World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day is this weekend (December 1) and it is a day we should renew our support in eradicating this disease. As I was reading through some of the events that UCLA, where the HIV virus and AIDS was first discovered, will be holding I discovered a link for an online resource. UCLA Libraries now has images and information about the AIDS posters created throughout the world over the years. Many of them were created by world renowned artists. Take a look and take a moment this weekend to remember those we've lost from this disease and those we still have that live with it each day of their lives. AIDS Posters Link

It came to me in a dream.

Yesterday, as I was mulling around the house, I was taking stock of the refuse from the house I live in. This place has had a rotating base of residents, and at times things get left behind. The best place to discover such trash-soon-to-be-turned-to-treasure is within and behind the abandoned shed in the backyard. I had seen this old sink back there before, but never considered it as a possibility as a work of art. So, in my mulling, I pulled it out and cleaned it off with the hose in the backyard. I hadn't actually determined exactly how I was going to incorporate this abandoned sink, but I thought it was too good to pass up. For awhile I just sat, and sat, and sat processing the form, function, and all things related to this sink. I came up with nothing. I moved on with the rest of my day and then, last night, it came to me. As I laid in my bed slowly moving to a sweetful slumber, my subject, which I had been debating over in my mind for some time, came to me: the Vet. For those of you that don't know what the Vet is, it is where I live. With so much garbage left lying around, why not use this found salvage, compose it into something dynamic and use it to portray the essence of this shelter. It's hard to explain this house and it's personality, but I think I may just be able to do that in this process.

I Want to Make Art

It's been a desire of mine for awhile now to not just see, interpret, analyze, critique, and write about art, but also make art. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to do and have this amazing idea. The last week or so I've given a lot of thought to what subject I want to tackle. I've always felt art is a creative expression of some part of the human existence. Sometimes that is manifested in very literal, illusionistic pieces, like those of the Italian Renaissance, Dutch Baroque period, and so on. Other times they are non-objective works that are abstraction such as Jackson Pollock and Donald Judd. Both, one way or another, display a facet of life. What I'm trying to figure out is what aspect of my existence do I want to portray. What subject gets me so excited, that I want to produce something that says "This is part of my reality." I've had several things in mind, which at this time are too nascent to even put out there. Hopefully I will come to a conclusion soon as to my subject matter. Then I will tackle what I want to say about it, and what the best method of doing that is. Wish me luck!

I'm Back

It's been way too long since I've written last. So long that I have caused a mutiny amongst the two readers I have (BGW and Roomie in the Bat Cave). It's not that I haven't had anything to write about. I even have a couple drafts that I never finished about the UCLA Art Department Staff Show and going on Culver City Art Walk one afternoon. I could have written about how shitty Billy Shire Fine Arts is or how I thought Gregory Euclide's landscapes were fresh and inventive. I could have even written about my transcontinental trek to our nation's capitol to see the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the National Gallery of Art. But no, I didn't write, and so now I'm renewing my effort. I never realized when I started this blog how much work it would be. I'm recommitting myself to not just seeing art, but writing about it too. I hope my two readers will keep reading.

Hammer Museum

I recently went to the Hammer Museum to see the Eden's Edge exhibit that has been on view since May. There was some things I liked and others that I just had to scratch my head at and say, "This is shit." Ken Price's fired ceramic pieces were beautiful in their curvaceous, colorful aesthetic. Some of them, including Zigzag (1999) give the impression that they are going to slide ride off the pedestal, thus reinforcing the concept the curator offered of an ever shifting, metamorphic city and culture that Los Angeles is. They reminded me of Jean Arp's sculpture but even more amoeba-like. The single, constricted opening at the end of a protrusion acts as an eye, observing, investigating, and even sizing up its viewer. By adding extremely detailed painting on the surface, Price gives his pieces a look that seems viral, ready to infect and spread. Are these pieces benign or hostile?

Monica Majoli's watercolor and gouache paintings also captured my attention. Her figural works deal with a subculture that is very real. All her figures are of isolated, anonymous men either involved in an overtly sexual act or bound. Her Rubbermen Series captures the fetish world of sadism/masochism/bondage/domination (SMBD). By removing all details of identification, these figures are no longer individuals. They are objects to be gawked at, looked at in awe. Their masculinity is reinforced in their display of erect penises and the full figures are phallic as well. The Rubbermen are controlled by an unseen figure, the artist, and the viewer alike. Majoli expertly applies the paint in layers of washes to give visual depth to the figures. Her control of the medium allows for subtle changes in value and thus controls the outcome of the figure. The viewer manipulates each figure in his imagination, creating his own story of the act these men are engaged in.

