Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Her Trail Was Crimson, the next exhibition in his galleries at 1062 North Orange Grove and 7818 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. The exhibition features the work of four artists: Robert Gober, Jacqueline Humphries, Cady Noland, and Julia Phillips.

Her Trail Was Crimson explores the subtle ways in which violence and horror have become ingrained in contemporary society and culture. The title of the exhibition stems from Cady Noland’s 1990 sculpture depicting Belle Starr, an infamous bandit of the Wild West, whose violent death in 1889 made her a media sensation.

The works in the exhibition muse on a variety of themes, including horror movies, crime scenes, vandalism, tabloid culture, mass media, and psychological profiles. Each artwork gestures to human interaction in all of its dark and messy glory.

An act of protest, dousing an artwork in paint, inspired Jacqueline Humphries’s painting, which includes bodily drips reminiscent of forensic evidence. Operator II, 2018, by Julia Phillips takes the form of a medical cart bearing devices that could be used on an individual, whose body is alluded to but physically absent. Robert Gober brings the human body into stark view in Man Coming Out of the Woman, 1993–1994, with all of its psychological implications.

“From the point at which I was making work out of objects, I became interested in how, actually, under which circumstances people treat other people like objects.” – Cady Noland