LOS ANGELES, CA.- Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to present Joan Tanner: On Tenderhooks, from July 22 through September 23, 2006. On Tenderhooks is a large-scale installation created by Southern California artist. Joan Tanner, curated by Meg Linton, Director of the Ben Maltz Gallery. Using raw materials like Blister-Pac, corrugated plastic paneling, galvanized metal, air-duct filters, plywood, industrialized coating, light and video, Tanner assembles a precarious environment to tackle the visual paradox of architectonic order and disintegration—ordering to achieve perfection and humankind’s inability to escape imperfection.

In a review of Joan Tanner’s work in a 1996 issue of Art in America, Michael Duncan wrote that Tanner, who had just turned 60, “is making some of the freshest work around,” and now at age 70 the work is even more daring and ambitious. It is time for her to receive recognition for her unwavering creativity, voracious intellect, and incredible drive.

Tanner’s work has been likened to that of Kurt Schwitters, Constantin Brancusi, Joseph Cornell, Lee Bontecou and Richard Tuttle in the ordering of objects and manipulation of materials. On Tenderhooks expands upon her use of detritus and acknowledges a debt to Assemblage Art while engaging in a larger discussion about consumer culture and representation.

Because this is a site-specific installation, at this date it is difficult to describe the final work. Attached are photographs by Wayne McCall of the work in progress taken at the artist’s studio in Santa Barbara. Tanner is installing the work at the Ben Maltz Gallery from July 6-21st in preparation for the opening on Saturday, July 22, 4-7pm.

An exhibition catalog documenting On Tenderhooks is available in September featuring an introduction by Meg Linton, Curator of the Exhibition; an essay by Michael Darling, the Jon & Mary Shirley Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum; and an interview with Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.

Artist Biography - Born in 1935 in Indianapolis, Joan Tanner has lived in Southern California for a number of years. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1957. Since 1983, she has consistently exhibited her sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs and site-specific installations. She has exhibited widely and her works are held in collections of the J.Paul Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and the New York Public Library. Tanner has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and more recently at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For more information visit www.joantanner.com.

This project is made possible by the Pasadena Art Alliance, Ruth and John Ackerman, Jera Ayala, Bob DeBris, Barry and Jo Berkus, Susan Bower, Ginny Brush and Mary Bartoli, Ann and Robert Diener, Susan Jørgensen and Alice Gillaroo, Mary and Robert Looker, Lillian and Jon Lovelace, Ann Morris, Gail Pierce O’Brien, Elizabeth and Leon Olson, Helen Pashgian, Merrily Peebles and Paul Roberts, Keith and Frances Puccinelli, Joanne and Brian Rapp, Richard and Cissy Ross, Andrew and Laura Tanner Swinand, and Rose Thomas.