Morgan Fisher / Passing Time

Working in Los Angeles since the mid-1960s, Morgan Fisher has a long history of applying a conceptual eye and mind to the materials and technologies of Hollywood. While lauded as a filmmaker, Fisher has also produced a cogent body of painting, photography, and drawing. Morgan Fisher / Passing Time, curated by Bruce Hainley and Sohrab Mohebbi, is the first exhibition of Fisher’s oeuvre to bring the full range of his endeavors into sharp focus in his hometown.

“Of course we know that without the artist there isn’t a work,” Fisher has stated. “But at least construction, and the performative within construction, enact the wish to reduce the visibility of this unavoidable fact.”

With a precise arrangement of photographs, videos, works on paper, and a key series of paintings, the show aims to elucidate Fisher’s steadfast pursuit of non-subjective, non-compositional things and methods; nevertheless, it also displays the figure of the artist as a stubborn, although frequently occluded, effect of his pursuit.

The exhibition spotlights the career of an elusive Los Angeles éminence grise, providing, in a moment of obnoxious self-obsession and celebrity branding, an opportunity to reflect upon other ways of constructing the aesthetic—matters that deserve thought.

Curated by Bruce Hainley and Sohrab Mohebbi with Carmen Amengual, curatorial assistant.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication edited by Bruce Hainley and Sohrab Mohebbi.

Related screening
Sunday, November 4, 3pm
Films by Morgan Fisher followed by a conversation with the artist.

This exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation. Additional support provided by REDCAT Circle.

The Gallery at REDCAT focuses on experimentation through new commissions that often mark the first major US presentation by the featured artists. Employing temporary structures and dynamic installations, the exhibition formats are flexible and constantly reformulated to allow for a range of spatial and temporary possibilities. Through its annual series of exhibitions, publications, talks and other public programs, the Gallery highlights concepts and critical discourses that connect art with other fields and disciplines.