Art21 Extended Play

Lari Pittman | Teaching

by Wesley Miller | Dec 18, 2008

EXCLUSIVE: Lari Pittman at his home in Los Angeles; an exhibition of paintings at c/o – Atle Gerhardsen, Berlin.

Inspired by commercial advertising, folk art, and decorative traditions, Lari Pittman’s meticulously layered paintings transform pattern and signage into luxurious scenes. Meditations on romantic love, violence, and mortality, his work demonstrates the complementary nature of beauty and suffering, pain and pleasure. In a manner both visually gripping and psychologically strange, Pittman’s hallucinatory works reference myriad aesthetic styles, from Victorian silhouettes to social realist murals to Southwestern kitsch.

Lari Pittman, “Attendant” (left) and “Operetta” (right), 2006. Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio. Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

SEE: More images, videos, and news for Lari Pittman.

LEARN: Lari Pittman is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Romance of the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.

DISCUSS: What do you think about this video? Leave a comment!

PHOTO | Lari Pittman, Attendant (left) and Operetta (right), 2006. Photos by Douglas M. Parker Studio. Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Bob Elfstrom & Bernd Meiners. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Mark Sutton. Artwork courtesy: Lari Pittman. Thanks: c/o – Atle Gerhardsen.

Contributor
Wesley Miller is the former curator at Art21. Miller co-curated the television series Art in the Twenty-First Century. He is also co-creator of the digital series New York Close Up.

 

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