Watering Hole
Peter Tomka
April 1 – May 6, 2023
Watering Hole
Peter Tomka
April 1 – May 6, 2023
Opening April 1, 2023
Peter Tomka
April 1 – May 6, 2023
Opening April 1, 2023
‘Watering Hole’ is the site for a new body of work by Peter Tomka at the Fulcrum Press. The works on view range from the artist’s self-portrait to those of his friends, strangers, celebrity figures and WPA-commissioned statues. Tomka combines his original photography with found images of Rock Hudson, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Jerry Buss suspended in celebratory moments. The Westlake Theatre and Hollywood sign in the backgrounds of two separate pictures map his work in the cultural milieu of Los Angeles. His allusion to cinema can be seen not only in the subject matter but also in his process, where he projects onto gelatin silver paper to create a single photograph.
Portraits of the ‘Power of Water’, a figure fixed in a now defunct and barren fountain and the statue ‘Prometheus Bringing Fire to the Earth’ are relics that bear the marks of time. They both have years of accumulated damage and while Prometheus has one hand missing, he is depicted with the remaining one left intact. He is bearing the torch and waving at us from the watering hole, a place for happy endings.
Peter Tomka is an artist and founder of No Moon LA. His work is held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He holds a BA from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of California, Riverside.
Portraits of the ‘Power of Water’, a figure fixed in a now defunct and barren fountain and the statue ‘Prometheus Bringing Fire to the Earth’ are relics that bear the marks of time. They both have years of accumulated damage and while Prometheus has one hand missing, he is depicted with the remaining one left intact. He is bearing the torch and waving at us from the watering hole, a place for happy endings.
Peter Tomka is an artist and founder of No Moon LA. His work is held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He holds a BA from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of California, Riverside.
Muscle Memory
Tanya Brodsky
Juliana Halpert
Janna Ireland
Blake Jacobsen
Malerie Marder
Jeffrey Stuker
February 11 – March 18, 2023
Muscle Memory
Tanya Brodsky
Juliana Halpert
Janna Ireland
Blake Jacobsen
Malerie Marder
Jeffrey Stuker
February 11, 2023 – March 18, 2023
Opening February 11, 2023
Tanya Brodsky
Juliana Halpert
Janna Ireland
Blake Jacobsen
Malerie Marder
Jeffrey Stuker
February 11, 2023 – March 18, 2023
Opening February 11, 2023
The Fulcrum is pleased to present Muscle Memory, an exhibition of works by Juliana Halpert, Malerie Marder, Jeffrey Stuker, Blake Jacobsen, Janna Ireland, and Tanya Brodsky.
If it is true that images are the universal language, then does our mode of engagement with them and the use to which we put knowledge gleaned from them reveal some unknown? Is there something else that is formed in the space between what can and cannot be articulated photographically? If we accept that all images lie, then maybe there is truth in the phantom gestures of photography, something between the inadvertent and the intentional result, engaged with time and criticality.
Photographic gestures are not always visible, getting lost in materials like celluloid, inks, papers, programs and substrates, as well as in concepts and intentions. The inherently mechanized nature of photographic practices offers its user a systematized means to an end.
Sustaining one’s practice through the structure of the commercial apparatus engages in the gesture of making from a state of personal detachment. Engaged in a singular task, the mind and the hand create an opening for divergent paths to align in a serendipitous moment, revealing something about the maker, about ourselves, and about the world we navigate together. Activated within a conceptual practice, muscle memory unlocks a power hidden within the peripheral, and reveals the ghosting of craft as a means of accessing the shared language of images.
If it is true that images are the universal language, then does our mode of engagement with them and the use to which we put knowledge gleaned from them reveal some unknown? Is there something else that is formed in the space between what can and cannot be articulated photographically? If we accept that all images lie, then maybe there is truth in the phantom gestures of photography, something between the inadvertent and the intentional result, engaged with time and criticality.
Photographic gestures are not always visible, getting lost in materials like celluloid, inks, papers, programs and substrates, as well as in concepts and intentions. The inherently mechanized nature of photographic practices offers its user a systematized means to an end.
Sustaining one’s practice through the structure of the commercial apparatus engages in the gesture of making from a state of personal detachment. Engaged in a singular task, the mind and the hand create an opening for divergent paths to align in a serendipitous moment, revealing something about the maker, about ourselves, and about the world we navigate together. Activated within a conceptual practice, muscle memory unlocks a power hidden within the peripheral, and reveals the ghosting of craft as a means of accessing the shared language of images.
Pictures, Unfixed
Phil Chang
November 19, 2022 – January 8, 2023