Chez Max et Dorothea

“Whisper Their Sinful Names”

January 18 – March 30th, 2024

Chez Max et Dorothea is pleased to announce our inaugural group exhibition “Whisper Their Sinful Names” at the Los Angeles headquarters of Chez Max et Dorothea. “Whisper Their Sinful Names” opens on Thursday, January 18th and will run until March 30th, 2024.

”Whisper Their Sinful Names” draws upon the legacies of the foundation’s namesakes: Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning. The exhibition title comes from one of Ernst's texts in Paramyths, a series of new poems & collage made for his 1949 exhibition at William Copley’s gallery in Beverly Hills, referencing their status as outsiders in their time. Today surrealism is a pillar of underlying concepts in contemporary artistic practices and has resurfaced as a critical way to examine the world we face. This “whispering” of Surrealism portrays and examines the unknown and esoteric evoked within the artists’ practices, contextualizing the works on exhibition in a larger embrace of the tenets of the Surrealist movement. Artists participating in the exhibition include longstanding Surrealist associates like Will Alexander, Desmond Morris, Penelope Rosemont, and Penny Slinger alongside a diverse group of contemporary artists exploring similar themes and tactics of the Surrealist movement such as Justin John Greene, Caitlin Keogh, Nevine Mahmoud, Shana Lutker and Seven Ruck amongst many others.

“Whisper Their Sinful Names” doubles as a fundraising exhibition where profits will go towards the final acquisition of Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning’s home in the South of France to once again return to a haven for artists to dwell and create. “Whisper Their Sinful Names” is co-curated by Dr. Brigitte Nicole Grice and Isabel Yellin.

The complete list of artists included in “Whisper Their Sinful Names” are Will Alexander, John Burtle, Edgar Bryan, Michael Kennedy Costa, Max Ernst, Festive Publications, Justin John Greene, Brigitte Nicole Grice, Skylar Haskard, Sam Hemmenway, Caitlin Keogh, Sylvie Lake, Thomas Lawson, Nicky Lesser, Shana Lutker, Nevine Mahmoud, Orion Martin, Desmond Morris, Love Nguyen, Alex Olson, Ephraim Puusemp, Edward Quinn, Penelope Rosemont, Seven Ruck, Penny Slinger, Marisa Takal, Dorothea Tanning, Chris Vasell, Kelly Wall, Benjamin Weissman, and Isabel Yellin.

Chez Max et Dorothea

The Return of Histoire Naturelle

April 11 – May 18, 2024

Chez Max et Dorothea is pleased to announce The Return of Histoire Naturelle, the

second group exhibition at our Los Angeles headquarters. The Return of Histoire

Naturelle opens on Thursday, April 11th, and will run until May 18th. Please join us for

an opening reception next Thursday, April 11th, 6 – 9pm.

The Return of Histoire Naturelle recontextualizes the seminal frottage series “Histoire

Naturelle” by Max Ernst. These early frottages, a rubbing technique developed by Ernst,

were created in 1925 and stand as one of his early responses to Surrealism. The following

year, alongside his friend Paul Éluard, Ernst selected 34 frottage works to be printed by

Jeanne Bucher, an important art publisher and gallerist in Paris. These 34 frottages that

comprise the entirety of “Histoire Naturelle” will be exhibited at Chez Max et Dorothea

| Los Angeles in conversation with 13 contemporary artists.

It was 100 years ago this October that André Breton released the first Surrealist

Manifesto in Paris. Max Ernst was not there. Instead, he was in Indochina, tending to fix

the marriage of Paul Éluard and his then-wife Gala, with whom he was in a ménage-à-

trois relationship. Upon Ernst’s return to France, he was met with a whirlwind of

philosophical thought about Surrealism embracing automatization and the inner world

whether that be of dreams, imagination or wonder to carve new avenues to freedom. A

year later in 1925, Ernst describes his breakthrough discovery of frottage, a French word

that translates to rubbing which becomes a lifelong technique of the artist.

