Among America's most pioneering and enigmatic sculptors of the 20th Century is Reuben Nakian, whose works are the subject of an exhibition at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, located at 357 N. La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. The extends through March 20.
"Reuben Nakian - Sculpture & Works on Paper," will feature nearly 50 works – some on loan from museum and private collections – including 30 sculptures plus select original prints and drawings. The exhibition spans work ranging from his provocative 1943 portrait of Marcel Duchamp - when Nakian took a decidedly independent stylistic shift - to Nakian's iconic sculptures and drawings inspired by Greek mythology.
John Puglisi "The Cold, Hard Ground"
Mitch O' Connell "Pre-engagement Ring"
October 2 - November 1, 2009
Artist reception: Friday, October 2, 2009 ~ 8 -11PM LA LUZ DE JESUS GALLERY
4633 Hollywood Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90027 323 666 7667 www.laluzdejesus.com
In "The Cold, Hard Ground," John Puglisi revisits his favorite subject of growing up in a small town in northern New Jersey where, apparently, the winter is a time of change, sometimes bleak, but perhaps hopeful and there is always a sinister hint of The Sopranos in the air.
In previous shows, Puglisi's paintings depicted working life in New Jersey industrial towns and summer vacation down the Jersey Shore. In "The Cold, Hard Ground," Puglisi explores his memories of New Jersey in the dead of winter. He is inspired by memories such as the frozen tundra of the town cemetery, and the wasteland of classic cars in city junkyards. Puglisi has also worked as a conceptual illustrator and storyboard artist on animated and live-action films for DreamWorks, Disney, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Industrial Light and Magic, and Twentieth-Century Fox. Puglisi currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Mitch O' Connell's imaginative, vividly colorful, smart and well executed artwork is undeniably and unabashedly old-school low-brow.
O’Connell is one of Chicago's most well-known illustrators and his tattoo designs are also a fixture on the walls of tattoo shops around the word. His distinctive style fuses cartoony and iconic imagery plus an innate sense of humor to create pop-kitsch masterpieces.
The intimate display space of a gallery(as opposed to the vast warehouse maze of big museums) creates an atmosphere that can be more intense and thoughtful than the encyclopedic demands of large institutions. At least that’s the theory. Finding profoundly challenging shows in L.A. galleries is a lot like trying to find satisfaction at a baseball game. The stats are always against you. The shows at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, however, are a lot like Yankees games: fans are likely to see something thrilling and go home satisfied. That is certainly the case with the current show, a revolving exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures, mostly from the Rutberg collection, which represents a survey of the modern and contemporary artists whose work Rutberg has presented over the decades. It is also an excellent opportunity to see how the work of Los Angeles artists figure in the larger contexts of contemporary art over the decades and around the world. The show will run through October.
Dangerous Curve is a fond memory, ASTO has vanished, there's less left of LACE than most Mesopotamian ruins, Cirrus is slumbering and Riverrun, alas, is now Ay Carrumba. Only Edgar Varela Fine Arts (which features some of the best shows in downtown in its intimate space and hosts killer openings in its tree-shaded courtyard) has dared maintain, as if it were some lonely outpost of a lost civilization, an art gallery in the Arts District. But now there is a sign of revival. Like a blade of grass emerging from a crack in the concrete, a new gallery is opening in the Arts District -- at a familar location -- Factory Place.
ADC Contemporary Art Gallery (Artdecollectors) is hosting a grand opening of its new gallery space with En-LAces, an exhibition of four international contemporary artists, on October 16th, 2009 from 6:30pm to 10pm at the Factory Art Complex. Participating artists include CHIYOMI TANEIKE LONGO/ Japan - FRANCISCO ROMERO/ Mexico - ARIEL KUPFER / Argentina - CARLOS TORRES/ Colombia.Show runs through November 17th.
RSVP for EN-LACES: Click below or call 323-839-5786
Timeless - A Solo Show by Libby Black
September 12th - October 17th
Charlie James Gallery (in Chinatown)
Artist's Reception: Saturday, September 12th, 6-9pm Libby Black, a Bay Area artist with a sense of humor and a penchant for controversy, is the subject of a solo show at the Charlie James Gallery in Chinatown from September 12 to October 17, 2009. Ms Black is an established star on the Bay Area art scene; she gained significant notoriety in 2005 for her installation of a Kate Spade store at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, replete with shoes, shoeboxes, handbags and presentation shelves all composed of paper, acrylic paint, and hot glue. Since then she has been a perennial and successful fixture in art fairs and in solo and group shows around the country.
Philippa Blair - Tracks
Jayme Odgers – Watercolor Portraits
October 17 – November 11, 2009
Opening Reception, Saturday, October 17 th, 6 – 10pm Lawrence Asher Gallery
The richly textured, expressive and gestural works of Philippa Blair summon the zeitgeist of Abstract Expressionists. These paintings do not have a fixed point of view thus allowing us to read the work any way we like, side to side or top to bottom, as we attempt to discern one surface layer from the next. It is beneath this layering of paint and aggressive brush strokes that a narrative of urbanity reveals itself. Like Blair's work, the richly textured and grafittied walls of Los Angeles are sites of performance whose narrative is always unfolding.
