Walead Beshty’s Revolution Will Be Colorful

INSTALLATION RENDERING COURTESY JOHNTON MARKLEE AND WALEAD BESHTY

Walead Beshty’s recent series of photograms, called “Black Curls,” are on view as part of a collaborative exhibition with architects Johnston Marklee. “Later Layer” showcases the latter’s models for a set of pavilions for Italy’s Depart Foundation, and demonstrate a strong interest in modularity, marked by permutations of spatial proportions that expand and focus the floorplans. Beshty has emphasized the model’s “propositional” aspect by coating the windows of the exhibition space at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles with color contacts to filter the space’s light. He’s created pedestals according to the proportions favored in the exhibited models; these double as minimalist sculpture and triple as benches. It’s this paradoxically expansive range of options, mimicking the rules of both conceptual art and mass customization, that are packed into what the artist calls “a cleavage in the moment of display and the moment of production.”

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW ON ART IN AMERICA. LATER LAYER IS ON VIEW THROUGH FEBRUARY 28. THE ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE IS LOCATED AT 1023 HILGARD AVENUE, LOS ANGELES.