STOCK FOOTAGE AND OUTTAKES
A Selection of Works by Gronk

August 28, 2023 – October 6, 2023

Artist Talk: Monday, August 28, 2023 @ 6PM
Reception: Monday, August 28, 2023 @ 7-9PM

Closing Event: Saturday, September 30, 2023 @ 6PM
Featuring the debut of a new 32-ft long public art commission, a live performance of Tormenta 1985, and more.

The Cerritos College Art Gallery is thrilled to debut a solo exhibition of work by the legendary Los Angeles artist Gronk (presented as part of the epic 7th SUR:biennial, taking place during the Fall of 2023 at sixteen venues throughout Southern California).

Bringing together a wide array of both recent and archival objects, Stock Footage and Outtakes: A Selection of Works by Gronk offers a rare insight into the broad range of the elusive artist’s ever-evolving practice. Much like the recycled film elements (stock footage) and alternative cuts (outtakes) referenced in the exhibition title, the disparate works on display collectively highlight the productive routines and thematic recurrences that assemble to form Gronk’s distinctive creative process. While the exhibition is largely focused on exploring his artistic output as illustrator and painter, Gronk’s well-known investment in the cinematic and the performative still manage to percolate to the surface; recognizable in the storyboard-like explorations of his daily drawings, in the tongue-in-cheek pastiche of ASCO’s famed No Movie Award, in the miniature maquette of his set design for Peter Sellars’ dramatic opera, Ainadamar, and, especially, in the massive papier-mâché sculpture inspired by his ongoing obsession with 1950’s monster movies like The Giant Claw. Tormenta makes an appearance as well, of course - multiple appearances, in fact – casting shadow finger puppets in three large paintings and standing stoically in six colorful new panels. However, while she may have top billing (diva that she is), she’s far from the only cast member listed on the call sheet. There’s also a ten-foot tall red mayan dog, a giant cardboard tank inscribed with roaring dinosaurs, a floating head wearing actual cookies as earrings, and a bevy of wide-eyed faces glaring out from a collage of painted coffee cup sleeves!

In conjunction with the show, Gronk will also be transforming the Cerritos College Art Gallery’s Projects Space into his temporary studio (daily, August 29 through September 8, from 11am to 4pm) while he works on a new 32-foot long multi-panel painting commissioned by the Cerritos College Committee on Art in Public Spaces for the Fine Arts Building's west hallway. Students and visitors alike can observe, and chat with, the artist as he works and even join him for his daily coffee-fueled drawing sessions (note: free coffee will be provided). A curated selection of the artist’s favorite movies will also be screened in the Projects Space throughout the run of the exhibition, offering further insight into his many aesthetic and thematic influences.

The new public art commission will officially debut in its permanent location during the closing reception, which will also feature a series of related programming, including the live performance of Tormenta 1985, a newly-conceived project, based loosely on Gronk’s life, written and directed by Cerritos College Spanish Professor, Froylán Cabuto.