Weekend Pacifists, opening August 22nd at Subliminal Projects, showcases five artists whose lives and works have crisscrossed the skateboarding and lowbrow art worlds throughout the better part of the '90s and '00s. Collectively, their art is dotted with both whimsy and sociopolitics.
Here's what they each have to say about the show's title:
Andy Jenkins "I work a regular schedule during the week and it's anything but passive. On the weekend I become passive, as my personal work steers me around by the hands."
SHAG's work is the essence of cool.He conjures a world of retro futures, peopled by thin hipsters who hang out in tiki bars and listen to jazz on vinyl. Collectors and connoisseurs of SHAG will have a chance purchase a cache of art, merchandise and ephemera spanning his entire career at the first ever Shag Swapmeet at Billy Shire Fine Arts, starting on Saturday, September 12, 12 noon - 10 pm. (and running through October 3).
The works of Myron Conan Dyal, a modern mystic whose epileptic visions are the catalysts for a vast body of work that spans three decades and more than 6,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures is also featured in a simultaneous show. Dyal's figurative and organic forms are derived from visions he experienced during epileptic seizures and self-induced trances that have aided him in dealing with his condition. Dyal's drawings, paintings, and sculptures illustrate alternate realms filled with archetypal figures and places that have littered human consciousness for centuries. They take us through the darkest forests into the depths of their imaginations where we see tricksters, soothsayers, mystics, and guardians as we walk through Elysian Fields and trespass in the underworld.
The inspiration for Bryan Cunningham's "Wander Lost"(opening at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery September 4) was born in a road trip across the continental United States. Early in the journey, Cunningham observed that the stopping points along the American highway had become gentrified with megastores and chain restaurants. Each exit mirrored the last, instilling an omnipresent sense of Deja Vu. Cunningham decided to switch courses and explored the forgotten routes that the highways had replaced. Here he found the mom & pop diners, picturesque motels and backyard shrines (to anonymous deities) that gave an indigenous face back to the road. The vision, knuckles and know-how that went into each of these oft-abandoned roadside attractions carries the haunting stain of its creator, producing a duality of being both inanimate and living at the same time.
The traveling exhibition of R. Crumb's early and recent works, R. Crumb's Underground,opens at the Grand Central Art Center in Fullerton on July 11 and runs through August 16. Curated by Todd Hignite, founder of Comic Art Magazine, the show is an eclectic mix of the works of the comic genius whose pioneering work in the legendaryZap Comix in the late 60's propelled him to the status of counter-culure icon. The exhibition includes work that spans Crumb's career, from early Zap-era comics to his "spool" drawings, premiered here.
The selected works by Robert Indiana, Andy Warhol,John Wesley, Raymond Pettibon, Barbara Kruger and Allen Joneson display at Ikon Contemporary Art through July 18 in a group show
approriately titled Chosen Love, offer visitors a nostalgic trip down
the rabbit hole into the colorful era of
60's and early 70's pop at its most vital.
This is a fun show, with or without your
mini-skirts and mutton-chops.
The work of Kill Pixie (the nom de graffiti of Australian-born artist Mark Whalen) is the subject of a solo exhibition at Merry Karnowsky Gallery opening May 30 and running through June 27. The exhibition features a collaborative installation by Kill Pixie and the band, Autolux.
Kill Pixie began as a graffiti artist on the streets of Sydney and now lives an works in L.A. He works primarily in ink and acrylic on paper mounted to wood and coated in shiny resin. Inextricably embedded in geometric, candy-colored environments, Kill Pixie's humanoid characters suggest Tinguely-like puppets operating on remote control. The machinery and structures are all made up of much smaller objects, suggesting infinite series of Mandelbrot set-like scales that open onto a series of smaller worlds.
LLyn Foulkes(currently showing at the Hammer Museum and performing there on May 29th) has been called the Zelig of contemporary art. Over the past five decades he has been consistently inconsistent, confounding critics and galleries with dramatic changes of direction whenever it seemed like he was about to be overtaken by popular acclaim. He’s also been consistently ahead of the curve. He showed a year before Andy Warhol at the legendary Ferus Gallery in the mid-60's and was heralded as an early master of Pop with his famous ‘Cow’ (a nicely rendered creature in blank space), anticipating Warhol’s bovine prints by three years. Among the artists with whom he emerged were John Baldessari, Wallace Berman, Robert Irwin and Ed Ruscha. Although he would probably scoff at the label, many admirers regard his musical performances as performance art.
Ed Moses turned 83 in April, but you wouldn't know it by looking his recent large-scale work, on display in simultaneous shows at two Bergamont Station galleries (Frank Lloyd Gallery and Greenfield Sacks Gallery) through June 20th, which remains fresh, vigorous and lyrical as ever.
For half a century, Moses has pushed the boundaries of abstract painting. He has remained in the Los Angeles area much of his life and is one of the city’s living cultural treasures. His work ranges from compositions featuring repeated patterns to large fields of flowing color. Color is not used to describe objects, but rather to establish pure aesthetic experience.
Argentinean painter Antonia Guzmán’ssecond solo exhibition of recent works (Los Enigmas, May 9 – June 13 at Couturier Gallery),explores the narrative and emotional terrain of Giacomo Puccini’s last opera, Turandot. This is challenging subject matter – in his later works Puccini was influenced by Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Rimsky-Korsakov and Turandot is a landmark work that introduced contemporary elements and eschewed traditional Italian harmonies in favor of a more modernist and international flavor. Turandot’s emotional and narrative elements are a bit strange (well, it’s an opera), and might briefly be described as the tale of a spoiled, murderous princess who is persuaded to give up beheading suitors by the power of love.
