Secrets of Sunset Beach takes its title from Susan Hiller’s 1987 work, comprised of a composited series of photographs using extremes of dark and light and projected writing in its behind-the-curtains look inside a California beach hut. Hiller’s connection to the American landscape is just one of the diverse ways that this multi-artist, multi-media exhibition approaches the subject.
There are landscapes of urban life in photorealistic depictions of San Francisco by Robert Bechtle, the desert imagery of Kiki Smith’s tapestry, and more indirect works looking at people’s relationship with the country around them, such as Josephine Meckseper’s collage of the quintessential Mustang muscle car, so often seen blasting across the vast expanses of the West in cinema. Ten US artists are featured, with pieces drawn from the late 20th Century onwards, but the exhibition is on the Eastern side of the Atlantic at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, until 16th August.
Robert Bechtle
Crossing Connecticut Street, 2011
Charcoal on paper
19 1/8 x 25 1/2 in. /48.6 x 64.8 cm
© Robert Bechtle
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York & Brussels
Kiki Smith
Guide, 2012
Jacquard tapestry
Approx: 119 x 76 1/2 in. / 302.3 x 194.3 cm
Edition of 10
© Kiki Smith
Courtesy Pace Gallery, New York;
Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
Robert Bechtle
Down Arkansas Street, 2009
Watercolour on paper
Framed: 25 3/4 x 33 3/8 in. / 65.4 x 84.8 cm
© Robert Bechtle
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York & Brussels
Susan Hiller
The Secrets of Sunset Beach, 1987
10 hand-printed R-type photographs
Each: 16 1/2 x 14 3/8 in. / 41.9 x 36.5 cm
Edition of 3
© Susan Hiller
Courtesy, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
Julian Schnabel
Sonanbul, 2005
Oil, wax, resin on digitally printed canvas
107 3/4 x 83 1/4 x 2 in. / 274 x 211.5 x 5 cm
© Julian Schnabel.
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