Spotlight: Kim Gordon
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
A few months ago, Kim Gordon—painter, writer, fashion designer, founding member of Sonic Youth, and Riot Grrrl godmother—decided she wanted to create art inside a house in Los Angeles. She recently revived an art collective called Design Office that she launched in Los Angeles with a friend in 1980, and she wanted to make new abstract paintings using two twig wreaths she acquired at thrift shops. So Gordon found herself in a car with Gagosian Gallery’s Aaron Moulton searching for a generic tract or demo house that would represent the idea of a living environment with space to create and to hang art. “Kim was interested in what happens to work before and after it’s created,” says Moulton, “And how it finds its place above the hearth.”
The result is Coming Soon, an exhibition by Design Office with Kim Gordon installed at the Fitzpatrick-Leland House in Laurel Canyon that closes this Saturday, April 26. Moulton and Gordon found the Rudolf Schindler-designed home during their search, and it turns out the space was constructed as a spec property created to lure housing developers to the hills above Los Angeles. It’s no surprise that the Modernist house built in 1936 turns out to be an ideal showroom for Gordon’s Wreath Paintings, a series of canvases with wreath shapes spray-painted onto them (the two flea market wreaths served as a stencil). After all, Gordon’s music, art, film, interior design, writing, and fashion have all involved a great deal of thought even as each work she creates retains such spontaneity. Gordon spray painted the series in the house’s basement, and left the detritus from her work there as part of the instillation. Then she went about the rooms propping canvases around (one rests on the master bed, others are hung in windows, and some are even placed in bathrooms throughout the space). Gordon simultaneously evokes a house in the process of being redecorated and an artist’s studio. The wreaths bring to mind the notion of a bountiful harvest and also a Victorian mourning ritual. And, as usual, Gordon sparks questions rather than answering them. See for yourself, the exhibition is open by appointment through the Gagosian Gallery.
By Elizabeth Varnell
Pictured: Kim Gordon in Los Angeles beside works from Coming Soon, an installation of her Mullholland Series at the Fitzpatrick-Leland house in Los Angeles.
Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery/ Fitzpatrick-Leland House