Works by Banksy, David Choe, Shepard Fairey,Space Invader, KAWS, Swoon and more...
Get Rich Quick: A Selecton from the Collections of our Collectors:
May 7th through May 28th Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art
1257 N. La Brea
West Hollywood, CA 90038
323 969 0600
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. or by appointment
Among other artists whose work is featured are Adam Neate, Antony Micallef, BarryMcGee, Bast, Beejoir, D*Face, Dalek, David Choong Lee, Faile, Herbert Baglione, Ian Francis,NickWalker, Paul Insect,Sixeart, Skullphone, and Will Barras. Both original works and a selection of rare, sold-out prints will be available for purchase.
Chad Robertson’s “mash-ups” (a term borrowed from contemporary music meaning the blending of two or more songs) weave photographs and images from the Internet into layered, narrative compositions that hint at hallucinogenic cosmologies. These paintings are intriguing to explore -- sort of a cosmic ‘Where’s Waldo’ (without, thank God, Waldo). A show of his latest work at Western Project, Chad Robertson: Come Together: (April 25 – May 23, 2009), is sure to enhance growing interest in this L.A. artist.
History, as any historian (or propagandist)will tell you, is a matter of perception. (Stalin routinely ordered the erasure of officials who had fallen from grace from archival photos and deleted their names from texts. Thus the perception of the Soviet elite of the 20’s, say, was vastly different in the 30’s than it was in the 50’s.) Tim Lewis’ work explores (sometimes with a touch of whimsy) the role of images in popular perceptions of the past; how they contribute to historic narratives that emerge as prevailing views and how subsequent re-interpretation shades perceptions even more until it’s hard to tell fact from fiction.
Carl Ramsey’s paintings are tiny slices of L.A street lifecaptured in the kind of over-bright L.A. sunshine that makes you reach for your sunglasses. These brilliantly-colored mini-narratives document daily existence in and around the Historic Core of Los Angeles and are particularly powerful when they capture the small movements and gestures of subjects who seem to have been captured in a surreptitious snapshot. To see more, go to www.bgfa.us/artists/ramsey.
Robert Vargas paints with vigor and an explosive palettethatgive his portraits and figure studies a dynamic, fluid qualityappropriate to an artist with music in his resume (he used to research and book world music bands for the famed Conga Room). For several years now, Vargas has been wowing visitors at various downtown venues who have been fortunate to catch him during one of his fevered, focused displays of public painting. His work has matured remarkably over the past few years, and frenzied as his method may seem, thoughtful narrative touches have begun to creep to his work (see his portrait of fellow L.A. artist, Gronk), that gives his paintings even greater depth. Most of all, his work is fun, fresh and exciting. His show at Edgar Varela Fine Arts (EVFA), April 18 – May 3rd, features new works that reveal an artist who is clearly climbing to new peaks.
LA Contemporary has presented some of the strongest showsin town, with exhibitions of work by Banksy, John Baldessari, Ron English and Chase. Its current show (Jin Zi/Yun Bai, April 11 through May 16) offers works by two contemporary Chinese artists, affording an all-too-rare a glimpse into a world of art that is perhaps not as well known in this country as it deserves to be. Jin Zi and Yun Bai both incorporate traditional imagery in modern contexts -- but the similiarity ends there. Jin's work is dark and surreal, with characters that at first glance seem to be over-sentimentalized cartoons of cute, wide-eyed kids but that on closer inspection are revealed to be children tormented by the nightmare of history.
Boxi’s full-scale figuresare like panels from some direpost-apocalyptic graphic novel come to life. As he describes it, “a dark disillusioned romanticism pervades throughout, (along with) confrontational themes, such as paranoia, disappointment, expectation, grief, mistrust and other upbeat reflections of our times.” A one-man show the UK artist at the Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art, Grey Area, his first solo exhibition in the U.S., promises to be an appropriately surreal and engaging affair, with his life-size figures competing with visitors for breathing space. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 from 7:00pm - 10.00pm, with the artist in attendance.
Todd Schorr is one of our favorite artists of what might be called the school of American Neo-Surrealism. His vivid, meticulous, highly-detailed works are drawn from across the full range of American pop culture -- 50's sci-fi, comic books, way too much TV; and leavened by a well-honed sense of irony. Dark and funny and loaded with cultural references, he is, along with Robert Williams, pioneering a remarkable new vernacular that is invigorating the gallery scene by appealing to younger generations without sacrificing intelligence. A show of his new works, appropriately titled for our surreal times, "The World We Live In," opens Saturday, March 28th at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery and runs through April 18.
Birgitte Moos is a native Dane but she splits her time between Copenhagen and Los Angeles and so her works reflect urban landscapes that transcend continental divides. Her imagery has evolved from the use of early European mythological symbols and figures into dark, abstract, almost architectonic works that suggest urban landscapes that trap and channel human figures through an uneasy labyrinth.
Moos describes her approach to painting as an exploration of her personal experience and that of her generation by adapting methods from the memory palace technoique of recall, "the method of loci, or 'ars memoriae' (art of memory)." The woven layers in each individual painting are narratives representing separate visions of remembrance. " Symbolically," Moos explains, a brain scattered full of information: A perverse peep into the creative and complex atmosphere inside the memory of a mind palace."
