature erupting volcanoes and turbulent seas inspired by Price’s trips to Hawaii. After his 2002 move to Taos, New Mexico, Price focused more on the high-desert scenery of rocky outcroppings, dramatic sunsets, and isolated trailer homes. He also began depicting his sculptural forms in nature, re-imagining them as monumental figures in a primordial landscape. The effect is both comic and mysterious, like his sculptures themselves. Price said that he hoped his sculptures would seem to be made of colour, and the most impressive aspect of the artist’s paper-based output is his impeccable sense of chroma. In one example after the next, the sculptor surprises with his command of optical effects, a skill honed during his time spent either under the L.A. sky or gazing toward the horizon of the desert near Taos, N.M., the two places where he lived the bulk of his life.

Info: Matthew Marks Gallery, 1062 North Orange Grove and 7818 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, Duration: 9/7-10/9/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.matthewmarks.com