CLINTON HILL, KAREN LOFGREN, & JOEL OTTERSON

FEB 15- APR 11, 2020

Royale Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Clinton Hill, Karen Lofgren, and Joel Otterson opening February 15 and running through April 11.

This exhibition reflects a continuously evolving understanding of gender norms and sexual identity. Clinton Hill, Karen Lofgren, and Joel Otterson spark a cross-generational dialogue of breaking conventions and influencing openness and acceptance.

Hill’s recently rediscovered paintings from the 1960’s examine the dichotomy of male and female traits in abstraction expressed through color, form, and geometry. Created during a time of strictly defined roles for men vs. women and when identifying as anything but straight carried the potential of social and professional ostracization, these works, much like the artist, remained closeted for decades.

As a direct reaction to Hill’s era, Otterson, who came to note in the mid 1980s, celebrates his homosexuality. His hand blown glass vessels, “Flesh Cups,” redefine designs of Russian prison tattoos embedded with identifiers as well as the addition of personalized “queer” motifs. Otterson merges practices historically associated as feminine and masculine— needlework and metallurgy— further breaking down the rigid ideas of binary gender.

Similarly, Lofgren’s sculptures explore this same fluidity specifically through her feminist perspective. So Much Flesh (Pole Extrusion #3) began with the artist’s fascination of drawing androgynous forms into the earth. A meat-like cylinder is extruded from its mold embodying both male and female elements while Extraction Site traces the absence of a human form, both alluding to a kink- culture that has incubated in the underground since Hill’s days.

Clinton Hill ‘s (b 1922- 2003) work is held in notable public collections globally, including Albright Knox, Buffalo, NY; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Getty Research Institute, John Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; British Museum, London, UK; Guggenheim Museum, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Palm Springs Art Museum, CA and Georgia Museum of Art, Athens. Thisexhibition follows a major survey exhibition of the artist’s work, at the Georgia Museum of Art that opened early last year.

Karen Lofgren (b. 1976-) a Fulbright Core Scholar at University of Arts London, Central St. Martins College in 2017/2018, has exhibited at venues including Espacio Puasa Lima, Peru; the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Pitzer Art Galleries, Claremont; PØST, Los Angeles; Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Vancouver Biennale and Ontario College of Art and Design in Canada. The artist has a permanent installation, also published as a book, titled Trajectory Object c. 2000-2050 produced with Andrea Zittle of High Desert Test Sights located in Pioneertown, CA. Lofgren was recently awarded a 2019/2020 Pollock-Krasner grant.

Joel Otterson (b. 1959-) is included in the permanent collections of The Broad Foundation, Los Angeles; Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan and Jewish Museum, New York. Otterson has exhibited at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.