November 2024
Nate Lowman
Nate Lowman. Photo by Marco Anelli, courtesy David Zwirner
Nate Lowman reflects on source material, visual structure, and Parking, his latest solo exhibition at David Zwirner in Los Angeles.
Interview by Dan Golden
Dan Golden: How did you first encounter the source material for this exhibition, and what drew you to it? Is a golf course ever just a golf course?
Nate Lowman: It was 2011 or ‘12 when I first became interested in aerial golf course photography. I came across a small image, about 1.5 x 2 inches, sitting in a column of the overview section of a weekly news periodical. In the picture were swaths of greens manicured into modernist puddles, grafted on a vast desert. At the time, I made a painting of that photograph simply by enlarging the image, adding a few colors to articulate the greens and some brown desert shrubbery, and I let the naked, unprimed canvas be the rest of the desert. Enlarging an image always involves a degree of mediation, but other than that, I just viewed it as the documentation of an absurd aspect of a historical moment; the moment when golf courses are, or will be, anywhere, and “anywhere” is somehow everywhere.
In late 2018 I made a second golf painting. It was two years into Trump’s presidency, and of all of the landscape imagery I was considering painting, the golf course jumped the queue.
For many years, I wanted to pursue the aerial views of golf courses as a series, and this seemed like the right opportunity. This is my third exhibition with David Zwirner gallery. Five years ago, I showed paintings of crime scene images from the October 1st, 2017, mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. Two years ago, I exhibited paintings of hurricane storm graphics. To me, these strange composite golf course compositions fit here in a trajectory. It’s not a happy map, but we’re making our way across it.
Installation view, Nate Lowman: Parking, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, September 7—November 9, 2024. Photo by Elon Schoenholz, courtesy David Zwirner
DG: Your earlier work leans toward appropriation and pop influences, while these recent paintings have a different feel (visually and experientially)— somewhat contemplative. Are these two modes distinct approaches for you, or do you consider them conceptually intertwined despite their visual differences?
NL: I have always enjoyed finding inspiration in images and objects that come to me, or confront me, in the pop sense. In the case of the golf paintings, I think that regardless of preference and proclivity, we all understand the visual components of a golf course the same way. The visual breakdown of a golf course is modernist shorthand, and in this way, its structure is pop.
I spent a lot of time researching the golf courses I wanted to paint. At first, I thought I was going to take my own aerial photographs of each course in order to paint them. While I was studying the courses at the library, I found myself seduced by the analog film imagery of many of the courses and began the series by painting from older found photographs. The colors from the film and the oil paint I was using felt like a good rendering match. The cold digital images of some courses I had taken with drones felt just like all the shitty news I was reading on one screen or another.
Nate Lowman, Advantage Perfection (Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness), 2024, oil and alkyd on linen, 65 x 78 inches. © Nate Lowman, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
“The visual breakdown of a golf course is modernist shorthand, and in this way, its structure is pop.”
DG: You have a strong knowledge of art history, and in these new works, I sensed a nod to Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and maybe even Richard Diebenkorn. Were they, or others, on your mind while you were developing this show?
NL: It’s interesting that you bring up Diebenkorn here. An artist I admire who lives in L.A. said that this show reminds him of when Diebenkorn, Thiebaud, and David Park were doing figurative work.
My interest in the formal language of golf course architecture hinges on the aerial perspective, which flattens the shapes. So, the sand bunkers and putting greens coincide with the visual language of Jean Arp, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, and even Paul Feeley. But I’m not trying to drag these artists through the grass and the sand.
Nate Lowman, Tunnel Kiss, 2024, Oil and alkyd on linen, 90 x 65 inches. © Nate Lowman, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
Nate Lowman, Howl, 2024, Oil and alkyd on linen, 97 1/2 x 76 1/4 inches. © Nate Lowman, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner
DG: The grouping of aerial landscape works is shown alongside pieces like Aira’s Ovenbird, Shaped Couch, and several shaped canvas paintings. Please talk about the curatorial decision to pair these two bodies of work.
NL: The golf paintings are non-landscape paintings. Not only does the composite of two images create an impossible folding perspective vacuum, but a golf course isn’t a landscape to begin with. It’s an outdoor space that involves a lot of landscaping to maintain its artificiality.
I wanted some non-figurative paintings to go along with my non-landscapes.
Aira’s Ovenbird illustrates César Aira’s short story of the same name. The story pokes fun at how humans attribute consciousness and anxiety only to our own species by narrating a day in the life of Argentina’s national bird, who makes a nest out of mud. The story follows the nervous observations of the bird as it progresses through the day, transposing idealistic, “natural” schematics on the world around it as it freaks out.
I cartooned the bird evoking Munch, adding to the endless pile of screaming merch that recalls the most mechanically reproduced artwork after the Mona Lisa. But there is, in fact, no figure there. And the shaped canvases were meant to function the same way. They all reference the figure but only contain the absence of the figure. The violin case looks like an open, empty coffin, but also suggests the sound of music because it implies that a violin is being played somewhere else in the room.
Nate Lowman, Aira’s Ovenbird, 2024, oil and alkyd on linen, 68 x 44 inches
Installation view, Nate Lowman: Parking, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, September 7—November 9, 2024. Photo by Elon Schoenholz, Courtesy David Zwirner
Installation view, Nate Lowman: Parking, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, September 7—November 9, 2024. Photo by Elon Schoenholz, courtesy David Zwirner
DG: I read that Cy Twombly was an early influence. What was it about his work that resonated with you?
NL: I discovered Cy Twombly’s work in a magazine in the library when I was 15. I visited New York with my family at that time and saw his retrospective at the MoMA. I still have that catalog with my parents’ P.O. Box handwritten in case I lost it. Between that exhibition and seeing Patti Smith sing songs at St. Mark’s Church on New Year’s Eve for free, I knew I was moving to New York as soon as possible.
DG: How does sculpture fit into your overall practice?
NL: Sculpture has always been at the heart of my practice, even when I’m painting. But I work out ideas so much faster in the second dimension. So, I think of myself as a sculptor, but my friends call me a painter. Statistically speaking, they are right.
Installation view, Nate Lowman: Parking, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, September 7—November 9, 2024. Photo by Elon Schoenholz, courtesy David Zwirner
Nate Lowman
Parking
David Zwirner
Los Angeles
September 7—November 9, 2024
Nate Lowman (b. 1979) deftly mines images from art history, the news, and popular media, transforming visual signifiers from these distinct sources into a diverse body of paintings, sculptures, and installations. Since the early 2000s, the artist has continually pushed the boundaries of his multimedia approach with works that are critical, humorous, political, and poetic.
Lowman's work was the subject of a solo exhibition at Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, in 2018. Other solo presentations at public institutions include those at the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2017); FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2016); Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2015); The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut (2012); Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2009); and Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2006).
Work by Lowman is held in numerous institutional collections, including the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.