Gabe Bartalos: Abhorrence and Obsession
September 7 - December 8, 2013

The University Art Museum, CSULB is organizing a major new exhibition with Los Angeles-based special effects artist Gabe Bartalos titled Abhorrence and Obsession to open in the fall of 2013. For over fifteen years, Bartalos has broken new ground and created constantly evolving characters and sets—part set design, part art installation— that tie the psychology of emotional responses to the visual effects of the moving image. Bartalos ventures into unexplored territory and opens up a new dialogue that pushes us to rethink our ideas about visual effects and character design in relation to film, the visual arts and the film audience. The exhibition will include a number of large scale works Bartalos produced for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series and key set designs from a range of cult horror films designed by Bartalos including Brain Damage and Skinned Deep. This is the first show in a museum context of Bartalos’ work and expands the UAM interest in blurring the boundaries between the visual arts, film and popular culture.