Edward Hagedorn (1902 – 1982) was a true California Modernist who embraced ideas from across almost the full spectrum of modern movements but remained grounded in his own interior vision. Even today, his works elude easy categorization, although at various moments in his long career he was associated with Expressionism, Surrealism, Impressionism, Cubism and particularly, Fauvism. For a while, the German influence in his work was so pronounced that none other than Galka Scheyer, the legendary art dealer, collector and founder of the Pasadena Museum of Art (now the Norton Simon), who introduced
John Saslow abandoned the palette for the skillet a few decades ago and achieved a fair success as a chef and restaurant manager -- but the lure of the brush drew him back and he is now showing new works at the ArtShare Gallery in the Arts District. There is a hint of the foodie in his focus on textures and he makes truly intriguing use of repetitive patterns on a variable surface.
The spring Brewery Art Walk, a twice-annual open studio weekend at the world’s largest art colony, is scheduled for April 18th and 19th, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. More than 100 resident artists participate in each art walk that draws thousands of art fans in the spring and fall. The two-day event features live music, performance art and al fresco dining at the former industrial complex in downtown Los Angeles. Visitors explore artists’ live-work spaces, speak with the artists and purchase artworks at studio prices.
Three years ago a pair of artists, Vort and Cank, teamed up in Philadelphia to create an art production company and “abstract consulting firm” called VORCAN.com and set out on the ambitious task of collaboratively interpreting live music through their painting, relying on the music and the ambiance to supply inspiration. Since that time, VORCAN have painted over 400 events in The United States and across Europe. For tandem artists, they have a surprisingly sophisticated palette -- and they like to inject a bit of absurd humor into their work (see the little rhinocerous?).
On the evening of Saturday, March 14th, they will be painting live, to the music of DJ Destructo Bunny (oh, that cwazy wabbit!), at l2k (a gallery that consistently produces intriguing events and presents some of the most interesting artists in town) in Chinatown from six to nine p.m. Be there or, uh, you know.
Artists who break through boundaries to explore their creativity in a wider range of media often bring with them fresh approaches that invigorate and enliven their work. Julian Schnabel and Mark Mothersbaugh are excellent examples – as are the mostly younger artists/musicians whose works constitute Rock, Paper, Scissors, opening at the Robert Berman Gallery on Saturday, February 28th with an appropriately musical kickoff presided over by DJ Shepard Fairey. Among those participating are Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Ron English, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers and Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. Jon Cournoyer curates the exhibition.
“Futurism was an international art movement founded in Italy in 1909. It was (and is) a refreshing contrast to the weepy sentimentalism of Romanticism. The Futurists loved speed, noise, machines, pollution, and cities; they embraced the exciting new world that was then upon them rather than hypocritically enjoying the modern world’s comforts while loudly denouncing the forces that made them possible. Fearing and attacking technology has become almost second nature to many people today; the Futurist manifestos show us an alternative philosophy. Too bad they were all Fascists.”
-Kim Scarborough’s Guide to Futurism
Okay, that said, Futurism was one of the most influential movements of the early 20th Century, inspiring Marcel Duchamp, among others; putting the ‘avant’ in the Avant Garde and kick-starting much of modern architecture. The movement began precisely on February 20, 1909 and the Otis College of Art and Design is throwing it a big, lavish, fun, dress-up birthday party on Friday, February 20th. For fans of 20th Century art history, this promises to be a night to remember, featuring live music, poetry readings, short films (including a century-old classic Futurist love story told entirely by feet), art, and the inevitable video installation (“1080 Punch-ups”). There will be food and Futurist cocktails will be served. Attendees are urged to dress in Futurist attire (i.e. red, black or white).
Hush's work is an enigmatic synthesis of anime, pop-infused imagery, graffiti, and graphic design. "Hush is a powerful voice in today's art world, one of the few artists who will survive the recession. In fact, pieces are already selling and we don't even have all the images yet," says Carmichael Gallery co-curator Seth Carmichael. "Although Hush comes from a graffiti and street art background I would compare him more to Lichtenstein than to Banksy, but like Banksy he is part of the same global movement."
Work in the show will include acrylic paint, screen print, spray paint, ink, and tea on canvas and wood as well as a site specific installation. The exhibition will be open for viewing through Thursday, March 26th 2009 from 1:00 pm to 7:00pm.
With HUSH and KAWS (at the Honor Fraser Gallery, see our Preview below) in town at the same time, this is an excellent opportunity to get a sense of cutting edge British street art (even without Banksy).
Los Angeles artist Ted Meyer (now showing photographs of Girls on a Black Chair at The Boyd) has always been fascinated with body images. He endured a painful illness as a child and his earliest works depicted bodies in torment. When he condition was successfully diagnosed and treated, his artwork was transformed into images of figures in joyful celebration of their physicality.
A more mature project led him to explore how people coped with scarring caused by accident or as the result of surgery – an exploration that resulted in a remarkable series of photos and prints lifted directly from scars. The collaborative effort required on the part of his subjects was recorded in documents that accompanied the exhibition of photos and prints.
His new show at The Boyd is another collaborative project in which his subjects were invited to present themselves any way they wished, as long as they interacted with the same black chair. This is an entertaining and intriguing exhibition that shows Meyer is as much a master of the lens as the brush.
