It's hard not to see RAYMOND PETTIBON as a quintessentially Californian artist. His career began in the 1970s designing album covers and flyers for his brother's band, Black Flag, and he gained recognition in the art world along with other West Coast artists like MIKE KELLEY through exhibitions like MOCA's seminal Helter Skelter in 1992.
Last night's opening of Are Your Motives Pure? Raymond Pettibon Surfers at Venus Over Manhattan in New York certainly positioned the artist as an ambassador of the laid-back beach vibes that characterize communities like Malibu and Venice. Pettibon grew up in Hermosa Beach, and for almost the entirety of his career has been painting surfers in his signature comic-inspired style. This exhibition is the first to cull the surfer paintings––48 in total––out of Pettibon's vast portfolio and display them in a single show. As gallery owner Adam Lindemann told me last night, the show as "a museum exhibition in a gallery."
Despite the fact that he owes much of his success to his identity as a California-native, Pettibon prefers not to be classified as a “LA artist.” Rather, he describes himself as “an artist who happens to work in Los Angeles,” he told ELEPHANT in 2010. And indeed, the surfing paintings do much more than simply represent a regional lifestyle. It's clear from the poetic text that accompanies many of them that the ocean, for Pettibon, is a universal metaphor. "For Plotonius the universe was a beach; he liked to feel himself consumed in the very heart of the sun," Pettibon declares in one painting depicting two blond surfers. Yet for all his philosophical musings, Pettibon also acknowledges his own inability to truly capture the spirit of surfing. "Some things (seafoam, for instance) cannot be drawn at all, but only surfed," he writes on one painting of a wave breaking.
Through May 17, 2014
Venus Over Manhattan
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075
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Photos by James Parker
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Marilyn Minter
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Last night's opening of Are Your Motives Pure? Raymond Pettibon Surfers at Venus Over Manhattan in New York certainly positioned the artist as an ambassador of the laid-back beach vibes that characterize communities like Malibu and Venice. Pettibon grew up in Hermosa Beach, and for almost the entirety of his career has been painting surfers in his signature comic-inspired style. This exhibition is the first to cull the surfer paintings––48 in total––out of Pettibon's vast portfolio and display them in a single show. As gallery owner Adam Lindemann told me last night, the show as "a museum exhibition in a gallery."
Despite the fact that he owes much of his success to his identity as a California-native, Pettibon prefers not to be classified as a “LA artist.” Rather, he describes himself as “an artist who happens to work in Los Angeles,” he told ELEPHANT in 2010. And indeed, the surfing paintings do much more than simply represent a regional lifestyle. It's clear from the poetic text that accompanies many of them that the ocean, for Pettibon, is a universal metaphor. "For Plotonius the universe was a beach; he liked to feel himself consumed in the very heart of the sun," Pettibon declares in one painting depicting two blond surfers. Yet for all his philosophical musings, Pettibon also acknowledges his own inability to truly capture the spirit of surfing. "Some things (seafoam, for instance) cannot be drawn at all, but only surfed," he writes on one painting of a wave breaking.
Through May 17, 2014
Venus Over Manhattan
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075
MAP
Photos by James Parker
Marilyn Minter
