Past Exhibitions
CUP SHOW
March 25, 2022 – May 14th, 2022
Bringing together over 100 artists in celebration of a humble form, the cup.
Curated by Alan Chin and Axel Wilhite
TOM FRANCO : Billow Talk, Rock Walk
July 8th, 2022 – August 27th, 2022
Space Ten is extremely excited to present “Billow Talk, Rock Walk,” an exhibition of sculpture by artist Tom Franco, on view at the gallery from July 8th to August 27, 2022.
Heavily influenced and inspired by the Bay Area funk movement, Tom Franco’s sculpture draws on the vernacular of funk assemblage as well as folk and outsider art. Throwaway objects and materials offer surprising, semi-recognizable forms as substrata for his quirky, sensuously painted sculptures. Paint layered upon bottles, bottle caps, shoes, ceramics, toys, discarded appliances, tools, and other found objects marry Franco’s rich inner world with poignant observations of life in and around his home in Oakland, California.
“There is something about including as many layers to a work that can reasonably fit,” writes Franco. “Layers of color, images, combining my favorite objects and themes, layers of meaning, searching for answers in the work…” As Franco builds up his layers of paint, the sculptures become spontaneous playgrounds for Franco’s nimble, often absurd narrative imagination. In one sculpture, a Singer sewing machine becomes an undersea vessel surrounded by a school of variegated tropical fish; in another, a tiger inexplicably balances on the nose of a rocketship. Each of Franco’s artworks invites viewers to enter a dreaming world brimming with his own characteristic humor and sense of play.
Tom Franco (b. 1980), born in Palo Alto, California, is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Oakland, California. Franco is the co-creator and sole director of the Firehouse Art Collective, a network of collaborative artist spaces in California and Nevada. “Billow Talk, Rock Walk” is Franco’s first solo gallery exhibition in Los Angeles and his first exhibition with Space Ten.
ROBERT WILHITE
ZERO
On view: September 30, 2022 – December 11, 2022
Opening reception: Friday, September 30, 2022, 5-8 PM
Closeing reception: December 11, 2022, 3-6 PM
Space Ten Gallery is proud to announce Zero, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Robert Wilhite, on view from September 30th to November 19th, 2022.
Wilhite’s sculptures in Zero serve as urgent moral confrontations with puerile militarism, power, and self-annihilation.
The main gallery features a selection of Wilhite’s foreboding full-scale wooden deconstructions of nuclear weaponry––”Fat Man” (2007), “Davey Crockett” (2011), and “Briefcase Nuke” (2009). In juxtaposition with his imposing bomb sculptures is the delicacy of Wilhite’s “The Future is Micro” (2022), a massive installation of some 400 airplanes composed of insect wings and matchsticks. Finally, “The Past” and “The Future” (2020), two antique pendulum clocks, lacquered black and amended by the artist, stand as ambiguous sentinels over the exhibition. Collectively, these sculptures hang frozen in that eternal instant before detonation; they are confrontational, ambivalent portents of violence and its after-image.
With the recent, terrifying escalation in Ukraine at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, we are once again vividly reminded of our planet’s dire circumstances in the perpetual shadows of war, nuclear disaster, and climate catastrophe. This fragility is a central, perennial theme of this area of Wilhite’s sculpture.
Robert Wilhite (b. 1946, Costa Mesa, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist. He studied at the University of California at Irvine with noted artists Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, and Ed Moses. His 45 year, multi-disciplined career includes sculpture, painting, drawing, design, and both theatrical and sound performances.