Terry Allen’s The Exact Moment It Happens in The West

at LA Louver (through September 28)
Reviewed by Eve Wood

Entering into Terry Allen’s universe is not unlike the imagined sensation of standing on an egg as it rolls across a hard wood floor, never stopping long enough to crack. The process by which we come to understand and appreciate his work requires a level of commitment on the part of the viewer not unlike balancing on an egg in that there are so many nuances and brilliantly imaginative connections being made all at once, that you feel that if you look away — even for an instant, that egg could shatter beneath your feet and you would be left with nothing but egg on your face.

With over a hundred drawings dating from the 1960s to the present, one understands that Allen is truly an artist who “works out his ideas on paper,” meaning that within the scope of this highly controlled two-dimensional plane, Allen asserts an array of unique and perfectly implausible worlds, each a separate and wondrous universe in and of itself. What is so striking about Allen’s drawings is that while they suggest much larger and more comprehensive projects, be they sculptural, musical or textual, the genesis by which these ideas are born on paper is as thrilling as the final iteration. The drawings stand both as testaments to larger projects, but more importantly, they remain as individual jewels to be marveled at in their own right.