Exhibition Information

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

			Opening Reception: November 2, 5-7 pm
 
Various Small Fires is pleased to present the debut exhibition of Los Angeles based artist Math Bass in South Korea, the artist’s first solo exhibition with VSF. A continued investigation into semiotics and visual processing, Fill It Up Silver mines the methodology of valuation through a series of paintings from the artist’s larger Newz! series as well as a completely new sculptural work from which this exhibition draws its title.
 
The Newz! paintings, a series that Bass began in 2014, feature a constantly transitioning compositional template in which tensions are drawn between the flat, colorful forms of opaque gouache and the broad negative space of raw canvas. Despite the stark differentiation between foreground and background, a delicate slit breaks the flatness of the canvas, indicating another plane beyond the surface presented to the viewer. Mimicking a linguistic punctuation mark, the red slivers mark an inversion of coloration in the forms, baiting the viewer’s instinct to define a compositional hierarchy. The somewhat familiar iconography itself acts as a vessel that can both contain and contextualize value. Exploring the dissonance between visual signifiers and their perceived signified qualities, Bass’ imagery deciphers the tonality of space rather than providing static definition.
 
A key that unlocks the other, each work evokes linearity through a sequential build-up of forms, reading like a line of music rather than linguistic syntax. For their newest sculpture, Fill It Up Silver, Bass casts three broken pieces of bread in lustrous solid silver. The bread, originally released from a raven’s mouth, had dropped onto the ground like three musical notes on a staff, before Bass collected them. Weighing in at four pounds, the silver chunks materialize the distance in meaning-making, an embodiment of filling what is meaningless with value.
 
Math Bass (b. 1981, New York, NY, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans across painting, performance, sculpture, and video. The artist received a BA from Hampshire College and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include: Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2019); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Mary Boone Gallery, New York (2018); The Jewish Museum, New York (2017); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2017); and MoMA PS1, New York (2015). Bass has also participated in selected group exhibitions at Martos Gallery, New York (2019); Fredericks & Freiser, New York (2019); and Gordon Robichaux, New York (2018). Their work is included in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; and Yuz Museum, Shanghai, CN.