Lauren Powell Projects debuted GODOG, an interactive exhibition by Fawn Rogers, organized by Los Angeles-based writer and curator Michael Slenske. The opening was held September 15, 2023. On Saturday, October 7, 2023, an art talk featuring Fawn Rogers and Michael Slenske, will be held at the gallery at 2pm.
Fawn Rogers Michael Slenske Art Talk
This is an interactive exhibition – visit the website to find out more. Remember, the exhibition runs through October 14, 2023, so don’t miss it.
A year before the pandemic, Fawn Rogers started noticing the canned oysters and sardines she consumed. She thought they resembled humans tucked into a coffin. This observation inspired her to create paintings on the packaging, followed by a series of works on paper. Eventually, she produced another series of bronze figurative Venus sculptures. These sculptures depict creatures that are half-human and half-sex organ, aiming to evoke a future with reduced sexual repression.
She would later evolve that body of work into a pair of slumped, cybernetic figures hewn from clay, steel mesh, and nails. “Nails represent 5000 years of the creating and destroying we have done,” says Rogers. “We have used nails in every way, shape and form to build our civilizations, which brings us to this current geological era, this time period where humans have affected change we can no longer reverse.”
GODOG
For GODOG, the artist will invite visitors to the gallery to either create or destroy the sculptures with the same tools and materials she used to make them. Rogers will also exhibit two large oil paintings depicting 18th century grotto chairs, which were hand-carved in the shape of scallops in Venice, Italy. In Greek mythology scallops were thought to be a symbol of pilgrimage, protection, rebirth, and fertility. Aphrodite, who was born in sea foam, reached the shores of Cyprus riding on a scallop shell. The paintings, titled Room With a View, serve as a counterpoint to the sculptures, a vantage from which to view this space of destruction or creation. As with the sculptures, Rogers is inviting visitors to the gallery to intervene on the paintings with spray paint, paint thinners, oil paint, markers, clay, nails and a hammer.
Image Courtesy Fawn Rogers Studio
The title of the show, GODOG, derives from a body of neon works that flash the words—DO GOD; GO DOG GO; OH OH OH GODOG. They serve as prompts for different actions and desires. Throughout the run of the show Rogers will film these actions and desires on live-feed cameras. The cameras will record what every visitor chooses to do to the sculptures and paintings. Rogers will later compile these interventions into a timelapse video.
FAWN ROGERS
The artist (b. 1974, Portland, Oregon) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include Galerie Marguo (Paris, 2023); Burn, Gleam, Shine, Galerie Marguo at K11 (Hong Kong, 2023); Your Perfect Plastic Heart, Wilding Cran Gallery (Los Angeles, 2023); Violent Garden, The Lodge (Los Angeles, 2017); and Subject, Museum of Art and History (Lancaster, CA 2016).
On view: September 15, 2023 – October 14, 2023 is open Thursday, Friday & Saturday, noon-6pm, or by appointment.
What: Art talk, Fawn Rogers
Where: Lauren Powell Projects, 5225 Hollywood Blvd., LA
When: Running through October 7, 2023
Website: https://www.laurenpowellprojects.com/
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