Ernst describes the event as follows:

“On the tenth of August,1925... finding myself one rainy evening in a seaside inn, I was

struck by the obsession that showed to my excited gaze the floor-boards upon which a

thousand scrubbings had deepened the grooves. I decided then to investigate the

symbolism of this obsession and, in order to aid my meditative and hallucinatory

faculties, I made from the boards a series of drawings by placing on them, at random,

sheets of paper which I undertook to rub with black lead. In gazing attentively at the

drawings thus obtained... I was surprised by the sudden intensification of my visionary

capacities and by the hallucinatory succession of contradictory images superimposed,

one upon the other, with the persistence and rapidity characteristic of amorous

memories. My curiosity awakened and astonished, I began to experiment indifferently

and to question, utilizing the same means, all sorts of materials to be found in my visual

field: Leaves and their veins, the ragged edges of a bit of linen, the brushstrokes of a

'modern' painting, the unwound thread from a spool, etc. There my eyes discovered

human heads, animals, a battle that ended with a kiss (the bride of the wind), rocks, the

sea and the rain...”

The Return of Histoire Naturelle looks to Ernst as a starting point to see how other

artists have turned to invisible, imaginary worlds and generate new natural

worlds. Within the ongoing reality of climate change and natural catastrophe, The

Return of Histoire Naturelle provides alternative perspectives to see and experience

the sentient world all around us.

Ever Baldwin’s work explores the depths of the unseen in a dual process of their many-

layered paintings paired with meticulous wood-sculpted frames. California artist Carl

Cheng embraces environmental decay and its natural lines as indexical marks that have

long categorized his practice under the aegis of the John Doe Company.

Mark Dion employs strategies around scientific and pseudo-scientific systems and natural history

collections that question our dominant ideologies around knowledge and objectivity.

Cayetano Ferrer’s Foundation series creates fictional space through the reconfiguration

of various carpet remnants from Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos into new

architectural floor plans. David Gilbert’s photographed vignettes capture moments of

spontaneous play and are evocative of the all-encompassing beauty around his

environments. New York-based artist Henry Gunderson explores the terrain of

technology and insects as a speculative warning to an upending natural apocalypse via

his sculptural devices and paintings.

Florencia Escudero’s Frog Licker sculpture comes to life with its multiplicity of eyes and

limbs creating an interstice between human, animal, and avatar. Emma Kohlmann populates
a personalized mythological touch on her paintings and pays

homage to the many-leafed subjects in Ernst’s early frottages. New Mexico-based artist

Sarah M. Rodriguez’s sculptural wall work combines aluminum casts of leaves with

elements of resin to enshrine and preserve various animal tracks. Dana Sherwood

explores alternative ecosystems through imagining various animals are her mothers and

conceives her paintings as being in the womb of these animals.

Emma Pryde’s horse sculpture entitled The Musician encapsulates the resilience and

tragedy of an artist who despite being injured by multiple arrows continues to move

along on its wheeled feet. Lila De Magalhaes’s sculptural furniture acts as environments

for her imaginative creatures to inhabit as both pupae and in their later stages of life as

they transition from cradle to rocking chair. Thang Tran’s paintings utilize the scrupulous

techniques of 16th-century Dutch still-life painters alongside gothic interiors that distill a

transcendent sublimity of the natural world.

The complete list of artists in The Return of Histoire Naturelle include:

Ever Baldwin, Carl Cheng, Mark Dion, Lila De Magalhaes, Florencia Escudero,

Cayetano Ferrer, David Gilbert, Henry Gunderson, Emma Kohlmann, Emma Pryde,

Sarah M. Rodriguez, Dana Sherwood, and Thang Tran.

The Return of Histoire Naturelle runs from Thursday, April 11th to May 18th, 2024, at

Chez Max et Dorothea | Los Angeles.

Chez Max et Dorothea is pleased to announce our upcoming fall exhibition Daniela Gallois and Benjamín Serrano. This highly anticipated exhibition seeks to draw broader recognition to these extraordinary artists who lived and worked for most of their lives in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. The exhibition Daniela Gallois and Benjamín Serrano will open on Saturday, September 28th and runs until November 3rd. Please join us for an opening reception in Los Angeles from 5pm to 9pm.

