Crystal Balls, Red Light Spectacle and a Pop Art Nun: the Best Shows in Los Angeles

As the inaugural Frieze Los Angeles opens this week, here are the exhibitions you shouldn’t miss across the city

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By Simone Krug

Feb. 14, 2019

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​Nancy Shaver and Emi Winter
Parker Gallery
3 February–30 March

A lone sock resting on a wood and fabric patchwork box is a humorous 3-dimensional trompe l’oeil, a garment one might mistake for the real thing. Nancy Shaver’s Flat Goods (2006) and other sculptural works in ‘Gathering Texture, Following Shape: Nancy Shaver and Emi Winter’ are comprised of the ‘the real thing’ – found dress fabric, wooden spools, and other playful bric-a-brac. Her sculptures seem to take on multiple lives, where cast off detritus is revivified as material and readymade pattern. While many sculptures recall grandma’s beloved floral loveseat, one aberrant work (Sentinel, 2018) repurposes a faded wrestling character t-shirt. Installed before the house gallery fireplace beside the more decorative pieces, Shaver’s fabric character opens his mouth in a tough guy scream and flexes his giant muscles. The shadows and contours of his body are cracked and peeling, a mark of time that likewise references the gradual decay of the body.  More...