Galerie Frank Elbaz to Display LOST IN THE FLOOD Exhibit, 10/22
By: Matt Smith Oct. 22, 2015
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In 1964, Wallace Berman's wooden house on Crater Lane in San Francisco was devastated by a mudslide that destroyed everything on its path. The house on Crater Lane was an emblematic place for the Californian Beat scene where Berman organized exhibitions, conferences and poem readings.This group show is built around Crater Lane as an iconic venue. The works by Wallace Berman, central historical figure of this show, will dialogue with Virginia Overton's and Will Boone's. A soundtrack, a taped discussion in which resounds the voice of Wallace Berman, accompanies the exhibition. The artist, who always refused to be interviewed, is recorded without knowing it by his friend Hal Glicksman in the Berman's family home in Topanga Cayon, where they relocated after the destruction of their home on Crater Lane. Wallace Berman (1926-1976) was an iconic figure of the California Beat movement. His personality and multifaceted body of work deeply influenced several generations of artists, like the one of Will Boone and Virginia Overton. His practice resonates with jazz, the Kabbalah, and poetry that accompanied and inspired his work. The works of Virginia Overtone (born 1971), in fragmented materials, recall the destruction of Berman's wooden house. The idea of the transformation of architectural space is essential to Virginia Overton's work. More commonly associated with architecture, construction work or farming, materials such as wood, metal, plexiglas and fluorescent lighting are cut, bent and hammered into works that evince the power and sensory quality of their own materials. "I like for the work to act as a marker of its own history - letting accrued defects show in the pieces - that talks about the ways in which the materials have been used". |
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