California is Somewhere Else
20 March - 26 April 2025
Marianne Boesky Gallery
509 West 24th Street
Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present California is Somewhere Else, an exhibition of work by three Los Angeles-native artists—the Haas Brothers, Anthony Pearson, and Dashiell Manley—whose work has always nodded to their roots in Los Angeles, and for whom the 2025 wildfires hit close to home.
When the Eaton Fire broke out near Los Angeles on January 7, a suite of nearly finished paintings lined the walls of Dashiell Manley (b. 1983)'s studio. The paintings, once dry, were to ship to New York for a solo exhibition at Marianne Boesky opening March 20. While the artist’s home was fortunately spared, possessions including the artwork were damaged beyond repair. No longer having a critical mass of paintings for a solo exhibition, his show evolved into the three-artist California is Somewhere Else, with Manley now exhibiting the meticulous Elegies series he had been working on in his Echo Park studio. Manley's work is in the permanent collections of LA institutions the Hammer Museum and LACMA.
In 2013, Anthony Pearson (b. 1969, Los Angeles)'s brand-new studio burned down—along with all his artwork—on the day he moved in, after he went home for the night. The unique topography of Southern California has long influenced Pearson's practice. Curator Alex Klein wrote of Pearson in 2019, “the natural environment of the Palisades was a site of endless childhood discovery, and its earth tones and Mediterranean atmosphere would come to shape an aesthetic sensibility attuned to the dynamic subtleties of the Southern California landscape.”
In California is Somewhere Else, the Haas Brothers (b. 1984, Santa Monica) will present a group of new sculptures from their ongoing Moontowers series. The otherworldly cast-bronze lamps conjure 19th-century 'moonlight towers'. Once a fixture of American cities—including Los Angeles—moonlight towers were significantly taller than standard streetlamps and, when illuminated, cast a warm, moon-like glow over entire city blocks. With the Moontowers, the artists capture the somber romanticism of the world drenched in moonlight.
California is Somewhere Else borrows its title from Joan Didion’s 1965 essay “Notes from a Native Daughter,” a meditation on California as a place constantly evolving based on how it is remembered. “It should be clear by now,” Didion writes, “that the truth about the place is elusive, and must be tracked with caution.” With California is Somewhere Else, the three artists offer reflections of the place they all call home; the ways in which California infuses their work in ways large and small.
California is Somewhere Else will be on view alongside Jennifer Bartlett: On the Water in Marianne Boesky Gallery’s adjacent space at 507 West 24th Street.
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More information is in the above-linked press release, and a preview of works on view is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files. Artwork information is in each image’s file title. Image reuse must be exclusively in association with press coverage of the exhibition, with the credit line “copyright of the artist and courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery”