Daniela Gallois (née Danielle Gallois), born in 1939 in the medieval village of Bar-le-Duc, France, met Benjamín Serrano during his studies in Paris in the mid-1960s. As the story goes Serrano, who was born on the same year in Tijuana, pursued Gallois gallantly, and she resisted until coming face-to-face with his self-portrait. A romance ensued, and in 1966 they married in Tijuana, where Gallois settled for the remainder of her life.

Similarly, it was Dorothea Tanning's first showing of her self-portrait Birthday to Max Ernst that spawned the love story between Tanning and Ernst that serves as the origins of Chez Max et Dorothea. Gallois and Serrano remained close friends after their eventual separation, aiding and abetting their artistic pursuits as well as their debilitating addictions.

Exhibition co-curator Jacinto Astiazarán writes, "Daniela was a hustler and an icon of the streets of Tijuana during her lifetime. She felt equally comfortable among the elite businessmen she counted on as art patrons and the seedy men she caroused with in the bars of Tijuana’s notorious Zona Norte. She was unapologetically herself; she was a lover and caretaker of wounded street animals, and she left a deep impression on all who befriended and supported her.” In an interview with artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Serrano states at 46 years old, "I still have a lot of working years left, and it's about time I shake this bohemian craziness." Tragically, Benjamín Serrano was found dead at his family home in Tijuana three years later in May of 1988.

Following a stay in Oaxaca in 1966, where the artists befriended acclaimed artist Francisco Toledo, Serrano expanded his painting practice into polychrome wood sculpture, while Gallois experimented with textiles following in the tradition of artists like Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo who drew from Mexican folkloric and pre-hispanic art. With wry humor and a keen understanding of power dynamics around sexuality, religion, and identity, Serrano continued working in Tijuana through an idiosyncratic bicultural lens. Meanwhile, Gallois worked tirelessly to produce a large body of work that syncretized influences derived from medieval and Byzantine art, her family's history in East Asia, and what can only be described as phantasmagoric menageries inhabiting the land and ocean worlds of curious female forms. Daniela Gallois spent her last few years between Tijuana and Rosarito, where she passed away in 2006.

Despite their prolific output and imaginative creations in painting, sculpture, and mixed media assemblage, Serrano and Gallois have stood in the shadow of the international art world outside of Tijuana for far too long. This significant exhibition will highlight their expansive oeuvres and bring together research materials and photographs to contextualize further their personal lives and careers. Exhibition highlights where both artists participated include group shows at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Baxter Art Gallery at Caltech in Pasadena, and Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT) among many solo gallery and institutional exhibitions. The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego holds artworks by both artists in their permanent collection, as do numerous important private collections.

“We are thrilled to showcase the works of Serrano and Gallois to the art community of Los Angeles and beyond,” said Brigitte Nicole Grice, President of Chez Max et Dorothea. “Their art deserves to be seen and appreciated, and this exhibition will provide a platform for their incredible contributions to be recognized.”

Daniela Gallois and Benjamín Serrano will be held from September 28th through November 3rd, 2024 at Chez Max et Dorothea's Los Angeles headquarters. It will feature a diverse selection of paintings, sculptures, and mixed media pieces that reflect the artists' rich cultural and emotional landscapes.

The curators of Daniela Gallois and Benjamín Serrano would like to thank Consulado General de México en Los Ángeles for their support.

Daniela Gallois and Benjamín Serrano is curated by Jacinto Astiazarán and Dr. Brigitte Nicole Grice, and runs until the 3rd of November.

