Interactive Visual History Compression (The Ks)

Michael Lett is pleased to announce the opening of Interactive Visual History Compression (The Ks), a new exhibition by Los-Angeles based artist, Chris Lipomi on display from 21 April – 15 May 2010.

Featuring work by: Mike Kelley, Kieran Kinney, Martin Kippenberger, Alice Könitz, Jeff Koons, Paul Kos, Michael Krebber, George Kuchar.

Lipomi works with familiar structures and reference points from contemporary and ancient art history, reinterpreting them in a new language of exoticised reconstruction. In recent projects, Lipomi has employed ‘primitive’ methods to reconfigure and re-stage several significant installations based on the work of artists of the previous generation.

In this cathartic journey, Lipomi effectively turns the ritualistic function that art served at its inception upon itself - producing elaborate hybrids of Warhol, Kelley, Basquiat, Kippenberger, Koons and Rhoades to name a few – to investigate the methodology of pivotal artists, with a playful nod to the machinations of the culture industry.

For Interactive Visual History Compression (The Ks), Lipomi turns his focus outward to the concentration of names in the K section of his art alphabet, presenting work by eight ‘K’ artists whose practices have influenced his own (while the 25 other possible exhibitions in the series exist in the viewer’s imagination as conceptual bookends). For each piece, whether sculpture, painting or video, Lipomi has constructed a viewing platform from rough-hewn railway sleepers – a unifying gesture that invites the viewer’s physical participation for a performative completion of the work.

Chris Lipomi’s recent solo shows include: Edition of 3 + 2 AP's (A Brief History of Art), JMOCA, Los Angeles; Good Idea Today, Do it Tomorrow, (with Brian Kennon) I-20, New York (2009); Uzihektaka Wakipi, (The Cave Project), Los Angeles; Yskki Wakipi, Open Satellite, Seattle; Naagi Maa Nu Wakipi, Mesler and Hug, Los Angeles (2008); and Webik: Okori Wakipi, Renwick Gallery, New York (2007).

His work has been included in group exhibitions such as: Please Come, Tanzschule, Munich; 1999, China Art Objects, Los Angeles (2009); Legende, Domaine de Chamarande, Paris; and Köln Show 2, European Kunsthalle, Cologne (2007). Interactive Visual History Compression (The Ks) is Lipomi’s 2nd exhibition at Michael Lett, preceded by Maa-Nupi Wakipi in 2008.

Exhibition opening preview Wednesday 21 April 2010 6-8pm.