reviews Peter Coffin
Peter Coffin
Untitled (S. LeWitt, ‘Incomplete Cube’, 1974),
MiChael Benevento Gallery, los anGeles
2008, aluminium, 213 x 213 x 3 cm.
Photo: Joshua White. Courtesy Michael
23 January – 8 M arCh Benevento Gallery, los angeles
There is nothing more quietly iconic and ubiquitous in the Los Angeles from a museum gift shop. The show needs something to counterbalance
landscape than the products of the Colby Poster Printing Co. Growing up the posters, but this sculpture series has proved dramatically more popular
in LA, I would see the uniform size and colours of the Colby posters pasted with the collectors than the critics.
on freeway off-ramps, clipped to chain-link fences and nailed to wooden On the other hand, there’s something beautiful in the posters. Their
utility poles advertising everything from monster truck rallies and Louis uniform size and the line at the bottom advertising the name, telephone
Farrakhan to Tex-Mex dance parties and tattoo conventions in gaudy eye- number and address of the company (no email address to mar its postwar
catching colours meant to jostle the complacent driver to attention. simplicity) remain unchanged, but there is no text on these signs, only
In attempting to respond to the city in some way for his Los colours. The traditional Colby posters are usually one bright colour or, if
Angeles solo debut, Peter Coffin has designed his own series of Colby fancy, a two-colour fade. The posters Coffin has designed are three-colour,
Poster Printing Co. signs. Hearing about Coffin’s projects, ranging from somewhere between industrial Rothkos, exotic ice creams and national
an inventory of micro-nations, real and imagined, music for plants and aura flags; cyan, canary-yellow and burnt orange; Kelly green, saffron and
photography, I get the impression that Coffin is either playfully brilliant or magenta; indigo, gunmetal-grey and grass-green; International orange,
just plain silly. Though I’m not thoroughly convinced of either after having carnation-pink, camouflage-green.
seen his exhibition, I’m definitely leaning towards the former. These specially designed posters will become a part of the Colby
Alongside the posters in the exhibition stand Coffin’s monumental Poster Printing Co.’s regular offerings (though it isn’t clear if they are a
silhouettes of iconic sculptures from the past and two prints of these shapes limited edition), one already spotted off the freeway in East LA, advertising
embossed and jumbled together in different ways, from the Venus of a concert in Spanish. In this series, Coffin successfully merges his poetical
Willendorf to Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, both bathed in obsession with an encyclopedic array of subjects with something so subtly
changing coloured lights. The matt-black industrial aluminium silhouettes LA that he has managed to make the city his own. Andrew Berardini
in this exhibition (different parts of the series have been shown elsewhere)
included Rodin’s The Thinker, Ernst’s Capricorn and Sol LeWitt’s Incomplete
Open Cube, all of which hover on posts only inches from the floor and
stand over two metres tall. Though I understand the impulse to play with
and perhaps learn from these sculptural icons from the past, they end up
looking a little like bad Jonathan Borofskys, or worse, oversize knick-knacks
137 Artreview
REVIEWS_April Part 1.indd 137 3/3/08 13:43:42
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190  |  Page 191  |  Page 192  |  Page 193  |  Page 194  |  Page 195  |  Page 196  |  Page 197  |  Page 198  |  Page 199  |  Page 200  |  Page 201  |  Page 202  |  Page 203  |  Page 204  |  Page 205  |  Page 206  |  Page 207  |  Page 208  |  Page 209  |  Page 210  |  Page 211  |  Page 212  |  Page 213  |  Page 214  |  Page 215