Last Postcards

2009 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

4H x 6W inches, 3.5H x 5.5W inches

Elisheva Biernoff

year born: 1980
gender: female
nationality: American

Last Postcards is a series of three small double-sided paintings on plywood in which Biernoff imagines the last communications from explorers lost in the wilderness. Biernoff’s choice of Everett Ruess, Percy Fawcett, and the conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader is particularly telling. On one level, the Last Postcards analogize the nineteenth-century explorer with the contemporary artist who looks for purpose in their work. This series continues Biernoff’s interest in the construction of myths and, to a certain extent, of utopias, ideas which have deep resonance in the cultural imagery of the West Coast. The careful, painted reproduction of a mass-produced object like a postcard reinforces this fictive aspect.


Elisheva Biernoff’s work engages and reconsiders the tradition of painting in an interesting way, often taking source material from media or recreating photographs through a careful trompe d’oeil technique. Thus, her work engages in the discussion of re-representation through painting, not aiming to portray any given reality faithfully but rather as the ideal way to engage with a subject matter that explores the intersection between myths, fictions and fantasies. In some cases, her works also address particular ecological concerns.


Colors:



Long Long Live
© » KADIST

Yao Jui-Chung

2013

Long Long Live (2013) takes the viewer to the setting of the Oasis Villa on Green Island, once a reform and re-education prison to house political prisoners during Taiwan’s martial law period...

Untitled 6/10 i-xxii
© » KADIST

Nathaniel Dorsky

2010

Dorsky’s pieces included in the Kadist Collection are small still photographs from twelve of his most important films...

Untitled (Rolled up)
© » KADIST

Jonathan Monk

2003

Untitled (rolled up) , is an abstract portrait of Owen Monk, the artist’s father and features an aluminum ring of 56.6 cm in diameter measuring 1.77 cm in circumference, the size of his father...

Beyond Geography
© » KADIST

Li Ran

2012

In his video work Beyond Geography , Li dramatizes the role of the artist-as-imitator to the point of sheer parody...

LAB
© » KADIST

Kori Newkirk

2013

LAB (2013) conjures the body as the trace of a sooty hand appears, spectrally, on a crumpled paper towel...

The Breaks
© » KADIST

Juan Capistran

2002

The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources...

The Class
© » KADIST

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

2005

The Class (2005) by Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook challenges the viewer’s personal sense of morality and tolerance by depicting a classroom from hell...

Meeting #100
© » KADIST

Jonathan Monk

Meeting #100 is one in a series of text works by Jonathan Monk...

Untitled #242, 104, 975 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 18 colors
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John Houck

2013

Untitled #242 is part of Houck’s Aggregates Series, which uses digital tools to manipulate chosen sets and pairs of colors, creating colorful index sheets, bathed in colors and lines...

Captain X
© » KADIST

Luke Butler

2008

In Captain X , Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, is limply draped over a large boulder in what looks like a hostile alien environment...

Peg and Jon
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Houck’s Peg and John was made as part of a series of photographic works that capture objects from the artist’s childhood...

Made in Heaven
© » KADIST

Mark Leckey

2004

In Made In Heaven , we are face to face with a sculptural apparition, a divine visitation in the artist’s studio...

Days of Our Lives: Reading
© » KADIST

Wong Hoy Cheong

2009

Days of Our Lives: Reading is from a series of work was created for the 10th Biennale de Lyon by the artist...

Untitled (Men)
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps

2011

In the series Horizons (2010), Lipps uses appropriation to riff on Modernism’s fascination with abstract form...

Central Station
© » KADIST

Firenze Lai

2013

Central Station, Alignment, and Sumo are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds...

Borrando la Frontera
© » KADIST

Ana Teresa Fernández

2011

The artist writes about her work Borrando la Frontera, a performance done at Tijuana/San Diego border: “I visually erased the train rails that serve as a divider between the US and Mexico...

New Fall Lineup
© » KADIST

Conrad Ruiz

2009

It may take a minute to recognize the background of New Fall Lineup – the colors are tweaked into a world of cartoon and candy, and it is covered by leaping energetic figures and flying squirrels...

Untitled (Women)
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps

2011

Untitled (Women) (2011) presents a startlingly succinct history of violently romanticized femininity...