Since first coming into prominence in the ’90s and early 2000s, Laura Owens’s work has offered a set of wholly new and critical ideas about painting. Propelled by the conviction that her work should prompt difficult questions about the nature of painting, Owens distinguishes her work by refusing to commit to one artistic identity.

From a consideration of the Owens’s varied use of line (Suzanne Hudson), the artist’s brilliant redefinition of painterly gesture (Walead Beshty), or her mining of visual contradictions (Trinie Dalton), Owens’s formal and conceptual inventiveness is reviewed from multiple perspectives. Owens’s use of language—as a graphic element, as words to be read, or more broadly as a system of signification that she explores and ultimately upends—is attended to by Rachel Kushner and Linda Norden. Mark Godfrey traces the recent developments in the scope of Owens’s work from 2012 to now. And wonderfully pithy texts by Gavin Brown and Wendy Yao (as well as a section of Norden’s essay) bookend the volume with personally inflected musings on the artist’s gallery/studio space in Los Angeles, 356 S. Mission Road.   

LAURA OWENS surveys the many facets of the artist’s work that have been responsible for her influential career, and it is the first title to critically assess the Owens’s most recent work.

 
Walead Beshty is an artist and writer working in Los Angeles, and Associate Professor in the Graduate Art Department at Art Center College of Design. Gavin Brown owns the eponymously named gallery Gavin Brown’s enterprise, which is based in New York City. Trinie Dalton has authored, edited, and/or curated six books, and writes regularly about art (frequently contributing to artists’ books) and music. Mark Godfrey is Curator of International Art at Tate Modern. Suzanne Hudson is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California. She recently published Painting Now (Thames and Hudson, 2015). Rachel Kushner is the author of two highly acclaimed novels, including Telex From Cuba (Scribner, 2008) and The Flamethrowers (Scribner, 2013), both of which were finalists for the National Book Award. Linda Norden is a curator, writer, and adjunct professor of art history, theory, and criticism. Wendy Yao is the owner of Ooga Booga and Ooga Twooga, renowned shops in Los Angeles specializing in independent art, books, music, and clothing. Ooga Twooga was opened in 2013 at 356 S. Mission Road, in partnership with Laura Owens and Gavin Brown.