FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Regen Projects
633 N. Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424
Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com


RAYMOND PETTIBON
Part II: Cutting-Room Floor Show
December 13, 2008 – January 24, 2009
at Regen Projects II
9016 Santa Monica Boulevard (at Almont)
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 13, 6 – 8 pm


Regen Projects is pleased to announce Cutting-Room Floor Show, an exhibition of new works by Los Angeles-based artist Raymond Pettibon. While Part I featured Pettibon's early works, Part II will introduce recent explorations in both color and collage. Pettibon started working in collage in the mid 80's with simple newsprint elements collaged onto black and white images, and in works from 1992-93, the process became more complex. In this current exhibition the collages are extremely worked, layering images and text to produce intricate scenarios and non-linear narratives. Also on view are his powerful paintings on paper, depicting an anarchic combination of the past and present. The works suggest that although history repeats itself, rupture is still possible.

The subject matter in these new works on paper are a continuation of Pettibon's oeuvre: the landscape of war, politics, popular culture, and history. Eloquently playing with multiple ideas at once, Pettibon's works have various levels of interpretation. As a result, a fluidity of images and text occur and meanings easily shift and change. The works operate comfortably between an explicit and implied narrative, making direct and indirect associations that elude a stringent definition.

Pettibon's drawings seek to attract the spectator's attention through their use of a familiar vernacular iconography that is already well established in the popular imagination, one that displays the emblems of optimism and bravery in a kind of equivalent to progress, the revelation of a social subconscious in which sin and pain dwell. In his illustrations, the perfectly-delimited roles of hero and villain become confused and interchanged, introducing a new relativism that calls into question society's established values and immovable vision.

(San Martín, Francisco Javier, "Apology for the Anti-Hero," in Raymond Pettibon. Málaga, Spain: CAC Málaga, 2006. p. 260)

Raymond Pettibon's work has been the subject of numerous survey exhibitions worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include the CAC Málaga in Spain; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and he was the recipient of the 2004 Whitney Biennial Bucksbaum Award. Monographs of his work have been widely published.

An opening reception will take place Saturday, December 13 from 6 -8 pm. For Further information please contact Jennifer Loh, Stacy Bengtson or Heather Harmon at 310-276-5424.