166 N. LA BREA AVENUE
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90036
323-933-5557 info@couturiergallery.com
May 1, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EXHIBITION: WORLD MAPS
Kim Abeles • Irene Dubrovsky
Joyce Kozloff • Ibrahim Miranda
DATES: June 12 – July 17, 2010
OPENING: Opening Artists’ Reception, Saturday, June 12 th, 6 – 8 pm
GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm
Maps are often deceptive, disguising more than meets the eye and manipulated for
socio-political purposes. Couturier Gallery is pleased to present World Maps, a group
exhibition including the work of four artists well known for their cartographic works: Kim
Abeles, Irene Dubrovsky, Joyce Kozloff and Ibrahim Miranda. The maps of these artists
reveal truths frequently obfuscated in mapping history. This mixed-media show will open June
12th (and continue through July 17th ). The opening artists’ reception will take place Saturday,
June 12th, 6-8pm.
The works in the show examine social and political histories, issues of location and
dislocation, identities, as well as chronicling historical and contemporary issues. Kim Abeles,
one of Los Angeles’s preeminent conceptual artists, has worked for the past two decades
documenting the urban experience. Looking for Paradise, (from her Signs of Life series)
pinpoints categories of life forms in downtown Los Angeles in the form of trees. Using a
detailed aerial photograph, each piece identifies trees or structures built as homes for the
nomadic homeless. Abeles urges one to ”look carefully at the city blocks with no signs of life,
peculiar with their concrete landscaping. The edge of the cement world is as we remember it,
and as we see it through a corrective lens.” Also included in this show is “Smog Map” a new
work from her Smog Collector series, an image of the world’s continents “drawn” with
particulate matter (smog) collected on clear acrylic surface. “Smog Collectors are both literal
and metaphoric depictions of the current conditions of our life source. They are reminders of
our industrial decisions: the road we took that seemed so modern.” Abeles’s work may be
found many museum collections including the California African American Museum, Los
Angeles; California Science Center, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum
of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Museum of Modern Art Library Collection, NYC.
World Maps 2/3
The woven maps of Irene Dubrovsky (born in Argentina, resides in Mexico City) result
in a tension between a sedentary handicraft and the sophistication of modern technology.
Dubrovsky works from images of the globe circulated by Google Earth on the net and
translates them into three-dimensional paper weavings polychromed with a mixed media. The
relief
surfaces she creates in the weaving process restores to the globe textures it lacks on the
computer monitor while at the same time translating the satellite images to a pictorial level, or
“artistic surface,” that can be explored through touch. When viewed from a distance, the weft
and woof of the woven paper create line patterns suggesting longitude and latitude lines of
maps. The merging of the hand-created world maps with the technologically precise satellite
photos from which the images were taken brings the world down to earth. Dubrovsky
extensively throughout Latin American and most recently participated in the Biennials of
Cuenca and Havana. This is her first exhibition in the United States.
Pioneering feminist artist Joyce Kozloff (based in New York City) is most concerned
with issues such as history of Western ethnocentrism, the meaning of public space and the
artificial separation of the fine and applied arts. Kozloff is fascinated with the map as metaphor
and her interests include the psychology of domination, the seductions of power and the
fallacies of the patriarchal and Western-centric vision of history. Her maps, be they in the form
of globes, masks or banners gloriously painted, drawn, and/or collaged are elegant
commentary on very current issues including national illusions of grandeur in various periods
of world history, American global dominance, and distorted views of the world in general.
Kozloff’s Knowledge series, world globes covered with layers of plaster, are painted with
watercolor and based on “cartographic pieces dating from first century Rome to early 17th c.
Europe and encompass the Western world’s key eras of global exploration and conquest. They
reflect the dominant thinking and assumptions of the rest of the world.” Her mask series,
based on the Venetian Carnival, are painted with maps of islands taken from maps down
through history which here take on the feel of tattoo or body art. Kozloff’s work has been
widely published and may be found in numerous museum collections including the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of
Modern Art, New York; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; and the Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York.
The long maps of Ibrahim Miranda (born and lives in Havana, Cuba) display
disproportionate extensions of images beyond what is routinely depicted in maps. Each of
these maps are constructed from pre-printed geographic maps of Cuba taken from old atlases
and then painted, and/or printed with lithography, silk-screened or woodblocks. Miranda
superimposes depictions of the myths, religions, customs and cultures completely neglected in
166 N LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90036 • 323-933-5557 www.couturiergallery.com
World Maps 3/3
the technical and scientific geographic maps. His inspiration comes from the poetry and myths
familiar to him and without irony, sarcasm or cynicism proposes alternate models for the
morphology of the island. By sometimes obscuring the shape of the island, Miranda
unwittingly suggests the primary function of maps- their precision and exactitude or
“correctness,” – is not sufficient to identify any one place in the world and by superimposing
images of world historical reference he begins to reveal the more private, unacknowledged
locale. Public collections where Miranda’s work may be found include Casa de las Américas, La
Habana, Cuba; Centro Wifredo Lam, La Habana, Cuba; Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana, Cuba; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.;
Peter Norton Collection. Santa Mónica, Los Angeles; Thyssen – Bornemisza Contemporary Art
Foundation, Austria.
For further information or visuals, please contact the gallery: info@couturiergallery.com
166 N LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90036 • 323-933-5557 www.couturiergallery.com