Calvin Ross Carl

August 31, 2015, 9:59am

Endless Summer: Prolonged Moments Among SEASON Gallery’s Paintings

A few weeks ago, I was lying out with a friend, beside a massive swimming pool, in the 108-degree heat of Las Vegas. The unrelenting desert sun splayed its dense rays over our skin with more thickness than the sunscreen we had put on in vain. Sweat came without the slightest movement. Our phones had gone black and refused to function. Yet, we stayed there for hours. Sometimes we slept, sometimes we swam, but mostly we just lay there, watching the stillness of the palm trees and of the people standing in the pool, lingering in a prolonged state of thought. I thought of that heat-induced slowness and its heightened state of perception when I was back in Seattle a week later, walking through two shows by SEASON. – Erin Langner, Seattle contributor


Slow Enhancers installation view, including Seth David Friedman, FORTHELIVEDEVIL, 2011, Carrara marble, and Dawn Cerny, Anaheim, 2015, Gouache on Silkscreen. Image courtesy of SEASON.

Listed under: Review

August 07, 2013, 9:00am

Timeshares at LVL3

Is the myth of paradise all that compelling? The resort paradise, the motel bliss, dreams of tropical shores and youthful ocean air – are these the same dated visions of vacationing we still cling to, or has anything supplanted their modern aspirations? Do we really delight in a shallow image of shared retreat locations, or long to buy our piece of time from out of a brochure or agency – just another one of many touristic occupants? The theme of the temporary vacation and all its shortcomings has garnered quite a lot of attention by contemporary artists over the past few years. An exhibition by this very namesake, Timeshares, currently on view at LVL3, pictures three artists preoccupations with the idealism the term represents – if not the effects that summer tends to have on more “relaxed” thematic group shows, as well. Paintings and objects by Josh Reames (NAP #89, #95), Calvin Ross Carl, and Maria Walker prod at this artificial fabrication of time as it relates to art and practice; while some pieces directly picture seascapes, palm trees, and other brochure-ready visual ephemera, others take the spirit of vacation as a material cue ­­­– works that deal with pattern, perhaps belonging to a swimsuit, a lawn chair, or mosaic brickwork, and detritus wrapped in colored fabrics, the idea of something less refined simply wrapped into a higher context, masking themselves as paintings. – Stephanie Cristello, Chicago Contributor

Calvin Ross Carl and Josh Reames, “Mañana,” 2013. Sand, 136” x 54”

Listed under: Review

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