The Company has invited Los Angeles based artist Joe Reihsen to take over the gallery from November 5 – December 30, 2011. An opening reception will take place on Saturday November 5, from 7-10pm. Although we are pleased to announce this exhibition, we are not exactly sure what he’s going to do.

We’ve been over to Joe’s studio many times, wrestled with the language of painting, sculpture, theater, and theory. For a while, we were convinced that this show was about “domestic space”, self-portraiture, and even Absurdist Theater. We realize now that it was all a farce, a red herring. We were motivated and indulged by our need to know. We’ve concluded that this is a show about everything and nothing. Let’s just call it an obsession with zero.
There is no position. There is no narrative, game or strategy. There will be no (overt) quoting or referencing. This is pretty much as anti-historical, anti-authorial, anti-movement, and totally manufactured as it gets. No beginning or end. Authentically inauthentic, or more accurately: deeply shallow.

What we can say for sure is that you will see an installation of materials from Joe’s studio — including wood, steel, and aluminum propping up painted layers of canvas and paper. There will be objects that scratch you, reflect your image, and cause vertigo. There is a chance that you’ll be reminded of amoebas, psychedelic patterns, or your primitive past. It will also be flat and non-hierarchical; layers of consciousness, physical and the infinite, will become fictionalized, accessible, and permeable.

Joe Reihsen, b.1980, Blaine, Minnesota. Lives and works in Los Angeles. Joe received his BFA in Painting and New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2008, Joe received an MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was awarded the UC Regents Fellowship. Joe’s first solo show was PREVIEW in 2010 at The Company.