JOSH SPERLING

In Josh Sperling’s Big Picture, the devil is in the details. The first solo exhibition of the Ithaca-based artist in Perrotin’s Los Angeles space combines Sperling’s quintessential sculptural paintings, demonstrating a decade-long commitment to the mastery of form and color, and his recent exciting venture into design, as function wiggles its way into the artist’s core concerns. Sperling’s whimsical lexicon of technicolor undulating shapes comes alive with fresh energy through an immersive environment where art, design, and craft overlap. The exhibition’s cheeky title references LA’s renown as the hub of the film industry and the gallery’s transformation of the former Del Mar Theater into an exhibition space that features remnants of its past, including the marquee, ticket booth, and theater hall. Big Picture showcases a dynamic evolution in Sperling’s practice, highlighting his desire to work beyond the confines of the wall. Not only have his paintings grown more three-dimensional, literally popping off the wall and looping onto themselves, but he has translated his painting language into full-bodied design objects that turn functionality into aesthetic experiences.

A series of “Composites,” each a microcosm of juxtaposition, opens the show and sets the scene. Sperling mixes and matches sharp, flat planes with raised, curvilinear shapes in various textures and surface treatments, creating shifting linear perspectives and the illusion of motion, to animate the painted compositions. These paintings encompass an assortment of dualities that work in tandem rather than in opposition within Sperling’s overall practice: order and chaos, structure and looseness, and minimalism and maximalism. The “Composites,” elaborate power-clashing choreographies of form, color, and pattern, are an ideal introduction to the artist’s practice as they encapsulate many of his inspirations, like 1980s Memphis design, the road signs of LA, and minimalist paintings of the 1960s and 1970s.