Eden's Edge: Fifteen L.A. Artists

Published to accompany the Hammer Museum's Summer 2007 exhibition, Eden's Edge, this exploration of art made in Los Angeles during the past decade crosses generations, mediums, and materials to link 15 artists of singular personal vision, whether internationally established or not-yet-discovered. The artists--who include Ginny Bishton, Mark Bradford, Liz Craft, Sharon Ellis, Matt Greene, Elliott Hundley, Stanya Kahn and Harry Dodge, Monica Majoli, Rebecca Morales, Matthew Monahan, Lari Pittman, Ken Price, Jason Rhodes, Anna Sew Hoy and Jim Shaw--all track, via their work and vision, a persistent consciousness of change and contradiction. The works collected here are intensely crafted and conjure richly imagistic worlds in which landscape and figure fracture and metamorphose. Together, they establish a generational continuum, integrating newly emerging artists with their more established peers. This clothbound volume includes a critical essay by curator Gary Garrels that contextualizes both the exhibition and the artists' work within the art and culture of southern California, the international art scene, and the trends of the last decade. It includes an entry, a biography, a selected exhibition history and a bibliography for each of the 15 artists.