Art forms that bubble up from popular culture are generally more vital, controversial and, well, fun than more traditional fare. Without a doubt, the emergence of graphic novels and the serious treatment accorded superheroes by filmmakers, critics and audiences has validated comic books -- once viewed, as writer Michael Chabon says, as “greasy kids stuff . . . the literary equivalent of bubble-gum cards.” Today, even stories about the origins of this most American of genres are fair game for mythologization (see Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay,” for example). Now, lucky for us Angelenos, the show at that bastion of culture, The Skirball Center, “ZAP! POW! BAM! THE SUPERHERO: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938 – 1950” (running February 19 through August 9) is added confirmation that comics are a valid art form (huh, as if any validation were needed!).
The exhibition focuses on that thrilling period in American history that includes the Great Depression, World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, when Superman (1938), Batman (1939), Wonder Woman (1941), Captain Marvel (1940), and numerous other Superheroes were born. Before you go to the Skirball, you can check out the origin stories of these icons of muscular America at dccomics.com/dcu/ (click on “About DC Comics” and find “Secret Files and Origins" toward the bottom of the text to see the original panels!).
The subjects in Martin Gunsaullus’ paintings almost always have their eyes closed, suggesting denial, repression, submission or entrapment. Mixing traditional methods with a modern sensibility, the artist creates haunting images of the human condition that mine the same stark and emotionally-charged territory as Francis Bacon, Leon Golub, Edvard Munch (to whom he pays trinute in one work) and Gabriel Orozco. Historical Biblical and mythological references abound, as well as a sinister noir and cinematic character that puts a small tattoo of geographic identity on this L.A. artist. “A Feather in the Web” at Western Project is Gunsaullus’ first show in twenty years and it is a compelling glimpse of an artist at the height (so far) of his technical kills and emotional insights.
Words and images have a tangled relationship in the human brain (as every advertising art director knows) and artists have long exploited the human propensity to search out meaning in anything that looks like text or find a reference to tangible objects in the even the most abstract composition. Contemporary explorations of the nature of the relationship between words, images and the things they signify date back at least as far as Rene Magritte’s painting of a pipe with the legend, “This is Not a Pipe.” Illiterature, an exhibition of the works of contemporary artists curated by Mark Carter at ARENA 1 in Santa Monica, offers an astonishingly broad spectrum of approaches to exploring language in art, presenting “works in various media that utilize text and text-like imagery for visual, graphic, illustrative and contemplative ends rather than a literal dialog.”
Henri Matisse contributed to or created 17 books during his prolific career. For some he merely supplied illustrations, some were collaborations (a limited edition of James Joyce's Ulysses is perhaps the most well-known of these)-- but the most intriguing were his “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book), a species of publication that emerged in France around the turn of the 20th century. These were deluxe, limited editions, often published in loose pages in a box, designed to be collected and treasured as works of art as well as read. An excellent example is his Florilège des Amours de Ronsard (Anthology of Ronsard's Love Poems), created when the artist was at the zenith of his powers. It was an immense project that took seven years to complete. The current exhibition of selected illustrations, “Matisse’s Amours: Illustrations of Pierre de Ronsard’s Love Poems,” on display at the Norton Simon from February 13 through June 8, is an exceptional opportunity to see some of Matisse’s finest (but rarely displayed) lithographs.
Matisse's engravings are deceptively simple and are among the artist's greatest works in any medium. The source of their power derives not only from the exceptional economy and grace of line but from the subtly suggested volumes -- and because they were incised on metal plates, a process that demands great confidence, concentration and level pressure.
Works by L.A. Artist Robert Reynolds Displayed in Berlin
Long-time Los Angeles artist Robert Reynolds, who has emerged over the past decade as a truly innovative, major talent, recently had a large-scale work on display in one of the most prestigious museums in the world, the Pergamon. Although the show is no longer current, it is worthy to note the recognition Reynolds is earning in one of most art-savvy metropolises in the world.
Much of Reynolds’ recent work combines materials and images from ancient cultures with modern forms. His Ishtar Chariot of Nebuchadnezzar II, for example, is a representation of a four-door sedan covered by colored glazed tiles that complements the museum’s reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon from the 6th Century B.C. Pergamon Museum curators placed the Chariot adjacent to the Ishtar Gate. It is perhaps the best parking spot in Berlin.
“Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico City,” an exhibition of the work of New York-based photographer Joseph Rodríguez, opens on February 14th (and what better day than Valentine’s Day to celebrate love for sale!) at drkrm.gallery. Rodriguez’s images capture putas and putos strolling the streets, trolling for johns in the working class suburbs and hipster hangouts of Mexico City. It is an intriguing contradiction of many countries dominated by the Catholic faith (particularly Mexico) that the sex trade is condemned in principle but encouraged in practice. In Rodríguez’s startlingly intimate black-and-white photographs we encounter a re-sexualized and re-spiritualized country in flux, embracing religious dogma while discarding taboos. Rodríguez’s beautiful and brutally honest images suggest a culture in which spirit and flesh have always been inextricably intertwined.
