Nate Lowman
at Maccarone

Nate Lowman at Maccarone Los Angeles (installation view) (2016). Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman’s New York solo debut in 2005 presciently gave the art world something it dearly wanted: a brash, critically indifferent, and smug handling of subject material deployed by an aspiring artist-persona. Ultimately, what made Lowman so successful was his glib drive to appropriate common vernaculars and parlay them into structurally seductive, highly desirable art commodities while maintaining a socially aware, flippant remove. A decade on, the balance has tipped.

Immediately upon entering Lowman’s current solo at Maccarone’s cavernous Los Angeles outpost, the viewer is confronted with the gigantic Untitled (2013-2015), a 50-part, painted representation of the United States, installed on the gallery’s central wall. The canvas used in each “state” was purportedly birthed from the production of other Lowman paintings—here the artist makes rampant use of the indexicality of dripped paint on drop-cloth, not so much as a means of analyzing the material labor of painting, or even that of its socio-physical constructs, but to further the saleable combination of trite bohemian gestures and attitude-as-product ethos that has always been his trademark.

The nine serially produced paintings hung on the flanking walls manage to recall early Sue Williams and late Julian Schnabel alike, but do little of their own accord. In them, perplexing texts such as “Tae Kwan Do,” or “Ask the Dust” are slathered over images of Earth as seen from the moon. At his very best, Lowman holds a knowing mirror up to American society, exposing its base and illogical desires. Indeed, it’s not hard to draw parallels between the vapid, cocksure grandstanding that held so much sway on November 8th and Lowman’s baroque excursions on view here.

Nate Lowman runs September 17–December 23, 2016 at Maccarone (300 S. Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033).

Nate Lowman, Untitled (2013-2015). Mixed media on canvas dropcloth, 168 x 336 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman, Never Send a Boy (2016). Oil, alkyd and impasto medium on linen, 63 x 90 x 1.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman, TBT (2016). Mixed media installation, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman at Maccarone Los Angeles (installation view) (2016). Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman, South of France (2016). Oil, alkyd and impasto medium on linen,
63 x 90 x 1.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman, Ask the Dust (2016). Oil, alkyd and impasto medium on linen, 63 x 90 x 1.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Nate Lowman, Untitled (2013-2015). Mixed media on canvas dropcloth, 168 x 336 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Maccarone New York and Los Angeles. Photo: Joshua White.

Thomas Duncan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History at UCLA. He is currently at work on his dissertation, “’The Right Bad Picture’: Failure and Relationality in Andy Warhol’s Photography, 1969­–1979″.

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