Knights and Hunters: Ken Garduno, Jason Hernandez, Michael Hsiung and Sam Saghatelian

Knights and Hunters: Ken Garduno, Jason Hernandez, Michael Hsiung and Sam Saghatelian

13 June – 11 July, 2009

Los Angeles – Black Maria Gallery announced “Knights and Hunters,” a new group exhibition that will open on Saturday, June 13, at 7 PM. The show will feature new drawings and paintings by Los Angeles artists Ken Garduno, Jason Hernandez, Michael C. Hsiung and Sam Saghatelian.

The exhibited works share a common theme in that they explore the complex interconnectedness of chivalry and machismo, according to Zara Zeitountsian, the director of Black Maria Gallery.

“Against the backdrop of gender politics, the ever-evolving roles of men and women, and particularly the cultural underpinnings that inform tradition and change, the ‘Knights and Hunters’ exhibition examines our understanding of what could be described as the gentleman’s ethos on the one hand, and the Don Juan complex on the other,” Zeitountsian explained.

“As the works included in the exhibition shed light on the many ironies of what it might mean to be a man in the contemporary world, they reveal the comical, the shocking and not-so-shocking, and sometimes the downright grotesque,” Saghatelian continued. “So it is that many of the works are tongue-in-cheek and unabashedly over the top. But perhaps the most important thread running through these works is that of a certain loving curiosity, and ultimately an insistence on pointing at a common humanity beyond the politics and stereotypes.”