KAWS is coming to town. The Brooklyn-born artist who started out altering ads on bus shelters in the early ‘90s has emerged as an influential and innovative artist whose adaptations of pop-culture graphics have become brand-like symbols of their own. His first L.A. solo show, “The Long Way Home,” opens February 21st at the Honor Fraser Gallery (just north of Ladera Heights). A large, life-size version of one of his most iconic creations, “Chum,” will also be making an appearance during the show.
“Hans Burkhardt - Paintings of the 1960s, Part II” on display now through April at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, is a major survey exhibition. This is an important show of works by a major talent whose role in the history of modern American art (particularly in L.A.) is insufficiently documented. An accompanying catalog with 76 illustrations goes some distance in correcting this.
The exhibition includes paintings - some of monumental scale – that span the 60s, a critical period in the evolution of American art, particularly in Los Angeles, where Burkhardt lived after departing N.Y. for the Coast in 1937. The show covers the full range of Burkhardt’s paintings, reflecting both the hopeful excitement of the social revolution of the 60s and works of indignant ferocity in their protest of the Viet Nam War.
Alexey Steeles’s large-scale drawings that depict monumental, allegorical figures in exquisite detail, often in expertly foreshortened and classic, dramatic poses but with a modern flair, have earned him a reputation as a master draughtsman. His talent and expertise are on full display in Approaching Thunder, a new work acquired by The Carnegie Art Museum that will be unveiled on Saturday, February 7th. This is an exquisite piece in pastel on paper that marries the hard-edged clarity of rigorous technique with a touch of surrealism.
Celebrated L.A. contemporary artist Ruth Weisberg is the subject of a new exhibition, "Ruth Weisberg - Selected Works,” at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, featuring paintings and works on paper that reveal Weisberg's unique vision through which the viewer sees the convergence of art history, personal memory, and cultural experience.
During the Cold War, German artists working on both sides of the iron curtain created works within the contexts of their respective political systems. In the immediate post-war era, artists in both Germanys reacted against the legacy of Nazism and drew on pre-war national artistic traditions. As international tensions increased, however, distinctive versions of modern and post-modern art emerged that revealed the sharp contrasts in the divided culture.
There are some astounding and provocative images in the “The Art of Imaging,” a collaboration between Mission Hospital and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art which has produced an exhibition of images produced by artists given access to the latest in advanced medical imaging technology, including 3- and 4-D ultrasound, mammography, interventional and digital radiology, computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and conventional X-rays. This is a fascinating show of images of our inner physicality, combined with other elements and presented with breathtaking lyricism and knife-edged clarity that can also disturb and remind us of our ultimately fragile nature.
"Up on the Roof Countin' Pigeons" is the first West Coast solo exhibition of work by Baltimore artist Chris Stain, whose large-scale wall works are in the same stylistic and polemical vein as the murals of that elusive Brit, Banksy.
Stain is transforming the Carmichael Gallery into a New York City rooftop, including a pigeon coop and a saxophone player on a fire escape. Stain’s portraits of the urban working class are both lyrical and gritty. "My work explores the emotional and physical struggle of growing up in an urban environment, “ Stain explains. “Through hand-cut stencils and installations made from found materials I hope to inspire compassion for the often overlooked individuals of society." The works include stencil, spraypaint and mixed media on metal and found objects.
"Hunting and Gaming" is a dark exhibition, suffused with mystery. Vanessa Prager composes her paintings of tiny slices of ordinary reality that reveal the surreal lurking beneath the surface with intense, narrowly focused light.
It’s tempting to search for a narrative to bind the tangles of holiday ornaments, old toys and car rides, but the compelling common factor is the touch of creepiness she unveils in these otherwise innocent moments. Prager is only 24 but she already has five years of exhibition to her credit.
Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008, debuting at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Hammer building this month, is a luscious celebration of celebrity and celebrity photographers curated by David Friend, Vanity Fair’s editor of creative development and Terence Pepper, Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London. This is the first exhibition to bring the magazine's archive of vintage prints together with its contemporary photographs. Vanity Fair was launched in 1913 as America’s leading magazine of the avant-garde.
Ruth Weisberg is one of the most interesting artists in Los Angeles. She is a masterful figurative painter with a deep interest in the works of Renaissance artists whose complex compositions were the religious melodramas of their day, insinuating symbolic references in a single crystallized moment that was a kind of visual epiphany.
When string theory first came into vogue a decade or so ago, some physicists and cosmologists suggested that universes are popping up all the time in multiple dimensions in a kind of cosmic popcorn popper. There are competing ideas about the nature of other dimensions and it is intriguing to appeal to the imagination of artists in an attempt to translate these concepts into forms that can be apprehended in our own pitifully limited five dimensions. That’s what Multiverse, the current show at the innovative little Claremont Museum of Art is all about. The title, according to the press release, “refers to the hypothesis that all of physical reality actually exists within a set of multiple, parallel universes, of which our universe is merely one part. The possibility of many universes raises a myriad of scientific, philosophical and theological questions that have been explored in various branches of theoretical science, disciplines of thought and fiction. Multiverse will explore these issues artistically in a dynamic exhibition featuring photographic installations, mixed media sculptures, video projections, a light box installation, and sculpture from paper, among other media.” CMA Director William Moreno explains, “This exhibition represents the Museum’s interest in ideas that connect the arts and artists to contemporary thinking and points-of-view.” This is a playful and thoughtful show that deserved to attract new visitors to an excellent new area arts venue.
