Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1962, acrylic on paper, 11 x 8.75". |
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A Turning Point for Craig Kaufman and for Los Angeles Art, 1958-1964 |
Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1962, graphite on paper, 11.75 x 9".
Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1964, acrylic lacquer on vacuum-formed plastic, 47.5 x 35.5".
Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1963, graphite on paper, 13.5 x 10".
Craig Kauffman, No. 7, 1963, Acrylic lacquer on plastic, 80 x 42". |
Frank Lloyd Gallery Sensual/Mechanical traces the development of Craig Kauffman's work from 1958 to 1964. A turning point in modern Los Angeles art, the work was sparse, clean, sensuous, yet intelligent. Kauffman absorbed influences from European painting as well as American abstraction. Even as a teenager, Kauffman had read Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's book The New Vision. By 1958, he had clearly begun to work in opposition to the dominant Abstract Expressionist mode. Kauffman has stated that his lean, lyrical look was a personal reaction to the heavy and thick abstract painting of the time. In the early 1960s, after living for two years in Europe, Kauffman began a series of work that took forms from the earlier paintings. In small paintings on advertisements for shoes and lingerie, the artist explored sensual abstract forms and acknowledged the influence of Dada. He later recounted the "things I was interested in: kind of sexual, biomorphic mixture of mechanical things." Transferring those images to paintings on flat plastic in 1962 and 1963, Kauffman integrated bold line and intense color with playfully suggestive forms. This exhibition includes works that were shown at Kauffman's 1962-3 exhibit at Ferus Gallery. Painted on the reverse of acrylic plastic and employing flat shapes with rounded contours, the works predict the artist's later vacuum formed pieces. As stated by art historian Susan Larsen, "They had the sleek good looks of a well-made machine, animated by strong sexual overtones. As such, they are late twentieth-century counterparts to the mechanic-erotic visions of Duchamp and Picabia."
Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1958, oil on linen, 64 x 51.25".
Craig Kauffman, Git le Coeur No. 3, 1962, Oil and enamel on paper mounted on wood, 80 x 42".
Craig Kauffman, No. 8, 1963, Acrylic lacquer on plastic, 80 x 42".
Craig Kauffman, No. 7, 1963, Acrylic lacquer on plastic, 80 x 42". |
Craig Kauffman, Untitled, 1962, acrylic on paper, 11 x 8.75". |
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Craig Kauffman, Caimito, 2008, acrylic lacquer on vacuum-formed plastic, 23.75 x 25.75 x 9.5". |
Craig Kauffman's Sculptures on the Wall |
Frank Lloyd Gallery The Frank Lloyd Gallery will present an exhibition of recent wall relief sculpture by Craig Kauffman. The recent work, made from acrylic plastic and spray-painted in subtle, luscious colors, continues the artist's investigation of the medium. Kauffman began his work with vacuum-formed acrylic plastic in the mid-1960s, and has periodically returned to the medium as he invents new forms. The exhibit will be accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Playfully known as Bubbles, Donuts, and Dishes, all works are convex or concave ovals and protrude from the wall. The Bubbles have eight sides and form a hemisphere. The exhibit will also include wall reliefs in the shape of a doughnut, and others from a series containing flat oval centers and raised walls—the Dishes. The deftly painted works are infused with rich color relationships, and saturated with metallic iridescence. Craig Kauffman's wall relief sculptures are his most well known work. Throughout his career, Kauffman has explored the use of unorthodox materials. Art historian Susan C. Larsen notes, "Kauffman's work has maintained its radiant color and its emphasis on certain sensuous physical properties of his materials."¹ However, it is through his integration of sprayed color and shape that he achieves the lush presence of his vacuum formed acrylic wall reliefs. Wall reliefs that have been described by curator Richard Armstrong as, "glossy and symmetrical, the work's visually wet surface engenders anatomical, sometimes overtly sexual, comparisons." |
Craig Kauffman (born 1932 in Los Angeles) is a major Los Angeles artist whose work has been exhibited in the US and abroad since 1951. Kauffman remains an active and enthusiastically received painter who is highly recognized for his history of adventurous engagement with new materials. Kauffman is one of the most prominent and influential artists to have come out of the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s, having shown with Felix Landau Gallery and later at Ferus. Craig Kauffman (born 1932 in Los Angeles) is a major Los Angeles artist whose work has been exhibited in the US and abroad since 1951. Kauffman remains an active and enthusiastically received painter who is equally well recognized for his history of adventurous engagement with new materials. Kauffman is one of the most prominent and influential artists to have come out of the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s, having shown with Felix Landau Gallery and later at Ferus. Kauffman’s work with vacuum-formed acrylics has achieved iconic status for its sensuous rendering of an experimental medium. In addition to his work with plastics, which continue to appear in survey exhibitions, Kauffman is an accomplished draftsman and colorist. Kauffman’s buoyant line has always been a part of his repertoire, and is a key element of the paintings, ranging from the abstract canvases of the 1950s to the silk paintings of the 1980s and 1990s. “By all accounts, one of the most gifted and precocious of the Ferus artists was Craig Kauffman,“ wrote Susan C. Larsen in an essay titled "Los Angeles Painting in the Sixties.” Kauffman currently resides in the Philippines, and he continues to show his work here and abroad. Kauffman's art was included in two major survey exhibitions last year: Los Angeles: Birth of an Artistic Capital, 1955-1985 at the Pompidou Center in Paris, and the Norton Simon Museum's Translucence: Southern California Art from the 1960s and 1970s. |
Craig Kauffman, Atis, 2007, acrylic lacquer on vacuum-formed plastic, 32 x 42 x 12". |
