ArtScene Magazine
Diane Calder
"Power Points" is a
multimedia examination of the abuse and potential of power that joins a
trio of artists together who have been recently lauded for major works
in public places. Chusien Chang, noted for her public art installations
in Chinatown’s Metro Station, focuses on the plight of captive elephants
with a window display that superimposes tortuous tools employed to
“train” the animals over a poster commemorating these intelligent
giants. Inside the gallery, Chang’s pastel drawings of segments of
elephant anatomy could be interpreted as referencing “The Blind Men and
the Elephant,” an insight into the inexpressible nature of truth.
Francisco Letelier, whose numerous public works include murals adorning
the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro Station, centers a stunning copper
etching featuring his poetic writing amidst a group of intimately
scaled, mixed media works that reflect his personal re-enchantment with
the powerful Mayan myth of
Popl Vuh. Collaged narratives and
weathered images of feathered serpents play off hand written
translations of cultural myths. Skin shed by molting snakes and
fragments of gilded papers, bone and bark suggest a mysterious mixture
of present and past, personal and cultural values. Meanwhile, Haitian
born artist Karl Jean-Guerly Petion, a participant in the 18th Street
Art Center’s 2011 “Debating Through the Arts,”
questions
social justice with whimsically re-imagined sculptures composed of a
variety of found objects. Petion’s assemblage works interact with his
arresting unframed paintings that confront emotionally charged first-
and third-world class issues via theoretical texts and compelling
images, such as that of his black man vaulting skyward over a strand of
barbed wire. Guest curator Nancy Buchanan’s conviction is here
validated: that these three artists, when joined together on a more
intimate scale, can move us deeply (
Avenue 50 Studio, Northeast Los Angeles).
Diane Calder
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