Modern meets Post-Modern in a wall-to-wall face-off at Lever House, where both sides win. Los Angeles artist Jonas Wood has created an installation in which ten large paintings of plant forms are hung on seemingly permanent walls that are wallpapered with a large-scale basketball print. The title, “Plant Clippings,” while it suggests a common horticulture practice, actually refers to the artist’s process of cutting pieces out of previous works to be re-made in second, third, and sometimes fourth iterations.

Here the installation forms a new architectural setting for the iconic Lever House lobby. Its gleaming stainless steel and glass curtain wall, and a marble planter, are subsumed into an environment that is doubled back in the form of reflections on the polished travertine floor. Individual paintings, the largest of which is Clipping B5 (Cactus), at 115 x 110 inches, are homages to Wood’s acknowledged art heroes, including Matisse, Picasso, Stuart Davis, and David Hockney, to name a few.


Photo: Peggy Roalf

Wood, in his art historical gleanings, conjures up a new view of the artist’s life, much as it was celebrated by past masters Henri Matisse and Edouard Vuillard. For a view of recent works that went into his Clippings series, visit the David Kordansky Gallery website, and below. View works from his 2013 exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, here in New York. 

Jonas Wood | Clippings continues at Lever House through January 4, 2014. 390 Park Avenue, between 53rd and 54th Streets, NY, NY. Information.

  BBall Studio, 2012, oil and acrylic on canvas, courtesy David Kordansky Gallery.

Jonas Wood was born in Boston in 1977, and studied at Hobart and William Smith College, Geneva, New York (BA, 1999) and University of Washington, Seattle (MFA, 2002).  The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.  His work has been exhibited at the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles; Saatchi Gallery, London; David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; and Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and is included in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.