Chez Max et Dorothea is pleased to announce Sunny and Warm, a solo exhibition featuring paintings and works on paper by Thomas Lawson. Spanning three decades, from 1994 to 2024, the exhibition showcases a selection of Lawson’s paintings and works on paper that illuminate his evolving exploration of allegory, public imagery, and personal narrative. The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, January 11th, 11 am - 6 pm for community gathering in lieu of a reception due to the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires crisis, and will remain on view at Chez Max et Dorothea’s Los Angeles gallery through February 28, 2025. In conjunction with Sunny and Warm, Thomas Lawson has a current solo exhibition entitled Too Old Now at AF Projects focused on recent works.

The title Sunny and Warm reflects a personal and introspective turn in Lawson’s practice. “For many years I have worked with public imagery, culling newspapers, magazines, websites for material that speaks to the moment,” Lawson explains. “But the frightening stupidity of the past eight or nine years has really gotten to me, and I found I no longer wanted to spend time in my studio thinking about another catastrophe. And then I came across a forgotten box of letters my mother wrote to her mother around the time I was born, and I began exploring her handwriting as a way to think about my life now.”

This exhibition highlights Lawson’s ability to navigate between cultural critique and personal storytelling, offering works that intertwine public and private histories. Sunny and Warm reflects Lawson’s enduring engagement with representation, appropriation, and narrative. Since his pivotal 1981 Artforum essay Last Exit: Painting—a critical call for the resurgence of painting as a vital artistic practice—Lawson has continued to push the boundaries of the medium, weaving fragments of history, culture, and memory into his work.

The New World Series, for instance, explores the interplay between image and ground, surface and depth. Inspired by Domenico Tiepolo’s mural depicting a procession of figures gazing toward a distant horizon, Lawson instead shifts focus to intricate surface patterns that pass over and through his figures. Some works in this series feature CalArts students as models, reflecting Lawson’s role as an educator and his ongoing interest in fractured cultural narratives.

His early Viennese/Los Angeles Diptychs juxtapose interior spaces drawn from his surroundings in Los Angeles and an asylum in Vienna with found media images, often inverted. These works reveal Lawson’s fascination with mirroring and inversion, investigating how context and orientation transform perception and meaning.

The exhibition also includes larger-scale works such as Dance Theory and Lightfoot. These paintings delve into the dynamics of space and motion, with depictions of footprints, diagrams, and patterns that extend Lawson’s inquiry into the fragmentation and movement of cultural symbols across surfaces.

In a more personal turn, Sunny and Warm features Lawson’s latest series: text-based paintings inspired by letters exchanged between his mother and grandmother, a correspondence sent between Algiers and Glasgow during the early 1950s. These works represent a shift from public imagery toward personal narrative, blending collage techniques and textual layering to explore themes of memory, identity, and the passage of time.

“Since I began my career, I’ve worked across mediums and modes,” Lawson reflects. “I came up at a time when painting was supposedly dead, and artists could work in many media. I didn’t believe the proposition about painting but took the idea of a hybrid working method seriously.”

Emerging from the Pictures Generation in the late 1970s and 1980s, Lawson first gained recognition as a Scottish artist living in New York. Alongside contemporaries like Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Jack Goldstein, he appropriated imagery from mass media to critique entrenched visual narratives. While rooted in this context, his work also aligns with the legacy of Surrealism, probing hidden dimensions of imagery through appropriation and introspection.

In addition to his influential studio practice, Lawson served for three decades as the Dean of the School of Art at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he continues to teach and inspire new generations of artists. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as Metro Pictures in New York, Anthony Reynolds in London, David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles, and LAXART in Los Angeles.

Surveys of Lawson’s work have been organized by the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art at La Jolla, the CCA in Glasgow, and the Goss-Michael Foundation in Dallas. Important group exhibitions include The Pictures Generation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the inaugural Made in L.A. biennial in 2012, Ends and Exits: Contemporary Art from the Collections of LACMA and The Broad Art Foundation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2013, and A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1989. Beyond his art, Lawson’s contributions to art discourse—including the founding of Real Life Magazine and critical essays like Last Exit: Painting—have profoundly shaped contemporary understandings of art and representation. Since 2010, Lawson has served as the founding editor-in-chief of East of Borneo, an online publication that explores contemporary art and its history through the lens of Los Angeles.