LA JOLLA, CA.- Joseph Bellows Gallery is presenting an exhibition, Charles Johnstone: Cibachromes. This solo exhibition features key selections from Johnstones portfolios: Brooklyn Corrugated Iron Fences, Thirty Four Basketball Courts, A Few Empty Pools, Some New York Handball Courts, and New York Storefront Churches printed in the luminous Cibachrome color process. The exhibition opened August 17th and continues through September 28th, 2018.
Johnstones portfolios and subsequent books imply, as does his objective recording of the subject, a linkage to artists that have preceded him, specifically Ed Ruscha and the photographers of the New Topographic era. The artist works as a localist, surveying with his camera places within the city he has called home his entire life, steadily making sets, edited collections of urban environments.
Commenting on his body of work, Some New York Handball Courts, photography critic William Meyers observers, Given his formula, it is not surprising that Mr. Johnstones images put one in mind of Josef Albers Homage to the Square. And Vince Aletti states in reference to Johnstones Thirty Four Basketball Courts, They combine a formal rigor, urban scruffiness and a cool neutrality that Ruscha would appreciate.
Johnstone has had numerous solo exhibitions both in this country and abroad. This modest survey exhibition marks the artist second solo exhibitions at Joseph Bellows Gallery. Notable group exhibitions include: Ed Ruscha Books and Co. at both the Museum Brandhorts, Munich Germany and Gagosian Gallery, New York and American Photography from Berenice Abbott to Alec Soth. His photographs have been featured in Photograph, The New Yorker, and on ArtDaily.
Running concurrently in the gallery with Charles Johnstone: Cibachromes, is Summer Selections featuring the photographs of: Lewis Baltz, Thomas Barrow, Judy Fiskin, Roger Minick, Grant Mudford, Stephen A. Scheer, John Schott, Sage Sohier, Jack D. Teemer Jr., Roger Vail, and others.