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Everything is going political -- Peter Wegner is taking on the desolate void he sees in America lately and turning it into a series of great works. Neon, too! I love neon, and especially the idea of artwork illuminating the space around it, not being able to be confined to frame restrictions. Even though he is one of the first contemporary artists I connected with, I've forgotten to mention his solo show at Griffin because I didn't [for once] attend the opening, so I suppose it slipped my mind. I wish they would stop mailing the same type of cards for every show -- heavy cardboard with block recess print. It's getting a bit boring. The open bar will have to compensate.
Peter's one of those wonderful zany Yale-educated artists, who, contrary to being tagged as conservative East Coast-ers, are products of one of the most revolutionary art departments anywhere. I particularly love his interest in color theory -- there just aren't enough of those artists around anymore, and it really showcases his strong background. I am getting terribly sick of hearing about the engineer/lawyer/accountant/whatever who woke up one day and decided to throw some paint down and convince the right people that it works. What ever happened to really studying the art form? The one thing, however, that dissapoints me time after time is the over-used referral to Ruscha, especially his Standards [I'm sorry to say, Peter did it here]. I almost feel that the artists who are educated in art history try to show off their knowledge a bit too much, instead of sticking to their pure creativity. And Ruscha is such an obvious choice. Inspiration should be more than just 50% from within.
Griffin's keeping this one open for more than another month -- much longer than most popular galleries keep a solo show -- but I think it will be time well-spent on one of their main stable artists. And I always trust Bill's judgement, he's a real genius with these things. And who wants to rush in Santa Monica?
One Santa Monica hot spot I will never be sick of is Bergamot Station. Free, outdoors, boxy -- totally bohemian meets the industrial minimalists. I would spent every Saturday of my life meandering around if I could, just make sure you don't get careened into by the trucks lumbering out of the loading docks on your way in. My favorite space is the William Turner Gallery, where David Palmer's 'FOREVER ALMOST FALLING' was just replaced by Ned Evans' new work today. They got lucky with the prime front & center lot, but are usually showing color block landscapes that are really visually unstimulating. I am hoping they show more of Palmer's work as soon as the glaze from Evans' color stripes wears off.
Imagine -- it's linoleum! Absolutely stunning. James Gray Gallery is its last week of showing some awesome Andrew Rogers sculptures in the main gallery, and I have to say I wasn't sad to see the Mindy Seeger works go. Personal struggle has to be more than a mess of canvases that look like knock-off Australian aboriginal pieces. If you're in for business, take James a mint lemonade from the café [although the best is really the blackberry ice tea] to tip the scales.
Skip Ruth Bachofner, it always feels too serious and emotionally oppressive. Rose Gallery is my third favorite -- even though I don't connect with photography as much as I'd like to. The Gallery of Functional Art is worth a walk-through; it reminds me of west coast kitsch. Frank Studio, amidst all the galleries, is actually a hair salon! An old favorite of mine [I was a regular for four years], they do ascribe to the gallery aesthetic of Bergamot, and have shown some of my favorite Ruscha works on the walls above the sinks and in between the stylist stations. Frank himself is quite intimidating [and overpriced], but Michele is the best best best. And I've never left Bergamot Station without lunch from the café...
I was lucky enough to get a little sneak peak of the new LACMA exhibit, Modern West, which is set to open tomorrow. The parking lot was completely full yesterday with everyone rushing to see Magritte in its last couple days -- but right across in the Hammer Building, the caution tape is still up and the paint is half-dry. Just a couple security guards, me, and the paintings.
My perennial favorite, 'Going West'. This is from when Pollock was still of the cowboy persona and not hiding away in East Hampton, and to me is Van Gogh meets Thomas Hart Benton [if you haven't noticed, one of my all-time favorites]. The show this time around is more tame, no eye catching decorations, but the work and concept is really great. How did modern art become western anyway? That's one of the questions the pieces will be answering, and there are also a couple O'Keefe's that aren't very often exhibited in group shows, so that's quite exciting. The Ansel Adams inclusion is a little bit cliched, but overall, Austen Bailley and the American Art department did a great job adapting the show from Houston.
