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three months later, the provocative piece was followed by a second exhibit, Jesse Morgan Barnett's L ' A t t i c o , a n d a handful of other envelope-pushing presentations have o c c u r r e d s i n c e . German-born, Los Angeles-based artist Mathis Altmann takes over Culture Hole with his sculpture Friday, April 7 — perfectly timed with this month's Dallas Art Fair. "There's a metaphysicality to the approach of the space," Ruppe says. "It's housed within a larger institution that, when closed, goes completely unseen. When the surrounding building is blacked out, the space becomes negated, and all attention is focused on light and sound emitting from the hole." THE ANTI-COWBOY: JUSTIN ADIAN Painting and sculpture coalesce in artist Justin Adian's plush foam cushions wrapped in enamel-painted canvas, usually in pastel hues. "The foam kind of softens everything out," he says. CREATIVE CLASS "It's not delicate, but there's less rigidity so it makes it feel safe somehow. It's like a way of seducing comfort out of somebody." Adian, who hails from Fort Worth, graduated from the University of North Texas and the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University before laying down roots in New York, where he's remained for nearly two decades. During a post-grad stint working at the Gagosian Gallery, he started collecting leftover materials — plywood, crates, foam — to create his own art, which has since been the subject of solo shows in Paris, London, and New York, and group shows in California, Massachusetts, Canada, and Germany. Contemporary art gallery Skarstedt, which has exhibited Adian's puffy pillows in both its London and New York outposts, brings several to the Dallas Art Fair this month. Three geometric shapes in white, canary yellow, and pale turquoise are seductively stacked in Coral Gables, 2017, while Balancing Act, 2017, features two tall, thin cushions thrust together — one blue, the other light pink. Of the pastels he favors, Adian says they are "like mixed pleasure. They don't necessarily jump off the walls and grab your attention." Elaine Cameron-Weir's Thunder-Child, 2014 Greg Ruppe Justin Adian Jeff Gibbons ISABEL ASHA PENZLIEN Mathis Altmann's Histoire de la merde, 2016 (continued from page 52) 54