Supported by an award from Fellows of Contemporary Art, LACMA has organized a chronological survey of Toba Khedoori’s work spanning more than 20 years. The show runs until March 19, 2017 and can be seen on the second floor of the Broad building.
The exhibition begins with the artist’s strongest work, described by organizer Franklin Sirmans as monumental miniatures; minutely detailed drawings/paintings on gigantic pieces of paper over 20 feet wide that the artist prepared first with a coat of wax and then added graphic drawings.
The show ends with \”downsized\”paintings/drawings which, in this writer’s opinion, seem to lose the tension of the earlier work. Further, the later work seems to appropriate from other artists. For example, Khedoori’s Untitled (leaves branches) evokes equally meticulous painters such as Astrid Preston.
Jahn Yau summarized the differences between Khedoori’s early versus later work in a 2012 essay \”Neither Here nor There,\”
… it seems to me that in downsizing her work, the artist lost an important tension, which is the space that is neither here nor there but nevertheless served as a site for her mundane things: a fireplace; a fenced enclosure; rows and rows of auditorium seats. The vast (and possibly cosmic) space enabled an ordinary wooden chair and table, for example, to gain a veneer of abjectness. Plainness and repetition became heightened states.
The LACMA exhibition includes more than 25 works and was organized by Mr. Sirmans, Director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami and formerly curator and department head of contemporary art at LACMA, with Christine Y. Kim, associate curator of contemporary art at LACMA.
A 150 page catalogue Toba Khedoori acknowledging Fellows support on the title page and a listing FOCA board members at the end, accompanies the exhibit and will be distributed to Fellows.
Shown below are photos from LACMA’s walkthrough for Fellows on September 20, 2016.
