Lari Pittman: The Remedy of Analog Space and Time at Lehmann Maupin

Lehmann Maupin's Chelsea gallery opens The Remedy of Analog Space and Time on October 29, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles painter Lari Pittman. It runs through December 19 and brings together twelve new paintings and ten works on paper.

Pittman was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and has lived there for five decades, though much of his childhood was spent in Colombia, his mother's home country. He earned both his BFA and MFA at California Institute of the Arts in the mid-1970s. The school's feminist art program challenged the low standing of art forms historically associated with women, and that experience helped steer him toward undermining aesthetic hierarchies and embracing the decorative arts. His early work reflected the AIDS epidemic, racial discord and LGBTQ+ civil rights struggles; later paintings turned toward interior spaces, both domestic and psychological.

His compositions are built from disparate parts: street signs, textiles, storybook illustrations, cityscapes, dream imagery and text in several languages that speaks directly to the viewer. Recurring signs such as bells, eggs, animals and ropes appear alongside a mix of painting techniques. Pittman often works on a large scale, balancing color, text and image, landscape and decoration, chaos and order, and giving each element equal weight within the picture.

In this new body of work, hot air balloons act as a touchstone. Pittman has told Hyperallergic that he was thinking about the first moment humans could levitate themselves, a moment of excitement and fundamental self-estrangement, which he sees as a useful metaphor for a time when we face both the familiar and the monumentally unfamiliar. Several paintings share the exhibition's title, including works dated 2025 and 2026 (#1 and #2).

On opening day, October 29, Pittman is in conversation with Enrique Juncosa at the gallery at 5 PM, followed by an opening reception with the artist from 6 to 8 PM. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.