Text by Dave Hickey, Ed Schad, David Pagel, John Yau.
Los Angeles painter Albert Contreras (born 1933) first won public acclaim in the early 1960s, with monochrome paintings featuring a central disc motif. By the early 1970s, with the “dematerialization of art” in the air, Contreras’ pursuit of extreme reduction led him to cease painting altogether, and he spent the next two decades driving garbage trucks and resurfacing roads for the City of Los Angeles. He returned to painting in 1997 (following an intensive period of psychotherapy), producing relatively small, square-ish canvases with thick, gridded swathes of bright colors and glitter, seemingly inspired by the aesthetics of cupcake bakeries, cosmetics counters and custom car shops--canvases that critic David Pagel describes as “obscenely edible.” This first substantial Contreras monograph surveys the painter’s recent and older works.
Featured image, "Untitled" (2005), acrylic/canvas, 12×14 inches, is reproduced from Albert Contreras.
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We see a lot of books around here, and every once in a while something pops up that surprises us all. This season, the current staff favorite is Marquand Books' new monograph on the Los Angeles cult painter, Albert Contreras. Below is Dave Hickey's Foreword and a selection of images from the book. continue to blog
Featured image is an untitled 2010 work by Albert Contreras, who won early acclaim in the 1960s, quit painting in the 1970s, spent two decades driving garbage trucks and operating heavy equipment for the city of Los Angeles, then returned to painting in 1997 after five years in psychotherapy. It is reproduced from the first substantial monograph on Contreras—published by Marquand Books—in which essayist John Yau writes, "David Pagel has described Contreras’ paintings as 'obscenely edible,' and he is absolutely right. Their thick, creamy surfaces are measured X’s of yummy goop. That collision between the lusciously physical and the vibrantly visual is at the core of these paintings. They stop just short of being lurid. They can be gaudy, bright, even garish—like a wrist full of costume jewelry—but they never cross the line, never stop being eye-catching and straightforward in their beauty. They are resilient and scarred, intrepid and exposed. They are celebrations of the serious, wacky and witty. No one else makes paintings like these." continue to blog
Published by Marquand Books. Text by Dave Hickey, Ed Schad, David Pagel, John Yau.
Los Angeles painter Albert Contreras (born 1933) first won public acclaim in the early 1960s, with monochrome paintings featuring a central disc motif. By the early 1970s, with the “dematerialization of art” in the air, Contreras’ pursuit of extreme reduction led him to cease painting altogether, and he spent the next two decades driving garbage trucks and resurfacing roads for the City of Los Angeles. He returned to painting in 1997 (following an intensive period of psychotherapy), producing relatively small, square-ish canvases with thick, gridded swathes of bright colors and glitter, seemingly inspired by the aesthetics of cupcake bakeries, cosmetics counters and custom car shops--canvases that critic David Pagel describes as “obscenely edible.” This first substantial Contreras monograph surveys the painter’s recent and older works.
