Rev. Ethan Acres and Tony Delap

DECEMBER 15, 2007 - JANUARY 19, 2008

Presented as Patricia Faure Gallery at Bergamot Station, Santa Monica.

Rev. Ethan Acres and Tony Delap
December 15, 2007 - January 19, 2008

Since the 1960s, Tony Delap’s skewed geometries and curvilinear forms have continually challenged East Coast notions of minimalism. A stable force in West Coast art, and West Coast minimalism in particular, DeLap has worked, exhibited and taught in Southern California for five decades.

Using wood, aluminum, acrylic and canvas, DeLap shapes organic abstractions, untethered by the mathematical aesthetics of kindred artists such as Donald Judd or Carl Andre. Instead, DeLap prefers his work to jab and ask questions—a jocular play on the viewer’s perception that seemingly grows with each subtle twist of canvas and every slip of DeLap’s subject from canvas face to canvas frame. In short, unlike the metaphysical bent of the minimalism of his East Coast counterparts, DeLap’s work doesn’t set out on the reductive task of identifying a universal truth; rather, it looks for an inherent punch-line in the apparent lack thereof.

Tony DeLap’s upcoming exhibition at Patricia Faure Gallery will feature a number of new sculptural works, made of acrylic on canvas, wood, and carved negative space. As a special guest, the gallery is pleased to feature DeLap’s monumantal 1969 work entitled Houdini in the sculpture garden. A fabulous fiberglass and stainless steel construction, Houdini was designed by DeLap, and fabricated by his then assistant, an emerging young artist named John McCracken.

The Reverend Ethan Acres Returns with a Holy Vision in Time for Holidays

After years spent tearing at the frayed cloth of an art world fearful of his devout faith, and a sanctimonious religion that doubts it, the Reverend Ethan Acres returns to Los Angeles with a new work inspired directly by a vision of God: “I had a vision in which the Lord Jesus appeared before me for three nights, and on the third night he beared his breast. There before me, instead of the sacred heart of Jesus, was a big-block Chevy V8 engine.” The Reverend proceeded to heed the Lord’s calling and took it upon himself to build two engines – a Chevy 350 (57”x42”x45”) and a Chevy 427 (48”x48”x45”) – from stained glass, welded steel and lead. The Reverend was first championed by Patricia Faure, appearing at his Lamb of God exhibition in 1997.  After a retreat into the hills of Tennessee, the Reverend Returns.