Too long of being landlocked in smoggy downtown leaves anyone begging for some fresh air, so, today, I finally made it all the way down the 10 to PCH. Driving past the usual landmarks is so soothing - it's like the adrenaline of rushing down to Zuma in high school all over again. The perfect latte from Coffee Bean and a run into Planet Blue later, I thought it might be nice to see what was on the other side of the sandbox [literally] of the country mart. I vaguely remembered an art space once being there; I think I ran into it by accident while looking for the mail stop a few years ago. Well, the space turned out to be McLean Gallery, and I was very pleasantly surprised.
The current exhibit is called Quiet Spaces, a sublimely perfect fit for my afternoon away. Galleries in commercial spaces usually terrify me with their cheesy and painfully cliched landscapes, but David Skinner has landscaped California into something fantastic. Very early Thomas Hart Benton. The gallery attendants may be a little pushier than usual with trying to sell the work, but it's Malibu, so nothing can really be too pressing. It'll be open until April Fool's Day, and if you end up not being into it, there's always Nobu, Madison, James Perse or Ben & Jerry's right over the bridge to fall back on.
I feel like I am constantly reminding people that Milan is so much more than a fashion hub [well it is wonderful for that too] - it has been one of those cities that has drawn more from Peggy Guggenheim's vision than her actual museum in Venice. I'm not talking about the Museo civico di storia naturale... I passed it almost everyday for half a year and didn't care to go in once. The Palazzo Reale right in the middle of the city, pretty much adjacent to the Duomo, is one of the best spaces I've ever been to. They are constantly opening the most fantastic shows. A tribute to Italian futurist Umberto Boccioni just closed, which from curator Laura Mattioli Rossi looks like it did really well. One of the sculptures they showed is pictured here with the artist himself.
My favorite yet has been 'Helmut Newton: Sex & Landscapes', which showed into last summer. The advertisement postcards were soft black with a flash of hot pink block text, complete with a portrait of a masked nude woman holding a cigarette on the reverse. The image of the crowd on opening day is forever imprinted in my mind. It was a mild day in late February, but the piazza, completely filled with people [as Italians have no idea what a line is] and spilling over into the courtyard of the Ufficio del Turismo, upped the temperature by a few degrees. I am still taking notes on how to get a whole city to be interested in an art show. Americans work so hard to get celebrities and investors to come to every exhibit; what is forgotten is the rise of modern art to make it for the people.
I think the show shocked the city a bit. My marketing professor seemed traumatized after having to bear a first date in the company of aisles of naked women. A sales associate at Viktor & Rolf kept telling me how he never thought Helmut Newton could be so violently vulgar. I loved the reaction. I loved that there was actually a reaction. Taking notes on this one, too. I believe they followed in July with a Botero retrospective, and the change is so swift and substantive, you hardly even remember what came before it. I can't think of any way to say it better than Aldo Nove did - Milano si dimentica, si trasforma, per sopravvivere a se stessa.
I always love love love rain, but it was really terrible that one of our few California downpours had to be on the night of the Damien Hirst opening at Gagosian Gallery. I take a big interest in gallery openings because they are such a great watering hole for the who's who of the art world - and you can always see the hierarchy. Thursday night was, however, a rather disappointing show. Tom Crow and his usual crowd from the Getty were there, but I think a lot of people decided to skip because of the rain. That is, unless you count the local celebs milling about - since when is Lance Armstrong into contemporary art? Kirsten Dunst decided to be completely disrespectful and come looking like she stopped by on her way to the gym. A shame, because this show is really phenomenal. I never liked much about Hirst, except his erratic and charming British accent, but his work this time around is really different than what I've seen from him, and entirely beautiful. The butterfly motif is so delicate and matches wonderfully with the glass medium.
