In a city that makes stars, across a landscape that seconds as a backlot for so many film studios, Lisa Yuskavage focuses her newest exhibition on the magic behind the finished product. This is an interesting if not endlessly fascinating body of work from an already influential and famed painter. Yuskavage seemed to take the occasion of her first show in LA in 3 decades to heart, it’s about sets and process, about the making of a universe just as much as the universe she is creating herself. It is a show about production, about a woman’s place in the history of production. It is about the artist and the aritst process while looking at something quite final, and David Zwirner‘s spacious rooms gave the work an extra sense of gravitas and importance.
From the tiny wood panel paintings to massive works on canvas, Yuskavage’s work with scale gives you an idea of how she looks at her work herself. The smallest things matter, and she is considering each part of her process as vital. She is thinking about thinking, painting about painting. As the figurative painting movement ebbs and flows, and flows and ebbs once again, Yuskavage seems to be undeterred. She is letting you into how the history of figurative painting sits into our collective memories, how we think about figure painting and our attraction to it. They are playful, sensual, conflicting and exciting. —Evan Pricco
