LA is set for an Arty week! One of them includes a mural of Michael Jackson by artist Henry Taylor! Not the best mural ever seen (not sure what happened to the Fedora LOL) but for those in LA and bored, here what you can expect:
Packed dirt covers the floor in the first room of Henry Taylor’s show at Blum & Poe. There’s also a tree, a chainlink fence and a graffiti-covered cinderblock wall, and from behind the assemblage looks like a homeless encampment, complete with a tent draped in a blue tarp. A spray-paint portrait of Michael Jackson takes over one wall and other portraits, probably of people Taylor knows well or casually, hang elsewhere. Astroturf and a fake pool cover the floor of the next room, where all the hung paintings show figures that are out in the sun but that aren’t at all relaxed. A small gallery in back includes an messy replica of Taylor’s studio, and then there’s the video installation Taylor did with filmmaker Kahlil Joseph, a haunting tribute to Bob Marley playing on two screens in an all black room that smells of burnt weed and incense.
The show is too much, though not necessarily in a bad way. The whole thing communicates frustration with restraint and good taste.
2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Mid-City; through Nov. 5. (310) 836-2062, blumandpoe.com.