It's a bit difficult to see all the details here, but I'm sure the intricate patterning can be appreciated nonetheless. I last saw him use butterflies [and motif patterning] in a wallpaper design at the Tate Modern, but usually find him to be out of his mind with the dead cows, etc. Although his work is almost always latent with religious themes, his new use of English poetry for titles is fantastic. A lot of his thinking behind this project reminds me of Colin McCahon's earlier concepts, drawing from Biblical texts and embedding the imagery in a natural exposé. I would be very excited to see more explicit focus on the text itself, which could be tied into his apparent fascination with mortality. Larry Gagosian is quite the visionary for repeatedly giving Hirst the solo shows he deserves, and having enough of a sense of humor to take his crazy antics. If you don't have time to go visit, drive by and take a glance at some of the works in the vitrine; a few circular pieces are being housed in there.
So I've been fighting it... and I know we're all supposed to be completely obsessed with Skin + Bones at MOCA, but I just don't get it. For one, the title is so dramatic it makes me think I'm walking into a Steven King novel. Should I bring my ice pick with me? I have also been really wondering what the deal is with the massive list of designers. It sounds like a child who is trying to name all their best friends.
After reviewing the whole thing, a few of them start to sound familiar: Hussein Chalayan, Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake [who they list as Miyake Issey], Yohji... wait! Isn't this all sounding a bit similar to 'Breaking the Mode'? I am starting to think the majority of this show is a rip-off of the 'construction' segment of the exhibit, with a few big name architects infused. They sure fooled a lot of people, even Demi & Ashton, who made the celeb-phile curators very happy by agreeing to attend the opening [or Opening Night Fête, as they all want us to call it].
I think the show itself is really beautiful, but is the concept really that novel? It seems most people would be able to link the structure and construction of clothes to architecture... it would be more interesting if they had a concrete show of the specific architecture that influenced each designer. Either that, or I'm still resenting them for butchering the opening room of the Rauschenberg retrospective. And please, fix the parking situation A.S.A.P.
It's ending incredibly soon [March 4] so if you haven't scooted over to Wilshire & Fairfax yet, it is a must! I doubt that LACMA will open an exhibit like this any time soon, considering the extremely conservative administration, but I think the past few months have shown everyone in LA what re-thinking an art show really means. I'm sure John Baldessari [the tallest and most adorable old man] had a huge lot to do with the revolutionary setting -- not only designing it, but pushing for Magritte & Contemporary Art to be more of an experience than an exhibition.
The entrance is completely surreal, like falling down the rabbit hole! And again, I loved seeing Jeff Koons' 'Rabbit' [showing up everywhere -- even the Stella McCartney runway!] right up next to a wall of paintings in living steel color, and that huge mannequin in the red suit! Absolute craziness! Even the security guards are in bowler hats, completing the delirious alternate universe. I do think it is overpriced at $17 a ticket, but then again, lunch in LA isn't much cheaper! I am certainly an advocate of food for the mind. Just follow the cloud carpet road and cityscape ceilings, grab the Pierce Brosnan audio tour, and take your time!
Peter's one of those wonderful zany Yale-educated artists, who, contrary to being tagged as conservative East Coast-ers, are products of one of the most revolutionary art departments anywhere. I particularly love his interest in color theory -- there just aren't enough of those artists around anymore, and it really showcases his strong background. I am getting terribly sick of hearing about the engineer/lawyer/accountant/whatever who woke up one day and decided to throw some paint down and convince the right people that it works. What ever happened to really studying the art form? The one thing, however, that dissapoints me time after time is the over-used referral to Ruscha, especially his Standards [I'm sorry to say, Peter did it here]. I almost feel that the artists who are educated in art history try to show off their knowledge a bit too much, instead of sticking to their pure creativity. And Ruscha is such an obvious choice. Inspiration should be more than just 50% from within.
