Considering Finland

Sam Falls (b. San Diego, 1984; lives and works in New York) delegates the authorship of his works to the phenomena of nature. Applying water-reactive dry pigments or plant parts to support media like canvas, aluminum, or tiles and then exposing them to the effects of sun, rain, and wind at selected sites for extended periods, he deliberately integrates the agency of chance into his art. The playful yet conceptually rigorous process is a metaphor for the impermanence of all bodily existence. Falls’s symbiotic work with nature and its elements evinces references to the technique of the photogram as well as land art. Melding diverse media—photography, sculpture, and painting—he bridges the gulf between artist, object, and beholder.

Sam Falls studied at Reed College in Portland, Maine, and at the International Center of Photography Bard in New York. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, the Mori Museum, Tokyo, and Frankfurter Kunstverein.

Sevina Tzanou’s (b. Athens, 1994; lives and works in Bonn and Athens) large-format paintings show ecstatic bodies on the verge of abstraction that refuse to submit to categorization, cooptation, or control. They arise from the affect-laden situations the artist sets out to render in her paintings. She begins by priming the canvas with a monochrome coat of paint, on which she then sets down informal, expressive gestures, sometimes working with a mop or so-called “octopus brushes” that recall BDSM whips. The bodies depicted in the works are Tzanou’s painterly response to the abstract forms accreted on the canvas. Everything about her art is performative, the painterly process no less than the creation of bodies, gender, and sexual identity. Her subjects are drawn from ancient myths and motifs in the history of painting as well as contemporary debates.

The Pop Artist as Master of Watercolor Painting

Billy Al Bengston (b. 1934, Dodge City; lives and works in Venice, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii) is a master of the watercolor. Themes and motifs that also determine the painterly work gain a special expressiveness here: bizarre landscapes and opulent blossoms, fantastic celestial bodies and colorful abstractions. This opulent volume presents this part of Bengston’s oeuvre for the first time in great breadth with roughly 400 works. They demonstrate the skill of an artist who has brought watercolor to extreme precision and enriched it with numerous new aspects.

Billy Al Bengston attended the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, and the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles. His works can be found in outstanding permanent collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.