Let The Experts Argue
curated by Max Earnest

Grace Jackson, Ivan Morley, Jools Rothblatt,
Anthony Sylva, Chase Wilson

Opening reception Sunday April 16, 2023

Exhibition on view April 16 - May 21

There is a certain impossibility in the act of painting because it tries to defy gravity, real and imagined. It starts with mixing things, increasing chaos, then somehow sewing things together and forcing certain order and rules back into the chaos. The universe is built in the direction of increasing entropy: more possibilities in deaths and dispersions. You work against the flow of time, no matter how irreversible and inevitable. The past is set in stone while the future is yet to congeal. What can be plated and adorned with words sucks as a painting. It is meaningless to categorize the painters' works in the show Let The Experts Argue neatly. Just listen to them. And this is what I hear:

ESTRAGON: The best thing would be to kill me, like the other. 

VLADIMIR: What other? (Pause.) What other?

ESTRAGON: Like billions of others. 

VLADIMIR: (sententious). To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.

ESTRAGON: In the meantime let us try and converse calmly, since we are incapable of keeping silent. 

VLADIMIR: You’re right, we’re inexhaustible.

ESTRAGON: It’s so we won’t think. 

VLADIMIR: We have that excuse. 

ESTRAGON: It’s so we won’t hear. 

VLADIMIR: We have our reasons. 

ESTRAGON: All the dead voices. 

VLADIMIR: They make a noise like wings.

ESTRAGON: Like leaves. 

VLADIMIR: Like sand. 

ESTRAGON: Like leaves.


Silence. 


VLADIMIR: They all speak at once. 

ESTRAGON: Each one to itself. 


Silence. 


VLADIMIR: Rather they whisper. 

ESTRAGON: They rustle. 

VLADIMIR: They murmur. 

ESTRAGON: They rustle. 


Silence. 


VLADIMIR: What do they say? 

ESTRAGON: They talk about their lives. 

VLADIMIR: To have lived is not enough for them. 

ESTRAGON: They have to talk about it. 

VLADIMIR: To be dead is not enough for them. 

ESTRAGON: It is not sufficient. 


Silence. 


VLADIMIR: They make a noise like feathers. 

ESTRAGON: Like leaves. 

VLADIMIR: Like ashes. 

ESTRAGON: Like leaves.


Long silence. 


VLADIMIR: Say something! 

ESTRAGON: I’m trying. 


Long silence.*

- Jaewon Che

* Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot (Beckett, Samuel) (pp. 68-70). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition.

Jaewon Che (b. 1998 Masan, South Korea) is a translator, editor, and writer. They started writing about art in Hyperallergic in 2018. Their poetry collection Whatdu wanna do witme? (Minumsa, 2021) won the 40th Kim Soo-young Literary Award. Their work can also be found in Asymptote Journal, chogwa, Modern Poetry in Translation, Littor, Literature & Society, Jaeum And Moeum, Munhakdongne, and Hyundae Munhak among others.

Max Earnest (b. 1991 California) is an artist based in Los Angeles. He received a BFA in Painting from University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (2014). Recent exhibitions include Nice Work 2, Sulk, Chicago, IL (2023); Nach dem Winter taut der Schnee, Hrueze Gegi, Zurich, CH (2022); Bozomag: Bozo Family Hoedown, M+B, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Sublime Nirvana (solo exhibition), Bozo, Los Angeles, CA (2021).

Grace Jackson (b. 1991, Philadelphia, PA) received a BFA from the School for the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and was the recipient of the Visual and Critical Studies Departmental Award as well as the Kuniyoshi Award in Painting. She completed her MFA at Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University. Jackson participated in the M.A.R.S Residency in Japan in 2019, and has exhibited work at the East Broadway Mall in Chinatown, NY. She works as an assistant to artist Alex Katz and her studio is in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Ivan Morley (b. 1966 Los Angeles, CA) received an MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA (2000) and a BFA from School Of The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (1989). He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at venues including David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); Bortolami Gallery, New York (2021 and 2016) and Kimmerich Galerie, Berlin (2014). Group exhibitions include Abstract America Today, Saatchi Gallery, London (2014); Painting Expanded, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2011); The Artist’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010); DAS GESPINST, Die Sammlung Schürmann zu Besuch im Museum Abteiberg, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany (2009); Imagination Becomes Reality, Part IV: Borrowed Images, Sammlung Goetz, Munich (2006); and Painting in Tongues, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2006).

Jools Braiman Rothblatt (b. 1991 Los Angeles, CA) received a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2014). Recent solo exhibitions include Bravado, Escolar, Santa Rosa, CA (2023); Got the Life, Stable, Other Places Art Fair North, Santa Rosa, CA (2022); Paintings at Monty Bar, Artists Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2020). Group exhibitions include Absence of Attitude, Suzie Shride, Vienna, AT (2022); The City / La Ville, Chez Anonyme, Los Angeles, CA (2021); Anxiety 2, HVW8 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2021); A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock and Roll, The Arts of Life at Circle Contemporary, Glenview, IL (2020); Panic Room III, Promo, Imfeldsteig 1, Zurich, CH (2019); Eric Schmid is an idiot, What Pipeline, Detroit, MI (2017). Curatorial projects include Fun Hang, Karma International, Los Angeles, CA (2019) and My Most Striking Feature is my Fist, Karma International, Los Angeles, CA (2018).

Anthony Sylva (b. 1989 Sacramento, CA) is an artist based in New York City. Sylva received an MFA in Painting from Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, New Brunswick, NJ (2015) and a BFA in Painting from University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (2013). Recent exhibitions include A Loop, Triangle & Trapezoid, Bozo Cresthaven and Pasadena, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Group Show, O’flaherty’s, New York City, NY (2022); and Darby Madden Gross, Jupiter Lockett and Anthony Sylva, B. Sakata Garo Gallery, Sacramento, CA (2020).

Chase Wilson (b. 1990 Berkeley, CA) received an MFA in Painting from Yale University (2018) and a BFA from Cornell University (2012). Recent solo exhibitions include a solo booth at Zona Maco CDMX, Galeria Mascota, CDMX, Mexico (2023); pink haze /the underspace, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Americana Extravaganzoid: Table Edge World of False Empire: Window Time Thoughts of the Center Game of Spirit: Seeing Into the Negative, M+B, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Feb 21 and arrival at the repetition, FOYER-LA, Los Angeles, CA (2021); and Turtle in the Rug, Egyptian Arts and Antiques, Los Angeles, CA (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Even in its Stillness, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles (2022); Far Sounds curated by Albert Oehlen, Juana De Aizpuru Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2022); SeasonsLA Summer Group Show, SeasonsLA, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Show Me the Signs, Blum and Poe, Los Angeles, CA (2020); By Appointment, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Heads, Next to Nothing, New York, NY (2018); Way Out Now, Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles, CA (2018); On My Volcano Grows the Grass, Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2016); and Please Have Enough Acid in the Dish, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2016).