Alex Israel — As It Lays

When I think about Los Angeles, I think about the groundbreakers, the iconoclasts and the eccentrics – the individuals who shaped and molded this city, a city that I’m proud to call home. I had an opportunity to sit down with some of LA’s most fascinating personalities. Among them, I met a hitmaker, a billboard queen, an antichrist superstar, a California Dreamer, a witness, a Hustler, a Housewife, the voice of a generation, and a man who changed the world with a pair of scissors...

Alex Israel

Filmed on a sunset-hued set that Israel constructed in his Pacific Design Center studio and on locations in and around Hollywood, a DIY talk show conflates the traditional art of portraiture with the Pop technology of mainstream media. Episode after episode, guests respond to different sets of twenty questions that were randomly selected by the artist, who plays the role of TV host. Bret Easton Ellis, Michelle Phillips, Marilyn Manson, Bobby Shriver, Rosanna Arquette, Vidal Sassoon, Ian Ziering, Oliver Stone, Whitney Port, Quincy Jones and other somewhat crepuscular personalities appear on a TV screen within a comfortable “waiting room” consisting of beige sofas, potted palms and a marble coffee table that once furnished the artist’s father’s office in the 1980’s. Nearby, the AS IT LAYS set is on view, featuring air-brushed “flats” and a sky backdrop that were fabricated on the back lot of Warner Brothers.

AS IT LAYS is a hallucinatory swatch of L.A. space and time dropped into the gallery setting. Here, the abstraction of celebrity presence and screen time are re-framed via an artwork that appropriates the repetitive, sedentary structure of the TV talk show. Israel, appearing in a suit and sunglasses, idly shuffling through his deck of questions (“Have you ever thrown a party when your parents were out of town?”, “Do you read your daily horoscope?”, “What are the key ingredients for your dream salad?”, “What are your thoughts on teen pregnancy?”, “Have you ever been arrested?”...), functions as host, interrogator, decorator and deadpan spirit guide to the panoramic, spaced out, HD landscape of Los Angeles.

Alex Israel’s recent exhibitions include: Alex Israel at Le Consortium in Dijon, France, 2013, Self Portraits at Peres Projects in Berlin, 2013, Alex Israel. Lens at LAXART in Los Angeles, 2013, Alex Israel at Museo Civico Diocesano di Santa Maria Dei Servi in Citta’ della Pieve, Italy, 2012. His upcoming projects include: Alex Israel at Carl Kostyal in Stockholm.

Peres Projects