MiT#135 (Cura Annonae – yellow). (2020). Oil, acrylic, spray paint, tea, coffee, wine, motor oil, rubber, marker pen, patch, sticker, leather glove, denim, plastic tape, metal ornament skull, on canvas. 72″ x 96″.
Careening from a blotted and splattered background into what almost appeared to be real objects floating on the surface, the paintings cavort around a plethora of meanings in Max Presneill’s latest body of work titled “In Case of Emergency.” The overall sense is that forms and untangling of meaning through abstraction, gestural glyphs, and the use of collage elements from the world will build a kind of historical record or even notebook of the things past. Max Presneill has long used muscular abstraction as the fundamental vehicle through which he has described interactions with the world.
Disparate elements vie for the viewer’s attention. The overall pitch is fast and furious, careening between unrecognizable mark-making and the recognizable, like police cordoning tape and fragments of clothing. Intended as a diary of this specific moment in time, Presneill’s paintings offer a puzzling and personal glimpse into his reflections on the way in which the world is configured today. The artist manages to build a jubilant array of marks and symbols that are partial pathways to the events and things around us. One of the great joys of the abstraction is that it is not entirely referential, thus the works in this exhibition do not re-create places or people, but offer an enigmatic entry into this particular moment in time. Abstractions register — in a very personal way — the vagaries of life.
Max Presneill, MiT#132 (Panem et Circenses – magenta), (2020). Oil, acrylic, spray paint, tea, coffee, wine, motor oil, rubber, marker pen, patch, sticker, leather glove, plastic tape, metal ornament skull, on canvas. 72″ x 96″.
Take MiT #132, which features an intoxicating mix of scrambled fields of yellow and beige floating below an admixture of gestural curly cues, imported objects, and smaller symbolic elements like stars and butterflies. The tale is oblique but suffused with a sense of imminent danger. A number of the paintings in the exhibition are mounted by surveillance cameras and signs advising of the 24-hour surveillance, giving rise to the sense that Presneill has his forebodings about what happens in the case of an emergency. The urgency of the painting combined with the abstract rendering of the situations adds up to a kind of discomfort that is actually the best position to be in for the current moment in time. Paradoxically, the artworks could be viewed as a call to action.
Max Presneill
In Case of Emergency
Rio Hondo College Gallery
September 22 – October 22
Bio
Max Presneill is an artist and curator based in Los Angeles. He has exhibited throughout the world including New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Istanbul, Sydney, Beijing and Tokyo and is represented by Patrick Painter, Inc, as well as the Durden & Ray collective in Los Angeles, TW Fine Art in Brisbane, Australia, GCC Arte Contemporaneo in Merida, Mexico, ICFA in Beijing and Patrajdas Contemporary in Utah. His work has also been shown at art fairs including The Armory Show (NYC), The Stray Show (Chicago), The Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Hong Kong Art Fair, the Los Angeles Art Show, Supermarket Art Fair (Stockholm), QiPO (Mexico City) and Miami Projects (Miami) and in both the Yokohama Triennial and 13th Istanbul Biennial.
He is currently the Director and Head Curator of the Torrance Art Museum, with particular curatorial interests in artist-led projects, emerging art, new models for curatorial methodologies and an international scope for partnerships, exchanges and building artistic communities. CBS television named him in the top 8 Best Art Curators in Los Angeles (2015) and Blouin Modern Painters magazine included him in the 2018 Top 25 Curators to Watch from around the world, alongside colleagues from the Guggenheim, MOMA, Whitney, Tate, LACMA and other institutions.
He is the co-Founder of Durden and Ray (2009 – current), an artists collaborative group and gallery in Los Angeles, as well as Founder and Curatorial Director of ARTRA Curatorial, an independent, voluntary, curatorial projects management team which organizes international exhibition exchanges responsible for the Co/Lab Art Fair for alternative spaces (2011 and 2012) and the MAS Attack events (2015-18). Previously he was the Founder and Director of the alternative space, Raid Projects, an influential gallery which had an international Artist-In-Residency program (1998-2008) and the Director of Mark Moore Gallery (2005-8).
CV
Max Presneill
Lives and works in Los Angeles
Tel: 310 804 4647
maxpresneill@gmail.com
www.maxpresneill.com
Paintings that deal with memory, mortality, identity, existential states and the possibility of political action through the act of painting.
Representation:
Patrick Painter, Inc – Los Angeles, USA
TW Fine Art – Brisbane, Australia
GCC Arte Contemporaneo, Merida, Mexico
ICFA – Beijing, China
Durden and Ray – Los Angeles
Patrajdas Contemporary, Ogden, Utah
Education 2001 MFA California State University, Fullerton, USA
EXHIBITIONS
SOLO
2020 This. Here. Now. Patrick Painter Inc, Los Angeles, CA
Moments in Time, TWFineArt, Brisbane, Australia
In Case of Emergency, Rio Hondo College Gallery, Los Angeles
2018 An Explanation of Sorts, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2017 Cont-Exis, TWFineArt, Brisbane, Australia
2016 Reused & Reimagined, TWFineArt, Brisbane, Australia
2015 Triumvirate, Garboushian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA (catalog)
Emphatic Caprices, TWFineArt, Brisbane, Australia
2014 Anarchy & Other Things To Think About, University Art Gallery, CSU
Stanislaus, CA (catalog)
2012 The Captain’s Tale (BH) OR The Liminal Egyptian, Garboushian Gallery,
Beverly Hills, CA (catalog)
The Captain’s Tale (New Bedford) – From Mocha to Moby,New Bedford Art
Museum, Vault Series (catalog)
TCT (Santa Monica), Art@Michael’s, Santa Monica, CA
2010 Glossolalia and Other Stories, Garboushian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA (catalog)
2009 Here and Now, ARTRA, Los Angeles
2007 Wish List, Freight & Volume, New York City
2007 ANFSCD, La Estacion Arte Contemporaneo, Chihuahua, Mexico
2003 Turschlusspanik, Kontainer Gallery (now Nicodim Gallery), Los Angeles
2003 GAP, SCA Gallery, Pomona, CA
2001 Travails, West Gallery, Fullerton, CA
2000 Logocentricity, Cypress College Gallery, CA
GROUP
2021
2020
By Way of Laughter and Trembling, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
Searching for Freedom, Stadtgalerie Badehaus, Bad Soden am Taunus, Germany
Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, with Patrick Painter, Inc
Driven, Sasse Museum of Art, Upland, CA
Personal Contact #1, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
Incognito, ICA, Los Angeles, CA
How long do you mean to be, Laundromat Art Space, Miami, FL
The Vista, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
Return to Aus, Galerie Pompom, Sydney, Australia
Take Your Conscience to the Pawnshop, Terrace Gallery, London, UK
QiPO Art Fair, Mexico City, Mexico
LA Art Show, with Patrick Painter, Inc
Spring Break art fair, Los Angeles, CA
2019
New Gallery Artists, GCC Arte Contemporaneo, Merida, Mexico
Set Today / Set Future, Galeri MOD, Istanbul, Turkey
Matters of Size, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
STEP, 9 Art Center Museum, Beijing, China
Almost Sparkling, Galerie Axel Obiger, Berlin, Germany
Matters of Size, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles
Sunday Painter, NormandiePalms Project, Los Angeles, CA
Supermarket art fair, Stockholm, Sweden
Spring Break art fair, Los Angeles, CA
QiPO 01 art fair, Mexico City, Mexico
Gallery MUTO, Budapest, Hungary
West by East Coast, HangmenProjects, Stockholm, Sweden
From The Edge of the World, Ekkisens, Reykyavik, Iceland
Notes from LA, Gallery Kalashnikovv, Johannesburg, South Africa
Alptraum, La Estacion Gallery, Chihuahua, Mexico
Alptraum, Fine Art Complex 1101, Tempe, Arizona
h Club LA, Los Angeles, CA
Transiting 2 (Artfax), Joseph Gross Gallery, Univ of Arizona, Arizona
Plus One, Artshare, Los Angeles, CA
2018
California Pleasure Principle, Los Angeles, CA
The Discontents, Bermondsey Project Space, London, UK
Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden – with Durden and Ray
Little Britain, Vita Art Center, Ventura, CA
