Larry Mantello - Best of Both Worlds

The Best of Both Worlds, 2009
Mixed media
87" x 40" x 30"
Floats series

Larry Mantello - Catch

Catch, 2008
Tattoos on paper with foil collage
20.5" x 16"
Off-Springs series

Larry Mantello - Wish Eye/Wish You

Wish Eye/Wish You, 2009/11
Cut-and-pasted transfers on Acetate, Dartek, and Cellophane, with Mylar balloons, postcards, greeting cards, and caution ribbon
70" x 40" x 4"
Rejiggers series

 

Past Exhibition

Larry Mantello

Together Again

February 26 – April 3, 2011
Opening Reception: Sat., February 26, 5 – 7 p.m.

Images and installation photos

CB1 Gallery is proud to present Larry Mantello’s return to Los Angeles for his first solo exhibition in six-years. The exhibition, Together Again includes several series of works ranging from Floats (sculpture), to Off-Springs, and Rijiggers, which include temporary tattoos on paper and multi-layered wall-hangings. The exhibition will be on view from Saturday, February 26 through Sunday, April 3, 2011. An opening reception for the artist will take place on Saturday, February 26, 2011, 5 – 7 p.m.

Mantello’s current work is redolent with a pop-culture critique, which he packages with a reminiscence of childhood, a temptation with the body, and his interest in “the value of pleasure”. Throughout these works he suggests a subtle sense of sadness just below the surface, which is as important to the works as exuberance and celebration.

His most recent series of work, entitled Rejiggers, incorporate an image transfer technique that he combines with postcards, greeting cards, and balloons. Assembled with an assortment of packing tapes and shipping labels, which the artist has also reinvented, their playfully layered surfaces are both seductive and provocative. Larry Mantello hopes that these new works “…create imaginary places where fantasies can commingle with feelings of loss and disappointment.  Moments from my past that are difficult to escape.”

Larry Mantello was born in 1964 and lives and works in New York. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his first solo show at Food House in Los Angeles in 1993, Larry Mantello’s work has been widely exhibited, including shows at The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Art + Public, Magasin-Center Nation d’Art Contemporain in Grenoble, and the Neuberger Museum. His work is included in many private and public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Henry Art Gallery, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Artist's website
David Pagel, L.A. Times, March 11, 2011

PRESS AND REVIEWS