Two shows opening in LA Chinatown rekindle concerns for those of us removed and on the far edges of the culture of war. At High Energy Constructs, Karl Erickson and Andrew Falkowski render images from movies and television series about war to underline the way the media has used humor and cult of personality to obscure and reduce the bloody awful meaning of war. Lovely rendered acrylic paintings and psychedelic hydra headed drawings, taken from characters in the sitcom, M*A*S*H inhabit the space at High Energy. Michael Smoller donned high fashion yesterday evening in one dashiki of a jacket. Bravo.
Meanwhile, at Chung King Project, a German curated, six artist show explores the theme of male fantasy, which as evidenced here, normally proceeds towards war, sex, war and sex and gloom and doom. Oh, and an occasional escapist abstraction. The work with the most tooth in this show were a series of Nazi photos that had been refurbished by the artist Martin Dammann, depicting gay Nazi men in various idyllic poses, sets and circumstances. Equally strong were pencil/ink drawings (shown above) by Damien Deboubaix.
