Julian Hoeber
06 Jun - 13 Jul 2013
JULIAN HOEBER
6 June – 13 July 2013
Blum & Poe is pleased to announce our fifth solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Julian Hoeber, who continues his investigation of intuitive processes within geometrical compositional systems. The exhibition includes paintings, sculpture and installation and will examine the construction of a body in space and how consciousness is affected under varying physical circumstances.
Hoeber partitions the first gallery into two nearly identical halves. The first will contain paintings from Hoeber’s series Execution Changes with their strict mathematical configurations and lush color schemes and textures. The other side will present their misshapen, distorted twins. The pairs of paintings are created simultaneously, beginning with identical underlying structures. However, Hoeber pushes his intuition and process so that the scheme begins to break down in the warped double. The divided gallery alludes to numerous dualities in how we conceive of the mind: conscious/unconscious, rational/irrational, and left hemisphere/right hemisphere.
The next gallery will debut an installation, which utilizes modernist forms to create a space that activates the uncanny. Viewers will enter a corridor with intense colored lights. As one progresses through the hallway, the walls become lined with mirrors. The interior chamber, which is completely mirrored, reflects and fractures the viewer’s sense of self to the point of disorientation. This small room will include a white noise machine, a hallmark of a therapist’s office, as well as a few plants and two chairs for people to engage in discourse. However, these allusions to comfort do not compensate for the overall uneasiness one feels in what Hoeber has dubbed a “self-consciousness machine.”
The exhibition will also include a sculpture made from a large, elegant table, which serves as a base for approximately fifteen self-portrait busts in differing deformed conditions. The heads sit on progressively higher pedestals in a stepped pattern. Although finely crafted, the grotesque heads serve as metaphors for other psychological references within the exhibition. The repetition of the initial self-portrait, prior to its mutilation, resonates back to repeated elements within the Execution Changes series and the reflected images of the “self-consciousness machine,” tying the works together in a heady psychological conundrum.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Blum & Poe is proud to publish Hoeber’s first monographic catalogue, the most comprehensive examination of the artist’s work to date. The book will include essays by the distinguished writers Douglas Fogle and Jonathan Lethem, approximately 70 images of current and past work, a checklist of the exhibition, and a complete bibliography. Copies will be available in October.
Julian Hoeber (b. 1974) holds a B.A. in Art History from Tufts University, a B.F.A from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and an M.F.A. from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; Western Bridge, Seattle, WA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; and Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens.
6 June – 13 July 2013
Blum & Poe is pleased to announce our fifth solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Julian Hoeber, who continues his investigation of intuitive processes within geometrical compositional systems. The exhibition includes paintings, sculpture and installation and will examine the construction of a body in space and how consciousness is affected under varying physical circumstances.
Hoeber partitions the first gallery into two nearly identical halves. The first will contain paintings from Hoeber’s series Execution Changes with their strict mathematical configurations and lush color schemes and textures. The other side will present their misshapen, distorted twins. The pairs of paintings are created simultaneously, beginning with identical underlying structures. However, Hoeber pushes his intuition and process so that the scheme begins to break down in the warped double. The divided gallery alludes to numerous dualities in how we conceive of the mind: conscious/unconscious, rational/irrational, and left hemisphere/right hemisphere.
The next gallery will debut an installation, which utilizes modernist forms to create a space that activates the uncanny. Viewers will enter a corridor with intense colored lights. As one progresses through the hallway, the walls become lined with mirrors. The interior chamber, which is completely mirrored, reflects and fractures the viewer’s sense of self to the point of disorientation. This small room will include a white noise machine, a hallmark of a therapist’s office, as well as a few plants and two chairs for people to engage in discourse. However, these allusions to comfort do not compensate for the overall uneasiness one feels in what Hoeber has dubbed a “self-consciousness machine.”
The exhibition will also include a sculpture made from a large, elegant table, which serves as a base for approximately fifteen self-portrait busts in differing deformed conditions. The heads sit on progressively higher pedestals in a stepped pattern. Although finely crafted, the grotesque heads serve as metaphors for other psychological references within the exhibition. The repetition of the initial self-portrait, prior to its mutilation, resonates back to repeated elements within the Execution Changes series and the reflected images of the “self-consciousness machine,” tying the works together in a heady psychological conundrum.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Blum & Poe is proud to publish Hoeber’s first monographic catalogue, the most comprehensive examination of the artist’s work to date. The book will include essays by the distinguished writers Douglas Fogle and Jonathan Lethem, approximately 70 images of current and past work, a checklist of the exhibition, and a complete bibliography. Copies will be available in October.
Julian Hoeber (b. 1974) holds a B.A. in Art History from Tufts University, a B.F.A from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and an M.F.A. from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; Western Bridge, Seattle, WA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; and Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens.