Lot 184: Untitled (Flat)

Alex Israel (b. 1982) Untitled (Flat) signed, dated and stamped 'MADE AT WARNER BROS. STUDIOS BURBANK. CA. Alex Israel '13' (on the reverse) acrylic on stucco on panel with aluminum frame 66 x 42 in. (167.6 x 106.7 cm.) Painted in 2013.

167.6 x 106.7 cm.

Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner

“I want my work to be as close to Hollywood as possible, so it was a very natural decision to have the paintings made in the Scenic Art department at a Hollywood studio. I figured that they might accrue some Hollywood magic, some stardust, being made in that context.” (A. Israel, quoted in S. Bailey, ‘A Conversation with Alex Israel’, http://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/alex-israel/ [accessed 19 Aug 2015]). The seductive allure of Alex Israel’s Untitled (Flat) ingeniously belies a rigorous conceptual depth. Executed in 2013 when Israel was barely thirty years old, the work mirrors the soft pink and blue tones of a candy-colored Los Angeles sunset, evoking romantic notions of Hollywood and the American West. His first major series, Flats designates both a Hollywood industry term and the perspectival depth of the work itself. The word “flats” is film-speak for a large panels upon which a set is painted, giving the illusion of a backdrop, but, more directly, Israel’s works are also flat in optical depth. Like the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, Israel’s works contains none of the three-dimensional illusions of representational academic painting but are instead literal objects. Israel then extends this dialogue between reality and illusion by utilizing the Flat paintings for a practical purpose: as the backdrop for his dead-pan celebrity interview program, “As it LAys”. In the popular straight-to-YouTube show, Israel imitates the nonchalant demeanor of an Angeleno as he interviews the celebrities that shaped the culture of L.A. into its current form. With a manufactured cool, empty persona and an obsession with fame and artifice, Israel positions himself as the West-Coast Andy Warhol, with an artistic practice equally as critical of the commodification of aspiration. Untitled (Flat)’s lozenge-shaped, colorful canvas conjures up the image of an oversized piece of confection. But similar to the dreams of stardom manufactured in Hollywood, this "candy" is delicious to consume but nutritionally hollow. Israel comments simultaneously on both the allure and the dark-side of Los Angeles— a cultural landscape that is pretty but sometimes regarded as uninspiring. The artificiality of Israel’s canvas mirrors its execution. Reproducing the mock glow of a Hollywood sunset, Israel’s work differs starkly from the lush, painterly representation of twilight by Claude Monet. Not a brushstroke or sign of humanity can be seen: the paint has been applied to the canvas as a sprayed mist by a skilled Hollywood scenic artist. As such, the Flats series investigates the nature of American mythmaking and critiques the culture that produces these cotton-candy fantasies. Just as Hollywood churns theatrical narrative through the assembly line of mass consumerism, Israel manages to take the art out of art, leaving behind a work that is beautiful in its uniformity. By stripping the fairy-tale bare, Untitled (Flat) “deals in the realities of Hollywood rather than the illusions of cinema” (A. Moshayedi, "Alex Israel", in Interview Magazine, reproduced at http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/alex-israel [accessed 19 August 2015]).