Contemplating the photographs in Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French’s show, Massilon, at the Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station is a bit like watching Chris Marker’s 1962 masterpiece, La Jetee, in which the haunting black and white stills dissolve into one another forming a narrative that the mind endows with motion and sound.
Before during and after the period from the mid-50s to the late 60s when the Ferus Gallery was a hotspot for the emergence of post-modern artists such as Ed Ruscha, Ed Kienholz, Billy Al Bengtson, Kenneth Price, et al. there were other notable talents who were not part of that magic circle but whose impact was nevertheless considerable. The Tobey C. Moss gallery has long been a champion of the work of Southern California modern and post-modern artists and on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its opening, the gallery is presenting Thirty Years of California Modernism, which is a potent reminder that what emerged at the Ferus Gallery was not an isolated phenomenon that occurred in a vacuum.
Among America's most pioneering and enigmatic sculptors of the 20th Century is Reuben Nakian, whose works are the subject of an exhibition at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, located at 357 N. La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. The extends through March 20.
Todd Schorr is one of our favorite artists of what might be called the school of American Neo-Surrealism. His vivid, meticulous, highly-detailed works are drawn from across the full range of American pop culture -- 50's sci-fi, comic books, way too much TV; and leavened by a well-honed sense of irony. Dark and funny and loaded with cultural references, he is, along with Robert Williams, pioneering a remarkable new vernacular that is invigorating the gallery scene by appealing to younger generations without sacrificing intelligence. A show of his new works, appropriately titled for our surreal times, "The World We Live In," opens Saturday, March 28th at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery and runs through April 18. 
Birgitte Moos is a native Dane but she splits her time between Copenhagen and Los Angeles and so her works reflect urban landscapes that transcend continental divides. Her imagery has evolved from the use of early European mythological symbols and figures into dark, abstract, almost architectonic works that suggest urban landscapes that trap and channel human figures through an uneasy labyrinth. 
Edward Hagedorn (1902 – 1982) was a true California Modernist who embraced ideas from across almost the full spectrum of modern movements but remained grounded in his own interior vision. Even today, his works elude easy categorization, although at various moments in his long career he was associated with Expressionism, Surrealism, Impressionism, Cubism and particularly, Fauvism. For a while, the German influence in his work was so pronounced that none other than Galka Scheyer, the legendary art dealer, collector and founder of the Pasadena Museum of Art (now the Norton Simon), who introduced
Artists who break through boundaries to explore their creativity in a wider range of media often bring with them fresh approaches that invigorate and enliven their work. Julian Schnabel and Mark Mothersbaugh are excellent examples – as are the mostly younger artists/musicians whose works constitute Rock, Paper, Scissors, opening at the Robert Berman Gallery on Saturday, February 28th with an appropriately musical kickoff presided over by DJ Shepard Fairey. Among those participating are Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Ron English, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers and Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. Jon Cournoyer curates the exhibition.
B A C K T O T H E F U T U R I S T S
Hush's work is an enigmatic synthesis of anime, pop-infused imagery, graffiti, and graphic design. "Hush is a powerful voice in today's art world, one of the few artists who will survive the recession. In fact, pieces are already selling and we don't even have all the images yet," says Carmichael Gallery co-curator Seth Carmichael. "Although Hush comes from a graffiti and street art background I would compare him more to Lichtenstein than to Banksy, but like Banksy he is part of the same global movement."
Los Angeles artist Ted Meyer (now showing photographs of Girls on a Black Chair at The Boyd) has always been fascinated with body images. He endured a painful illness as a child and his earliest works depicted bodies in torment. When he condition was successfully diagnosed and treated, his artwork was transformed into images of figures in joyful celebration of their physicality. 
Art forms that bubble up from popular culture are generally more vital, controversial and, well, fun than more traditional fare. Without a doubt, the emergence of graphic novels and the serious treatment accorded superheroes by filmmakers, critics and audiences has validated comic books -- once viewed, as writer Michael Chabon says, as “greasy kids stuff . . . the literary equivalent of bubble-gum cards.” Today, even stories about the origins of this most American of genres are fair game for mythologization (see Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay,” for example). Now, lucky for us Angelenos, the show at that bastion of culture, The Skirball Center, “ZAP! POW! BAM! THE SUPERHERO: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938 – 1950” (running February 19 through August 9) is added confirmation that comics are a valid art form (huh, as if any validation were needed!). 
Words and images have a tangled relationship in the human brain (as every advertising art director knows) and artists have long exploited the human propensity to search out meaning in anything that looks like text or find a reference to tangible objects in the even the most abstract composition. Contemporary explorations of the nature of the relationship between words, images and the things they signify date back at least as far as Rene Magritte’s painting of a pipe with the legend, “This is Not a Pipe.” Illiterature, an exhibition of the works of contemporary artists curated by Mark Carter at ARENA 1 in Santa Monica, offers an astonishingly broad spectrum of approaches to exploring language in art, presenting “works in various media that utilize text and text-like imagery for visual, graphic, illustrative and contemplative ends rather than a literal dialog.”
