Good Mother Gallery is pleased to present The Los Angeles Confidential, a site-specific installation by Devin Troy Strother. The exhibition will be on view in Los Angeles from February 19th through March 14th, with an opening reception on February 19th from 5 to 8 PM.
For over a decade, Strother has built a practice that dissects the language of Black cultural production, pop iconography, and art history with a subversive humor that both seduces and indicts. His work embraces excess narratively, visually, and materially, collapsing references from sports, music, cinema, and the art world into hypercharged compositions that oscillate between celebration and critique.
In this new installation, Strother pushes his signature approach into immersive territory, constructing a layered environment that riffs on the aesthetics of commerce, media, and mythmaking. At the centerpiece of the exhibition stands The Los Angeles Confidential, an architectural sculpture kiosk/newsstand that functions as a mobile information hub—an evolving archive that collects printed materials, film recordings, relics, and an ever-expanding inventory of elusive ephemera as it travels. The title references the iconic 1997 film L.A. Confidential, playing on the idea that access to the art world remains an exclusive and enigmatic space. This kiosk serves as an invisible entry point, offering a gateway through print, film, and, most importantly, an open mind.
Also featured in the exhibition is Strother’s neon installation, Name Drop (Literally), a suspended constellation of art-world elites and icons, with each name glowing in neon at varying heights, creating a dynamic and immersive experience. The work draws inspiration from Jason Rhoades’ Black Pussy and incorporates Paul McCarthy’s multidisciplinary approach to sculpture, film, architecture, and the theatrical presentation of abstract information in physical space. Through this interplay of light and hierarchy, Strother satirizes the social structures of the art world, turning the act of name-dropping into a literal, glowing spectacle.
Throughout the installation, moments of absurdity amplify the tensions at play between legibility and abstraction, irony and reverence, art and advertisement. A large-scale assemblage evokes the visual language of billboards and urban signage, while scattered interventions recall the guerrilla tactics of underground media. Elsewhere, a sequence of hand-painted original works references art historical lineages and cartoonish exaggerations in equal measure, infusing traditional composition with an irreverent sensibility.
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with The Pit.
Opening Reception: February 19, 5-8 PM
On View: February 19 – March 14, 2024
Good Mother Gallery Annex - 5075 W. Adams Blvd
Fore more information or to request a digital catalog of available works, please email info@goodmothergallery.com
About the Artist:
Devin Troy Strother was born in West Covina, CA in 1986 and lives in Los Angeles, CA. He received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 2009 and completed a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine in 2010. One person exhibitions of his work have been presented at Over the Influence, Hong Kong [2019], Shoot The Lobster, Los Angeles, CA (2018), V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2018), Marlborough Contemporary, New York, NY (2017), Ruttkowski 68, Cologne, Germany [2017], Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2016, 2015, 2013), Marlborough Chelsea, New York, NY (2015), and Bendixen Contemporary, Copenhagen, Denmark (2014, 2012). His works are in the permanent collections of The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and The California African American Museum in Los Angeles as well as in prominent private collections worldwide.