Two Schools of Cool reexamines a group of artists, pairing elder statesmen of cool with artists from a new generation that mostly emerged in Los Angeles beginning in 2000. The exhibition provides the two generations with space to explore, experiment, and provoke through collaborative projects. The exhibition is a lab that espouses similarities between the generations as well as changes and shifts in the art world over the last four decades, including the increasing prominence of female artists, distinct methodologies, and the use of new technologies. The culminating exhibition presents five distinct installations, each conceived, developed, and created by a pair of artists.
The mixed media projects, developed in the months leading up to the exhibition, include a video and sound installation, a participatory installation involving choice and selection; a site specific installation incorporating wall painting, found objects, assemblage, paintings, text and works on paper; an artist- curated installation of paintings in which each artist will provide a critique of the other’s practice in the form of wall text as well as a public dialogue. The installations incorporate elements contributed by each artist, and are discrete collaborative projects as determined and outlined together by the pair.