Henri Matisse contributed to or created 17 books during his prolific career. For some he merely supplied illustrations, some were collaborations (a limited edition of James Joyce's Ulysses is perhaps the most well-known of these)-- but the most intriguing were his “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book), a species of publication that emerged in France around the turn of the 20th century. These were deluxe, limited editions, often published in loose pages in a box, designed to be collected and treasured as works of art as well as read. An excellent example is his Florilège des Amours de Ronsard (Anthology of Ronsard's Love Poems), created when the artist was at the zenith of his powers. It was an immense project that took seven years to complete. The current exhibition of selected illustrations, “Matisse’s Amours: Illustrations of Pierre de Ronsard’s Love Poems,” on display at the Norton Simon from February 13 through June 8, is an exceptional opportunity to see some of Matisse’s finest (but rarely displayed) lithographs.
Long-time Los Angeles artist Robert Reynolds, who has emerged over the past decade as a truly innovative, major talent, recently had a large-scale work on display in one of the most prestigious museums in the world, the Pergamon. Although the show is no longer current, it is worthy to note the recognition Reynolds is earning in one of most art-savvy metropolises in the world. 
“Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico City,” an exhibition of the work of New York-based photographer Joseph Rodríguez, opens on February 14th (and what better day than Valentine’s Day to celebrate love for sale!) at drkrm.gallery. Rodriguez’s images capture putas and putos strolling the streets, trolling for johns in the working class suburbs and hipster hangouts of Mexico City. It is an intriguing contradiction of many countries dominated by the Catholic faith (particularly Mexico) that the sex trade is condemned in principle but encouraged in practice. In Rodríguez’s startlingly intimate black-and-white photographs we encounter a re-sexualized and re-spiritualized country in flux, embracing religious dogma while discarding taboos. Rodríguez’s beautiful and brutally honest images suggest a culture in which spirit and flesh have always been inextricably intertwined.
KAWS is coming to town. The Brooklyn-born artist who started out altering ads on bus shelters in the early ‘90s has emerged as an influential and innovative artist whose adaptations of pop-culture graphics have become brand-like symbols of their own. His first L.A. solo show, “The Long Way Home,” opens February 21st at the Honor Fraser Gallery (just north of Ladera Heights). A large, life-size version of one of his most iconic creations, “Chum,” will also be making an appearance during the show.
“Hans Burkhardt - Paintings of the 1960s, Part II” on display now through April at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, is a major survey exhibition. This is an important show of works by a major talent whose role in the history of modern American art (particularly in L.A.) is insufficiently documented. An accompanying catalog with 76 illustrations goes some distance in correcting this.
Alexey Steeles’s large-scale drawings that depict monumental, allegorical figures in exquisite detail, often in expertly foreshortened and classic, dramatic poses but with a modern flair, have earned him a reputation as a master draughtsman. His talent and expertise are on full display in Approaching Thunder, a new work acquired by The Carnegie Art Museum that will be unveiled on Saturday, February 7th. This is an exquisite piece in pastel on paper that marries the hard-edged clarity of rigorous technique with a touch of surrealism.
Celebrated L.A. contemporary artist Ruth Weisberg is the subject of a new exhibition, "Ruth Weisberg - Selected Works,” at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, featuring paintings and works on paper that reveal Weisberg's unique vision through which the viewer sees the convergence of art history, personal memory, and cultural experience. 
During the Cold War, German artists working on both sides of the iron curtain created works within the contexts of their respective political systems. In the immediate post-war era, artists in both Germanys reacted against the legacy of Nazism and drew on pre-war national artistic traditions. As international tensions increased, however, distinctive versions of modern and post-modern art emerged that revealed the sharp contrasts in the divided culture.
There are some astounding and provocative images in the “The Art of Imaging,” a collaboration between Mission Hospital and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art which has produced an exhibition of images produced by artists given access to the latest in advanced medical imaging technology, including 3- and 4-D ultrasound, mammography, interventional and digital radiology, computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and conventional X-rays. This is a fascinating show of images of our inner physicality, combined with other elements and presented with breathtaking lyricism and knife-edged clarity that can also disturb and remind us of our ultimately fragile nature.
"Up on the Roof Countin' Pigeons" is the first West Coast solo exhibition of work by Baltimore artist Chris Stain, whose large-scale wall works are in the same stylistic and polemical vein as the murals of that elusive Brit, Banksy. 
"Hunting and Gaming" is a dark exhibition, suffused with mystery. Vanessa Prager composes her paintings of tiny slices of ordinary reality that reveal the surreal lurking beneath the surface with intense, narrowly focused light.
Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008, debuting at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Hammer building this month, is a luscious celebration of celebrity and celebrity photographers curated by David Friend, Vanity Fair’s editor of creative development and Terence Pepper, Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London. This is the first exhibition to bring the magazine's archive of vintage prints together with its contemporary photographs. Vanity Fair was launched in 1913 as America’s leading magazine of the avant-garde.
Multiversity - Clairmont Museum of Art
A Surreal, Sensual, Victorian Tale
Before during and after the period from the mid-50s to the late 60s when the Ferus Gallery was a hotspot for the emergence of post-modern artists such as Ed Ruscha, Ed Kienholz, Billy Al Bengtson, Kenneth Price, et al. there were other notable talents who were not part of that magic circle but whose impact was nevertheless considerable. The Tobey C. Moss gallery has long been a champion of the work of Southern California modern and post-modern artists and on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its opening, the gallery is presenting Thirty Years of California Modernism, which is a potent reminder that what emerged at the Ferus Gallery was not an isolated phenomenon that occurred in a vacuum.
