Tag Archives: conceptual art

The sacred and the mundane: Lynn Aldrich’s witty spin on consumerism

In her quest to transform the known into something curious and unexpected, Los Angeles-based artist Lynn Aldrich makes a habit of scouring hardware stores such as Home Depot for materials she re-fabricates into colorful new constructions reflecting playfully on domestic architecture.

“By making these sorts of archaic physical objects that one has to walk around in reality and be near to experience,” says Aldrich, “I’m attempting to call attention to your physicality in a world that is more and more in a cloud of information.” Out of Ink, In the Dark might at first glance be mistaken for an assemblage of pads of the digital era, instruments of that very cloud. Instead, it’s a classic Aldrich “object,” as sly as it is seductive. Made of old-school ink pads, the piece sold the same day we caught up with the artist while she was installing a two-decade retrospective exhibition of her work, Lynn Aldrich: Un/Common Objects, on view through January 2014 at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery. The San Francisco gallery where Out of Ink was on display called to tell her that an East Coast collector had just purchased it.

The exhibition opens Friday, October 11 in celebration of ArtNight Pasadena. The opening night reception on Thursday, October 17, from 7 to 9 p.m., is free and open to the public. RSVP by sending a note to events@artcenter.edu.

Guest co-curators of Un/Common Objects are Christina Valentine, faculty member at Art Center College of Design and G. James Daichendt, Ed.D. associate dean and professor of art history at Azusa Pacific University.

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