Five CalArts alumni are featured in Heavy Metal, a new exhibition at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Art Park.
Curated by Nancy Meyer, Heavy Metal explores new sculptural languages through a feminist lens, “revisiting and challenging the historically dominant narratives of large-scale abstraction, sculpture, and Land Art. This group exhibition engages with the legacy of formalism while confronting colonial histories, memory, and the natural world.”
The exhibition proposes innovative ways of viewing and thinking about sculptural art while expanding beyond an initial focus on metal.
Among the exhibition’s 20 artists are CalArts alumni Claire Chambless (Art MFA 20), Beatriz Cortez (Art MFA 15), Ting Ying Han (Art MFA 13), Andrea Hidalgo (Art MFA 13), and Kelly Wall (Art MFA 19).
Claire Chambless is a Los Angeles-based sculptural artist from Houston, Texas. Her work centers around the making and remaking of sculpture and the human form. She received a BA from Davidson College and an MFA from CalArts. Chambless is a recipient of the Douglas Houchens Art Award and has presented several solo exhibitions.
Beatriz Cortez is a sculptural artist from El Salvador creating work in Los Angeles and Davis, California, that explores “simultaneity, life in different temporalities, and imaginaries of the future.” She also holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies from Arizona State University. Cortez has had numerous solo exhibitions and is the recipient of many awards and grants including the Artadia Los Angeles Award and the inaugural Frieze LIFEWTR Sculpture Prize. She is also a professor of Art at the University of California, Davis.
Ting Ying Han is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist from Taipei, Taiwan. Han’s sculptural installations explore community, identity, and belonging through the immigrant experience, as well as social, political, and infrastructural systems. She received her BFA in Sculpture from Savannah College of Art and Design, and her MFA from CalArts.
Andrea Hidalgo is a Los Angeles-based feminist artist whose sculptural work examines themes of love, sexuality, gender, and power, often engaging with identities and experiences considered taboo. She received a BFA from the University of California, Riverside before earning an MFA from CalArts.
Kelly Wall is a Los Angeles-based artist who uses stained glass to create sculptural replicas of mass-produced household objects, exploring themes of commodity culture, tourism, and entertainment. She received a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design and an MFA from CalArts.
Heavy Metal is on view through Saturday, June 20 at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. The exhibit is open to the public Thursday through Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm, and by appointment. To learn more, visit the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery’s website.
By Orianna Reid
