Museum as Retail Space (MaRS) is an artwork, and was a 6,000-square-foot commercial contemporary art gallery located on the East Bank of the L.A. River at 649 South Anderson Street, underneath the 6th Street bridge. 

ABOUT THE GALLERY

(This is an archived version of the original website)


EMILY MAST • The Stage is a Cage

RAÚL DE NIEVES • I’m in A Story

JIBADE-KHALIL HUFFMAN • The Discrepancies

DRAKE LABRY • Decorative Family Room Paintings

A SERIES OF FILM SCREENINGS AND LIVE PERFORMANCES • Regional, International, & Extraterrestrial

MANUEL SCANO LARRAZÀBAL • Inexorable Acephalous Magnificence or How the Shit Hits the Fan

MARTY SCHNAPF • The Night Brightens

LINDA FRANKE • Access to Nameless Hazards

MICHAEL ALVAREZ • Sorealism

MARWA ABDUL-RAHMAN • Open That Shit Wide Let Me See How Big Your Mouth Is

GALIA LINN and ELENA STONAKER • Rituals of Sphinx and Lamassu

VIJAT MOHINDRA • Always Believe That Something Wonderful is About to Happen

TATIANA ECHEVERRI FERNANDEZ • Bones and Bloodlines to Space

KRISTAN MARVELL • The Quiddity of Presence

LIPSCHUTZ & LIPSCHUTZ • Lipschutz or Lipschutz

ALEX SANCHEZ • I Keep Everything You Give Me

AUDREY HOPE • Remembering Not Remembering

ERIC LEISER • Time Crystals

JOSH PAUL THOMAS • Reintentions

KRISTOPHER RAOS • Blocked Out

LAURA SOTO • Flesh and Flood

MARK SO • Heliogabalus: Anarchy

MICHAEL ALVAREZ • Sorealism



PRESS RELEASE


Museum as Retail Space (MaRS) is pleased to present Sorealism, a solo exhibition by artist Michael Alvarez.

A native Angeleno, Alvarez grew up in North East Los Angeles, and his subjects are typically from the milieu of the city’s street community, civic spaces, and domestic life. Alvarez depicts in a sharp vérité style characters and social scenes from his life as sprawling and ornamented memories.

The representational virtuosity Alvarez articulates his work by underlines a need for direct experience, both in process and societally.

The regionalism of Alvarez’s work is brought into contrast by his references to social media, cell phones, and photographic artifacts – facets of our age of global electracy. As time and space are collapsing through digital life, and cultural reference becomes part of a general Internet vernacular, community roots suddenly become profound and inalienable.



Biography


MICHAEL ALVAREZ (b. 1983, Los Angeles) is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Alvarez is a figurative painter with a fascination for human interactions, experiences and history. His paintings pull from his collection of visual artifacts, stories and his own daily experiences and observations. The artist describes the subject matter of his work as simultaneously dysfunctional and celebratory. Alvarez’ use of technical details and distortion add nuance to the content of his paintings.

Alvarez’ work has been shown at Joshua Liner Gallery, NYC; Cal State Northridge, CA; Cerritos College, Ca; Longmont Museum and Cultural Center, CO; Pasadena Museum of California Art, CA; Vermillion Gallery Seattle, WA, as well as Juxtapoz Magazine.



April 30th – June 4th, 2016


exhibition IMAGES




SELECTED WORK


Neighborhood Watch
2013
72″ x 96″
Mixed Media on Panel
Post Coital Clean Up
2013
32″ x 57″
Oil, Pencil, Spray Paint, and Paper on Canvas
Aunt Helen (Delicious Spread)
2013
48″ x 48″
Oil, Spray Paint, and Paper on Panel
I’m the Boss
2013
48″ x 48″
Oil and Spray Paint on Panel
Instabirth
2015
25″ x 32.5″ 
Mixed Media on Panel
Our Guardian Angel (Fat Bob)
2011
40″ x 48″
Oil and Spray Paint on Canvas
Backyard Banger
2012
40″ x 73″
Oil and Spray Paint on Panel
Celebration of a Large Baby
2014
60″ x 48″
Oil, Spray Paint, and Pencil on Canvas
Take a Hike
2014
80″ x 97″
Oil, Spray Paint and Pencil on Panel