DAN ATTOE
DEAD OF WINTER IIJanuary 21st - February 11th, 2023OPENING: This Saturday, January 21st from 6 - 8pm
844 N. La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA The Hole is proud to announce a forthcoming solo exhibition of neon wall works by Dan Attoe: Dead of Winter II.
Further developing the body of work he presented last winter in our Tribeca gallery, Attoe (b. 1975, Bremerton, WA) revisits an important aspect of his oeuvre, the neon wall drawing. Known for painting immaculate and haunting miniature oil on canvas works of man and nature, Attoe nonetheless has always maintained active engagement with the medium of neon. I remember fifteen years ago showing a great neon work with Deitch Projects in Miami, “There is electricity in your head” pictured above. The texts are always provocative non-sequiturs that set off the edge of the image paired with it, both reframing the image and opening up the text.
The six works in the show capture that bleak and interminable holding pattern of humanity during the longest nights of the year. Last February we presented his "Dead of Winter" neons to Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers (aptly abbreviated as SAD) wandering the snowy streets of Tribeca. If 2023 has given us any lessons so far, it's that Angelenos are far from exempt from grey skies and matching moods and could use some of the false warmth of these chilling neon works.
This show features a bear with some human still hanging out of his mouth, a pissed off puffin and a tweaker upside down cat. The largest work in the show, an illuminating lady offers some light at the end of the winter tunnel, perhaps quixotically: floating or falling in a sea of bubbles, she says, “We are doing a thing tonight.” This work brings us back to the reason Attoe has maintained a relationship to neon which is its ability to connote both glitzy Las Vegas seduction and the immediately legible lowbrow appeal of a dive bar. The tantalizing possibilities of boobs and “a thing” draw us in, but the casual non-specificity of the proposition hints that we might be better off skipping it.
Dan Attoe grew up in the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest, attending the University of Wisconsin for his BFA and University of Iowa for his MFA. He is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and The Hole in New York. He is one of the founders of Paintallica, an artist collective that has presented performative installations across the country and is also a prolific cult tattoo artist. His work has been discussed in Frieze magazine, Art in America, Artforum, The Los Angeles Times, Art Review, Flash Art, Berlin Art Journal, Paper Magazine and the New York Times, amongst others. Exhibiting for almost two decades with Peres Projects in Berlin, Attoe has works in major institutional collections across Europe and America. Some museum exhibitions include MUSAC, Leon; ICA Portland, ME; the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo; PS1 in Long Island City; Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt; Musee d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux; Portland Oregon Institute of Contemporary Art; The Zabludowicz Collection; Saatchi Gallery, London; Tacoma Art Museum; the Kemper Museum in Kansas City and the Kunstverein, Goettingen.
Email raymond@thehole.com for more information |
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