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MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN, Situation Rooms

MERNET LARSEN

Situation Rooms

Installation view at James Cohan, 2018

MERNET LARSEN Cabinet Meeting (with Coffee)

MERNET LARSEN
Cabinet Meeting (with Coffee)
2018

Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
52 1/2 x 50 in. 
133.3 x 127 cm

JCG9752


 

MERNET LARSEN Hand Slap Game

MERNET LARSEN
Hand Slap Game
2018
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
67 3/4 x 20 1/2 in. 
171.4 x 51.4 cm

JCG9751

 

MERNET LARSEN Cabinet Meeting

MERNET LARSEN
Cabinet Meeting
2017
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
61 x 65 1/4 in. 

154.9 x 165.7 cm

 

JCG9409
 

MERNET LARSEN Cup Tricks

MERNET LARSEN
Cup Tricks
2018
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
56 7/8 x 38 1/4 in. 

143.5 x 96.5 cm

 

JCG9749

MERNET LARSEN Situation Room (Scissors, Rocks, Paper)

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room (Scissors, Rocks, Paper)
2018
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
62 1/2 x 51 1/2 in
158.8 x 130.8 cm

JCG9750
 

MERNET LARSEN Drawing Hands

MERNET LARSEN
Drawing Hands
2017
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
67 1/2 x 36 1/4 in. 
171.4 x 92.1 cm

JCG9410

 

 

MERNET LARSEN Committee

MERNET LARSEN
Committee
2007
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
36 x 68 in. 

91.4 x 172.7 cm

 

 

JCG9698

MERNET LARSENMeeting: T-Table2017Acrylic on Bristol board24 x 19 in.  61 x 48.3 cmJCG9704

MERNET LARSEN
Meeting: T-Table
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
24 x 19 in.  
61 x 48.3 cm

JCG9704
 

MERNET LARSEN Board

MERNET LARSEN
Board
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
24 x 19 in.
61 x 48.3 cm

JCG9705


 

MERNET LARSEN Hand Slap Game

MERNET LARSEN
Hand Slap Game
2017 
Acrylic on Bristol paper
24 x 19 in.
61 x 48.3 cm

JCG9746

MERNET LARSEN Cup Tricks (Study) 

MERNET LARSEN
Cup Tricks (Study) 
2017 
Acrylic on Bristol paper
19 x 24 in.
48.3 x 61  cm

JCG9746

MERNET LARSEN Study for Cabinet Meeting (with coffee)

MERNET LARSEN
Study for Cabinet Meeting (with coffee)
2017 
Acrylic and colored pencil on Bristol paper
19 x 24 in
48.3 x 61 cm

JCG9759

MERNET LARSENCabinet Meeting: Study2017Acrylic on Bristol board19 x 24 in.61 x 48.3 cmJCG9711

MERNET LARSEN
Cabinet Meeting: Study
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
19 x 24 in.
61 x 48.3 cm

JCG9711

 

MERNET LARSENCabinet #22017Acrylic on Bristol board24 x 19 in.  

MERNET LARSEN
Cabinet #2
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
24 x 19 in.  
61 x 48.3 cm

JCG9710

 

MERNET LARSEN Situation Room: Scissors/Rock/Paper

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room: Scissors/Rock/Paper
2017 
Acrylic on Bristol paper
19 x 24 in.
48. 3 x 61 cm

JCG9747

MERNET LARSENSituation Room: With Laptop2017Acrylic on Bristol board

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room: With Laptop
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
19 x 24 in.

48.3 x 61 cm

JCG9708

 

MERNET LARSENSituation Room: Explanation2017Acrylic on Bristol board19 x 24 in. 

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room: Explanation
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
19 x 24 in. 
48.3 x 61 cm

JCG9707
 

MERNET LARSENSituation Room: Oblique2017Acrylic on Bristol board19 x 24 in. 48.3 x 61 cmJCG9712

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room: Oblique
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
19 x 24 in. 
48.3 x 61 cm

JCG9712

 

MERNET LARSENSituation Room: Suits2017Acrylic on Bristol board19 x 24 in. 48.3 x 61 cmJCG9709

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room: Suits
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
19 x 24 in. 
48.3 x 61 cm

JCG9709

 

MERNET LARSENSituation Room: Thinkers2017Acrylic on Bristol board19 x 24 in. 48.3 x 61 cmJCG9713

MERNET LARSEN
Situation Room: Thinkers
2017
Acrylic on Bristol board
19 x 24 in. 
48.3 x 61 cm

JCG9713

 

Press Release

James Cohan will present Situation Rooms, an exhibition of work by Mernet Larsen at the gallery’s Chelsea location from April 19 through June 16. Situation Rooms is Larsen’s second solo exhibition at James Cohan. The gallery will host an opening reception on Thursday, April 19 from 6-8 PM.  
 

Throughout a career spanning nearly sixty years, Mernet Larsen has developed a painting practice that reconsiders the spatial conventions of narrative painting. The vertiginous spaces she renders using altered perspectives, offer familiar versions of reality that are analogous yet alien to our own and take inspiration from the geometric abstractions of El Lissitzky and the narrative stylization of 12th-century Japanese and early Renaissance paintings.

For Situation Rooms, Larsen returns to a familiar subject of people sitting around tables. The title of the show conjures an image of spaces where important events transpire or difficult decisions are made, and, in some of these works, the trappings of governance are apparent. Hands, often involved in simple games, feature prominently in paintings such as Cup Tricks, Drawing Hands, Hand Slap Game and Scissors, Rocks, Paper.

In addition to these new paintings, three works from Larsen’s series of paintings depicting faculty meetings, which began her experimentation with reverse perspective, will also be included in the exhibition. Of these works she writes, “I have always wanted to do a painting of an art department faculty meeting – having spent 35 years of my life attending them. But I couldn’t find a way to make it interesting… I didn’t want a collection of portraits, but a kind of psychological essence of particular moments in meetings.” For Larsen, the “essence” of narrative painting is how the figure inhabits a physical space. She emphasizes this relationship through inventive geometries and perspectives to produce strong feelings of discomfort around the commonplace situations she creates.
 

Situation Rooms also includes Larsen’s “studies,” which she uses as instruments to meticulously plot her compositions before enlarging them on canvas. These often include gridlines and measurements jotted in its margins, along with other notations and attempts at titles.
 

Mernet Larsen (b. 1940, Houghton, Michigan) has exhibited extensively since the late 1970s and has been the subject of over thirty solo exhibitions, including Getting Measured: Mernet Larsen, 1957-2017, a comprehensive survey of her work at the Tampa Museum of Art in 2017. She has been featured in more than seventy group exhibitions, including presentations at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY and multiple other exhibitions in London and New York. Her work is in numerous collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN among others. Larsen received her BFA from the University of Florida, and her MFA from Indiana University. She lives and works between Tampa, Florida and Jackson Heights, New York.

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