O Bouna Ventura!
O Bouna Ventura! at Jessica Silverman, Gallery 2, San Fransisco, CA June 2 – July 8, 2017
http://jessicasilvermangallery.com
Justin John Greene’s new series of five oil paintings titled “O Buona Ventura!” explore the successes, risks and hazards of contemporary life. Set in the rotating cocktail lounge of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, the works depict the dizzying effect of working/playing around the clock. Each of Greene’s characters is painted in a different style, referencing German expressionism, slapstick cartoons, and Baroque tavern scenes. Their diverse aesthetics amplify the social allegory, rendering some with great individuality and others with the appearance of puppets, super heroes and villains. Much like a Caravaggio painting, the figures are often clustered around a central light source; in these works, the source is wittily absent from view.
Constructed in the mid-1970s, the Bonaventure’s architecture is an icon of postmodernism. Political geographer Edward Soja described the hotel as “fragmented and fragmenting, homogeneous and homogenizing, divertingly packed yet curiously incomprehensible, seemingly open in presenting itself to view but constantly pressing to enclose, to compartmentalize, to circumscribe, to incarcerate.” The rotating bar elicits feelings of being on an unstoppable carnival ride while its windows offer sweeping views of L.A., creating a sense of being in the spinning center of an urban universe. The architectural environment is reminiscent of the round rooms in which Francis Bacon often staged his subjects.
The exhibition title “O Buona Ventura” refers to a painting from circa 1630 by Georges de La Tour that depicts a man speaking to a fortuneteller while a pickpocket slips her hand into his coat. Although the de La Tour painting, which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, is usually called The Fortune Teller, the literal translation is the more ironic, Oh Good Fortune! Through his distinctive tragicomic lens, Greene breathes new life into art historical narratives and compositions in order to comment with fresh wit on the social dynamics of our times.
94 Rue du Bac
An exhibition of paintings presented by Romain Dauriac & Franklin Melendez at 94 Rue du Bac, Paris, France October 19 – 23, 2017
Life Hack
Life Hack at Smart Objects, Los Angeles, January 26 – March 2, 2018
http://smartobjects.la/
Life hacks can be motivated by desperation or a deep desire for convenience. They can manifest as a set of social interactions, as altered appliances, or as tweaked channels of a system. They can serve as quick fixes to daily problems or reveal whole new ways of living.
A life hack always operates in relation to a larger power structure. But then: in hacking, do we subvert power structures, or are we just becoming better operators under their grip? Have we found ways to more efficiently oppress ourselves? Would life hacks even exist without the ubiquitous force of late capitalism?
In Justin John Greene’s paintings, the life hacks on display toy with power dynamics and point toward uneasy change. An outmoded cyborg undergoes analogue maintenance; an unknown force enters a dimensionless restaurant; an alternative energy source proves unstable.
In Expiration Date, a patriarchal scene looms. A frightened man with a passive woman clinging to his neck – sourced from an old movie poster—looks on as smoke rises from a smartphone plugged into a bunch of priapic bananas. Even if the absurd hack is working, clearly the system surrounding it isn’t.
Greene’s paintings combine elements of film noir, German expressionism, Dada, Baroque tavern scenes, and the dreamy qualities of Marc Chagall paintings, to create contemporary caricatures and curious social allegories. The scenes, rendered in his signature tragicomic approach, exude an air of anxiety and beg one to question the dynamics at play in this moment of shifting paradigms.
Drawings
Curatorial Projects
Actual Size Los Angeles is collaboratively run by Lee Foley, Corrie Siegel and Justin John Greene. The current Actual Size location is at 741 New High Street in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Opened in April 2010, Actual Size has hosted over thirty exhibitions/ curatorial interventions and has worked with over a hundered artists. Actual Size collaborates with established and emerging artists to encourage situations that activate the exhibition and engage the public. Projects curated by Actual Size have been profiled in the L.A Times, Art Fourm, Mousse Magazine, and Flash Art International.
For more information please visit actualsizela.com
Paintings
CV
Justin John Greene
Born 1984, Los Angeles, California
Lives and works in Los Angeles
Solo Exhibitions
Dressed in Hollywood Tears,
November 9, 2023–December 23, 2023
The Breeder, Athens
The Castle
Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, CA
September 9 – October 5, 2022
matthewbrowngallery.com
What Can Smoke Do To Iron?
Collaborations by T. Asbæk, Copenhagen, DK
May 6 – 30, 2020
collaborations.dk
Marnie Weber and Justin John Greene
Simon Lee, New York, NY
September 6 – November 2, 2019
simonleegallery.com
A Warmer World
Carl Kostyál, London, UK
March 1 – 31, 2019
kostyal.com
Welcome to Our Mess
Simon Lee, London, UK
September 2 – 28, 2018
simonleegallery.com
Life Hack
Smart Objects, Los Angeles, CA
January 26 – March 2, 2018
smartobjects.la
94 Rue du Bac
Presented by Romain Dauriac & Franklin Melendez
Paris, France
October 19 – 23, 2017
dm-office.com
O Bouna Ventura!
