On Saturday, Copro Gallery pulled back the curtains for "Suggestivism: Chronology" (previewed here), curated by Nathan Spoor. This is the fifth installment of "Suggestivism", Spoor's moniker for fantastical, figurative work that 'suggests' to be more than it seems. In the 1890s, art historian Sadakichi Hartmann defined it in his writings as a style “of poetic mysticism and psychological intensity.” Spoor chose 42 contemporary artists whose work shares a surreal, poetic-like quality, such as Aron Wiesenfeld, Chet Zar, Nicoletta Ceccolli, Dan May, Hsiao-Ron Cheng, Naoto Hattori, Charlie Immer, Gregory Jacobsen, Sarah Joncas, and more.
Artist and curator Nathan Spoor takes over Copro Gallery in Santa Monica this month for another iteration of his "Suggestivism" group show, an annual exhibition with a rotating roster of contemporary artists. Spoor coined the term "Suggestivism" during his graduate studies to describe the type of ambiguous, fantastical figurative art he was creating. He later discovered that art historian Sadakichi Hartmann used the term as early as 1890 to describe “an art that is possibly more than it seems, or possibly an art that is not what it seems.” The description seems apt for the collection of dreamlike, imagination-driven works in the show, featuring artists like Amy Sol, Dan May, Scott Musgrove, Heidi Tailifer, Michael Page, Hannah Yata and Marco Mazzoni. Spoor has staged past versions of the show in LA, Rome and New York. Take a look at the new work in this year's rendition below.