Stray Light Grey opening at Marlborough Chelsea. All photos by Ryann Donnelly for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

Stray Light Grey is a full gallery installation on view at Marlborough Chelsea by artist collaborators, Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman. Equal parts creation and destruction, a series of rooms has been gutted and destroyed in order for the viewer to pass through a maze of the artists’ apocalyptic scenery. The torn walls, fluorescent horror-film lighting and the glut of strange objects such as crystals, antique dentist chairs and 1980s movie posters all make up the experience.

Freeman Lowe installation courtesy Marlborough Chelsea

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Artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe will transform Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery into a “junkyard fantasy” as part of their latest project, which hosts a grimy subterranean world with elements of sci-fi and squalor, described by Freeman as the debris after “some horrible event had happened and everyone had to evacuate.” Since their breakout work, Hello Meth Lab In The Sun, in 2008, (beginning in Marfa, reiterated in Art Basel Miami and Deitch projects in New York) shows of varying edginess have followed. “Shadow Pool: A Natural History of the San San International,” held at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, was the pair’s most recent solo venture.

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Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, image from “Shadow Pool: A Natural History of the San San International” slide lecture. Courtesy of the artists.

Last Wednesday evening the Masonic Temple at the well-known Hollywood Forever Cemetery was filled with major Los Angeles art world players, including Jeffrey Deitch, MOCA trustee Jeffrey Soros, MOCA donor Karyn Kohl, curator Shamim Momin, Hammer curator Ali Subotnick, and gallerist Maggie Kayne, as well as artists Mark Hagen, Nate Lowman and Hanna Liden. All had gathered under the night’s full moon for the most recent project by New York-based artist duo Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, Shadow Pool: A Natural History of the San San International, an event organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Freeman and Lowe are known for their immersive environments, such as Hello Meth Lab in the Sun, Black Acid Co-op, and Bright White Underground—and Shadow Pool proved to push their engagement tactics to the next level.

MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch with the Towel People from Shadow Pool fashion show. Image courtesy of Daniel DiScala.

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