Beset On All Sides, UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs, CO
Under Construction, Finishing Concepts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles is, Once Again, Temple University Gallery, Rome, Italy
ArtTrifecta, Patrajdas Contemporary, Ogden, UT
A heap of broken images where the sun beats, Aegean Center for the Arts, Paros, Greece
Fresh Start, LAVA Projects, Los Angeles, CA
LAKOBE Exchange, Gallery Serendip, Hyogo, Japan
Inverted Realities, McNish Gallery, Oxnard College, Oxnard, CA
Between Post and Pre, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
Tropeycalia Club, Skyline College Art Gallery, San Bruno, CA
2017
Le Petit Prince, Kunstraum Dreieich, Frankfurt, Germany
Wrong II, POST, Los Angeles, CA
Face X Face, Gallery Serendip, Kobe Design University, Japan
Art In Place, Venice Institute for Contemporary Art, Venice, CA
Coincidence & Reference, Museum Villa Seiz, Germany
Antipodal, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
ARTRATION, Fabrik Expo, Los Angeles, CA
Entangled Loci, Hilbertraum, Berlin, Germany
Static, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
Abstraction in the Singular, Bentley Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona
Dimensional Circumstances, Nous Tous gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Upsurge, PAPER, Manchester, UK
Obverse, Durden & Ray, Los Angeles, CA
The Surface of Things, The New Adelphi Gallery, Manifest Arts Festival,
University of Salford, UK
The Collectivists, Brand Library Gallery, Glendale, CA
Round Won, Durden & Ray, Los Angeles, CA
Pop-Up, Manhattan Beach Art Center, CA
Lift Off, Rio Hondo College Art Gallery, CA
Far Bazaar, Cerritos College, CA
Blam Projects, Los Angeles, CA
2016
British Invasion, Lancaster Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, CA
Lost In Words, Kunstraum Dreieich, Frankfurt, Germany
Mondrian Died For Our Sins, BLAM! Projects, Brooklyn, New York
My Life, Kobe Design University, Japan
East Meets West, TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia
AC/CA, Galleri 1, Kunsthogskolen, Oslo, Norway
The Night Opens, Blam, Los Angeles, CA
Concrete Matter & Liquefied Horizons, Garboushian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA
ALPTRAUM, RAE Projects, Berlin, Germany
Destination LA, Endpoint Berlin, Berlin Art Projects, Berlin, Germany
Alone Again Or, Durden & Ray, Los Angeles, CA
MAS Attack 10, Fine Art Complex, Tempe, AZ
MAS Attack 11, FABRIK Expo, Los Angeles, CA
MAS Attack 12, San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
MAS Attack 13, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2015
Miami Projects Art Fair, Miami Beach, FL with Durden & Ray
Manifestations, Carl Berg Projects, West Hollywood, CA
Psychic Hearts, La Verne University Gallery, La Verne, CA
Doin’ It, Kruglak Gallery, Mira Costa, CA
Tupajumi, Hudson Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Gunshow, Space B, New York City
2008
Traces of When, Raid Projects, Los Angeles, CA
“um…My, gallery”, The Brewery Arts Complex, Los Angeles, CA
From Similar Origins to Remarkable Visions, Main Art Gallery, CSUF, Fullerton, CA
Plush, Eagle Rock Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, CA
2007
artLA Art Fair, Los Angeles, with Raid FC
2006
Sex Sells, Red House Gallery, Venice Beach, CA (as part of artLA)
2005
Quickening, MOCA, Tuscon, AZ
Just Visiting, Huntington Beach Art Center
artLA. The LA Art Fair, Los Angeles, with Raid Projects
A Warlike People, M Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona, curated by Lara Taubman
Register The Distance, Borusan Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, curated by Beral Madra (curator of Istanbul Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2005 and 2 previous Istanbul Biennials, with catalog)
2004
The Armory Show, New York, with Raid Projects
