LA Contemporary Gallery

LA Contemporary is pleased to present a solo exhibition of paintings and sculptures by Los Angeles based artist Kavin Buck.

Kavin Buck's artwork reflects on what it means to be a male artist working after feminism, now that masculinity as a concept and as a rigid form of identity has been stridently critiqued and its hold on history revealed. Whether it is his paintings or sculptures, Buck's work expresses the ambivalent existence of contemporary masculinity.

Using materials from the endless array of mega hardware stores, Buck re-imagines the growth and industrial decay of his native Los Angeles, Included are paintings that use house paints, chalk lines, rubber, and enamels that together form linear abstractions reflecting the unique vertical and horizontal dichotomy of L.A. as a metropolis. Buck's sculptures expand on the linear format of his paintings to include overlooked objects found within work sites. Constructed of glass, aluminum and cast rubber, the sculptures are apparently too precious, too sensitive for hard work they are designed to do.

In each case, the objects' traditional roles are traded in for art. These works use the substance and tools of carpenters, plumbers, body shops, mechanics, and most other typically blue-collar professions, but their ultimate goal to replace the original function of these materials for aesthetics and intuitive abstraction. The works reflect a man who should be able to cry but cannot, a man who does not want to give up his old responsibilities, a man caught between masculinity's historical formulations and new, expanded expectations about who a man should be. 

Kavin Buck received his BFA from Otis College of Art/Parson School of Design in Los Angeles and his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA. He spent 1985/86 at the American University/Parson School of Design in Paris, France and attended the Whitney Museum of American Arts Independent Study Program in 1989/90.  Mr. Buck was an artist in residence at the PS1 museum in Long Island City, NY in 1990/91and is currently the Director of Enrollment Management and Outreach for the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA and adjunct professor for the Arts Mentor Program at Santa Monica College.