Peter Alexander, Mary Corse, Robert Irwin | New Out West: Quint Contemporary Art: 7547 Girard Avenue

Quint Contemporary Art is very pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Peter Alexander, Mary Corse, and Robert Irwin. These three artists are all associated with the Light and Space movement in Southern California during the 1960’s and 1970’s. This will be the first exhibition at Quint Contemporary Art for Los Angeles based artists Peter Alexander and Mary Corse and the second exhibition for San Diego-based artist Robert Irwin. There will be a public reception on Friday, September 23 from 6 – 8PM. The artists will be in attendance.

“During the 1960s and 1970s, light became a primary medium for a loosely affiliated group of artists working in Greater Los Angeles who were more intrigued by questions of perception than by the notion of crafting discrete objects. Whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or by playing with light through the use of reflective, translucent, or transparent materials, these artists each created situations capable of stimulating heightened sensory awareness in the receptive viewer.”

– Robin Clark PhD, Curator Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Four decades later, this exhibition, New Out West will be an opportunity to see how these three artists continue to push their artist’s practices into further explorations of perception. The exhibition will coincide with the Getty Foundation initiative “Pacific Standard Time,” which is a collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California, all showing work made in Los Angeles from 1945-1980. Moreover, the exhibition will coincide with The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s exhibition Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, which focuses on perceptual investigations undertaken by artists during the 1960s and 70s.

Peter Alexander has experimented with casting polyester resin in different formats since the late 1960s, creating works, which explore the material’s ability to both contain and reflect light. While Alexander’s earliest objects were displayed on pedestals as sculptures, his newest work is wall mounted.

Mary Corse has been creating bold minimalist paintings since the late 1960s. In her recent work, the artist has focused on light and its effects through large reductive paintings. Corse uses a mostly monochromatic palette that contains deep blacks, pure whites and varied grays. In the past, the artist created a series of light boxes that investigated various illuminations more literally through ceiling mounted as well as wall-mounted structures.

Robert Irwin was a pioneer in the 1960s Light and Space movement. As an artist, theoretician, and teacher, he has played a pivotal role in the development of the unique tenants of contemporary art. Through his own personal Husserlian reduction, his work became the precursor for art “outside” the frame and object. In his new work he continues to investigate the relationship between light, space, color, and shape, with works that are complex in tone, texture and shadow.