LA Driveby Part 2, MOP Gallery, Sydney, Australia
LA Driveby Part 1, Kyubidou Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Network, De Parel, Amsterdam, Netherlands (catalog)
Nexus 1 by nTOPIA, Art and Idea, Mexico City
PLA, Raid Projects, Los Angeles
2003
Midas, POST, Los Angeles
Raid In Chicago, Standard Gallery, Chicago
Scope Art Fair, Standard Hotel, Los Angeles
Tinsel Town, Domestic Setting, Los Angeles
Images of Desire 2, Winston Hotel, Amsterdam
Fragment, PS Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Miniatures, Kyubidou Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (catalog)
The Stray Show Art Fair, Chicago
2002
Curatorial Market, Cuchifritos Gallery, New York (catalog)
Images Of Desire, Fields Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cross Currents, Deutsch Bank, London, UK
Dreamcatcher, RA Gallery, Kiev, Ukraine
The Stray Show Art Fair, Chicago
Glamour Trip So Soon To Slip, Sheehan Gallery, WA (catalog)
Animal Instinct, Cerritos College Gallery, CA
GIANT, Three Mills Studio, London, UK
2001
100% Rag, POST, LA
Ever Since Icarus, Lord Mori Gallery, Chinatown, LA (catalog)
New Video, Gallery Hana, Austin, TX
For Example, Acuna Hansen Gallery, Chinatown, LA
Rising Tide, O.C. Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA (catalog)
Su-Su-Superego, San Bernadino College Gallery, CA
Sound And Vision, Program 12, LA
2000
Phase 3, EGCA Gallery, Santa Ana, CA
Wall Space, Miller Durazo Gallery, LA
10 Degrees Of Abstraction, Biola University Gallery, LA
Strangeland, Andrew Shire Gallery, LA (with Martin Durazo)
Intraconnections, Don O’Melveny Gallery, LA
1999
Desire, Eye Five Gallery, LA (catalog)
Strange Bedfellows, Webster Gallery, Santa Ana, CA
Simon Rondelet International Video Art Show, The Bullet Museum, New York
Land Of Extreme Happiness, SMAC Truck Show, LA (catalog)
1998
10th Annual Juried Show, Irvine Fine Arts Center, CA
IV, EGCA Gallery, Santa Ana, CA
1997
BLOC, Workstation Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Contemporary Diversions, Clocktower Gallery, Sheffield, UK
1996
Spellbound, Octagon Center, Sheffield, UK
SCAT, The Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Stockport Open, Stockport City Art Gallery, UK
1995
Derby Open, Derby City Art Gallery, UK
Scattered, Doncaster City Art Gallery, UK
1994
Morbid Symptoms, Leeds Metro University Gallery, UK
Pullit 8, Pullit Gallery, London, UK
Brute Farce, Yorkshire Art Space, Sheffield, UK
Climate, Cool Tan Gallery, London, UK
Seminars/Lectures/Panels/Jurying (2000-present)
2020
Qipo Art Fair Selecyion Panel, Mexico City, Mexico
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Nominator
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Selection Panel
Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden – Panelist and Moderator
2019
TsingHua University, Beijing, China – Visiting Artist Lecture
Museum 9, Beijing, China – Artist in Residence
Korean Cultural Center Annual Open, Los Angeles, CA – Juror
Arizona State University – Visiting artist
Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden – Panelist and Moderator
War, Art and Visual Culture Symposium, TAM – Panelist and Moderator
San Francisco Art Institute Guided Study Mentor
Southern Oregon University – Visiting Artist
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Nominator
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Selection Panel
2018
Named in Blouin Modern Painters art magazine in the 2018 Top Curators to Watch, from around the world, alongside colleagues from the Guggenheim, MOMA, Whitney, Tate, LACMA and other institutions.
Korean Cultural Center – Korean Contemporary Art panel
Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden – Collaboration Panel
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Selection Panel
