Hammer projects: Joseph Holtzman at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Joseph Holtzman is the founder, creative director and publisher of Nest, a magazine published from 1997 to 2004, which was one of the most interesting and avant-garde magazine for interiors. Nest typically avoided the traditional luxury interiors commonly seen in other publications, opting instead to highlight unconventional and extraordinary spaces.
New York-based Holtzman shuttered the magazine in 2004 to focus full-time on his painting, after a nearly 25-year hiatus.
'Hammer projects: Joseph Holtzman'
Jun 6 – Sep 20, 2015 at Los Angeles' Hammer Museum
Scenic Wallpaper was contacted to help Holtzman create the richly textured environment for his paintings at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum in 2015. John Nalewaja has known the designer/artist for decades and they’ve worked together several times over the years.
Creating the space with felt-covered walls
The gallery space is a softly lit, windowless, horseshoe shaped room with coved ceilings, the former home of DaVinci’s Codex.
Holtzman’s intent was to create a site-specific space to showcase his paintings, a Gesamtkunstwerk environment or “total work of art,” transforming the gallery into a cozy living space adorned with toile-covered sofas and chairs, a decorative carpet, and felt walls.
The installation included 22 large light green panels of felt above the chair rail, 24 yellow striped panels to separate the light green panels, a small 3/4 inch wide red felt stripe that created the chair rail, dark green felt under the chair rail, 7 vertical orange felt stripes, purple felt crown molding, and blue felt to surround the door.
Installation of felt panels
The show's six large, colorful works combine figurative and abstract elements painted on large marble slabs, a surface chosen for its ability to both absorb and reflect light. Holtzman’s process includes thinly applying layers of oil paint to the surface of the stone and then carving into the paint to mark the surface with scratches, highlighting the luminosity of the marble underneath.
Alongside well-known historical and cultural figures such as Mary Todd Lincoln and Jane Austen are more personal portrayals of the artist’s mother and of a friend who died of AIDS. The subject matter is largely abstract with subtly incorporated elements of representational imagery that hold personal significance for the artist.
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