Carl Kostyál is delighted to present Alex Israel ‘Cut-Outs’ at Hospitalet, Stockholm, the artist’s second solo show at the gallery, his first being at the former Kostyál space Isbrytaren in 2013.
Made at Warner Bros. and featuring motifs in the artist’s lexicon both familiar (Self-Portrait and Wave), and new (the surfboard Fin), in these works Israel continues his exploration of the contemporary artist as his own medium. His sometimes clinical—but never cynical—probing of the cult of celebrity past and present, is once again expressed through these layered (figuratively and now also physically) visual signifiers.
The works in the exhibition reference Matisse’s Jazz Portfolio, 1947, a book of prints made from the modernist artist’s cut-out paper collages. Inspired by both Matisse’s colour palette and inventive form of collage, Israel’s new works are the closest he’s come to making works on paper.
“I’d use the term ‘works on paper’ lightly, because Sintra is thin, but it is not exactly paper. There is no hand in the works (the medium is usually associated with the handmade/intimate touch of the artist) and because the works are not studies (another common function of the work on paper). My cutouts are more works ‘in’ paper, as they are sculptural in their stacked/layered compositions.
Their ‘drawing’ is accomplished using computer graphics and a laser cutter. And they are painted with airbrushed acrylic paint before their parts are assembled/adhered together.”
— Alex Israel
Alex Israel, ‘Cut-Outs’, 2022, Exhibition Text
Alex Israel was born in Los Angeles, USA in 1982 where he continues to live and work. His art very much embodies the city of Los Angeles and our expectations and dreams of this alluring place. Employing a wide range of media, Alex creates an iconography not only of his beloved city but also himself as an artist. Premiering in 2011, As It Lays is a series of interviews done in a talk-show setting with subjects such as Oliver Stone, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rachel Zoe and Bret Easton Ellis, to name but a few. 33 episodes over two seasons in total, the web-broadcast series were accompanied by a series of self-portraits cast in fibreglass by the skilled craftsmen of Warner Bros Studios. These were shown at Carl Kostyál’s Isbrytaren space in Stockholm in 2013, Israel’s solo debut in Europe, to great acclaim.
WB Studios also produced for Alex wall-based ‘flats’, reminiscent of Californian architecture and sunsets. Continuing on the theme, large paintings of LA sunsets were added to his oeuvre and of course his own line of sunglasses. In 2018, Alex Israel directed the feature length teen surf-movie ‘SPF-18’, starring Noah Centineo and Molly Ringwald. Besides his Freeway Eyewear company, Alex runs Infrathin, a Duchamp-inspired clothing line. He collaborated with Louis Vuitton in 2019 and recently with luxury luggage maker Rimowa on which bags one could see the LA sunset once more.
Alex Israel’s art is included in the collection of MOCA and LACMA LA, MoMA and Guggenheim NY, Astrup Fearnley in Oslo and Moderna Museet in Stockholm where his surf-related sculptures are currently on view.