Jessica Silverman, Gallery 2, San Fransisco, CA
June 2 – July 8, 2017
jessicasilvermangallery.com
Secret Slob
Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago IL
October 29 – December 22, 2016
andrewrafacz.com
Moonlighting
Loudhailer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
January 9 – February 20, 2016
loudhailergallery.com
Raw Deal
DIANA, Los Angeles, CA
April 17 – May 8, 2015
A Dusk That Never Settles
Solo Exhibition, Actual Size, Los Angeles, CA
June 23 – July 19, 2014
actualsizela.com
You Oughta Be In Pictures
Solo Exhibition, Actual Size, Los Angeles, CA
June 25 – July 23, 2011
actualsizela.com
Group Exhibitions
En Plein Air
Simon Lee, London, UK
July 19 – August 31, 2019
simonleegallery.com
Noise! Frans Hals, Otherwise
Frans Hals Museum Haarlem, NL
September 29, 2018 – January 27, 2019
franshalsmuseum.nl
Malmö Sessions
Carl Kostyál, Malmö, SE
May 18 – June 16, 2019
kostyal.com
L.A. Dreams 2
CFHill, Stockholm, SE
April 12 – May 12, 2019
cfhill.com
On Anxiety
The Cleve Carney Art Gallery, Glen Ellyn, IL
August 31 – October 13, 2018
clevecarneygallery.org
An Uncanny Likeness
Simon Lee, New York, NY
January 26 – March 4, 2017
simonleegallery.com
The Gildless Age
The Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA 2012
Curated by Denise Johnson, in conjunction with TAM curatorial
September 3 – October 29, 2016
torranceartmuseum.com
Logic Frog
Allen & Eldridge, New York, NY
April 20 – May 16, 2016
allenandeldridge.tumblr.com
Surrreal
König Galerie, Berlin, Germany
March 12 – April 24, 2016
koeniggalerie.com
Tickles
356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA
November 28 – December 24, 2015
356mission.tumblr.com
Staging Los Angeles
Group exhibition organized by the 2016 USC Roski School MA Art and Curatorial
Practices in the Public Sphere Candidates
Gayle and Ed Roski MFA Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
November 7 – 22, 2015
Goup Show
Patrick Gomez 4 Sheriff, Los Angeles, CA
May 1, 2015
I Think I See…
The Property Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
March 21, 2015
theproperty.gallery
Buying Friends: The Kortman Colection
Urban Institute of Contemporary Art
Grand Rapids, MI
November 15, 2014 – February 18, 2015
Another Cats Show
356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA 2014
August 16 – September 14, 2014
356mission.com
Louie Louie: Tow Songs From An Opera
Group Exhibition Curated by Sam Davis, Human Reseorces, Los Angeles, CA
July 10, 2014
humanresourcesla.com
Dopps Bar, Colaboration with Calvin Marcus & Michael Dopp
356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA
June 4 – August 10, 2014
Popular Panorama
Secret Recipe, Los Angeles, CA 2014
secret-recipe.org
5790projects
Beacon Arts Building and Artist Studios, Los Angeles, CA
January 24, 2014
The Oldest of Rainbows
Group Exhibition Curated by Justin John Greene, Control Room, Los Angeles, CA
February 2 – March 3, 2013
The Subterraneans: The artists behind LA’s artist-run spaces
The Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
September 22 – November 3, 2012
Curatorial Projects
Actual Size Los Angeles, Co-Director and Founder, Los Angeles, CA 2010-2016
actualsizela.com
Education
BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2007
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence, Italy 2005
Secret Slob
Secret Slob at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago IL, October 29 – December 22, 2016
http://andrewrafacz.com
Submitted for your approval
By an author’s loyal ghost
Endlessly toiling
Through the night
Staring at a screen
Splayed across a mattress
Where we lay our scene
And when at last
Its glass goes black
The reflection shows
The Slob
Outside amongst the concrete
A system rigged and mean
Some try-hard leans against a hood
Devising of a scheme
Heavy baskets of deplorables
And dishes in the sink
He hasn’t time to give a shit
He hasn’t space to think
Ladies and germs
The slob
See his haggard stare
When will he pay the mounting debts
Against integrity
Described in J.D. Salinger’s The Cather in the Rye, a ‘secret slob’ is someone who behaves as outwardly virtuous while hiding their sordid habits. Where his last exhibition, Moonlighting, 3 the incessant hustle that one participates in as a worker striving in a precarious economy, Justin John Greene’s newest body of work examines the dubious and dangerous consequences of that ongoing hustle. Forced to bluff, concede, and bend or mask one’s own being in order to get by, the characters in Greene’s paintings are engaged in a murky, complex narrative of contemporary survival.