The work I was most impressed by though, was not part of the Eden's Edge exhibit, but Raymond Pettibon's work in the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Part II exhibit. At first I associated his ink on paper drawings with that of Pop Art because of the structure that they take on. His comic-like pieces are not humorous, but rather provocative and jarring. Often containing social commentary that is narrative, the drawings came off as sarcastic and cynical. This was my first exposure to his work and it definitely won't be my last!

The Dynamic Grid

Over the last several months, ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills had an exhibit of work by Erwin Redl, the artist who made the biggest splash at MOCA's Ecstasy: In and About Altered States exhibit. The solo show included not just his LED installations, but works on paper as well. Of course, it was the room filling work that grabs the viewer's attention, but the works on paper are probably even more essential in understanding how he arrives at his large scale works.

Erwin Redl's work is about the variations you can create with basic elements, and yet he makes it very organic rather than a rigid listing of the the permutations of these elements. For instance, Matrix XVI (White-Blue Gradient), 2007 uses a simple grid, like all of his works in some form, and two variables, white and blue LED's. He then uses either a blue or white for each LED in a single column and varies between the two from one column to the next so that no one column is exactly like the next. Yet, the variations from one column to the next are not just a simple change of a single LED, and thus the overall effect is a complex assemblage based on two simple units. As in each piece, Redl is concerned not only with the basic unit but the overall creation that the variation of those units create. In the case of Matrix XVI (White-Blue Gradient) there is a gradual change from blue to white as you move from left to right.The use of two colors in a grid pattern brings to mind binary code as well. In fact, Redl has his MFA in Computer Art. Just as binary code can create an enormous amount of variations based on a sequence of 1's and 0's, the number of variations created with the white and blue LED's could be expanded infinitesimally.

Redl also studied music composition. In the main space upstairs Redl installed a piece spanning two walls. Speed Shift, 2007 is not only a visual work, it is also an auditory work. Redl couples the two strips of white lights that move towards the corner of the room, ultimately converging into each other, with electronic tones playing at random. So, while the arrangement and movement of lights is highly regimented, the variation for this piece comes from the music.

So then how did Redl derive his LED installations from his works on paper? All of Redl's pieces are based on the same format: the grid. From this, Redl expands it into a three dimensional cube or wraps it in ways that transform an otherwise ordinary space into a dynamic room. Tilt, 2007 is one such piece that accomplishes this. The simplest of rooms changes dramatically with the three swooping strands of red LED's. This dynamism is found in the works on paper as well, despite the rigid structure of a grid. One of the most fascinating were a pair of paintings, Untitled (Solder Drawing - Positive), 2002 and Untitled (Solder Drawing - Negative), 2002. The positive version is a grid of solder splatterings and the negative presumably an impression of the positive done in water color. The random shapes created in the splattering of the solder create a vivacious composition out of the strict format. The amoeba-like forms of each splattering have bursts of rays, just as the LED lights have bursts rays, though not tangible like the solder.

Erwin Redl's show at ACE Gallery expanded upon his piece from the Ecstasy show. It should be interesting to see where he goes from here. Will he work in a new medium or manipulate the one he seems to have mastered so easily into new stunning creations? Let's hope he is able to create new and even more dynamic variations of the work that was shown in Beverly Hills over the last three months.

Ancient or Modern

I went to the Getty Villa this last weekend to see the new exhibit Greeks on the Black Sea. I enjoyed the exhibit and was even intrigued by one particular object, but it was the permanent collection that I grew to love while an employee there that captured my attention. I often tried to pick one object that was my absolute favorite, but could never pick just one. In fact, it was hard to pick just one favorite in each gallery. There are so many objects in the antiquities collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum of significance and beauty.

Most of what you see in the collection is merely fragments of the original piece. One piece that has always stood out to me is the Torso of Actaeon. This Roman sculptural remnant from the second century would have been dynamic even in its entirety. With only the torso remaining though, there is a heightened concentration on the anatomy of the abdomen and excessive folds of the drapery, the two standing in contrast. The subtle changes in surface of stone depicting the flesh and muscles of Actaeon's stomach are smooth and gradual. The drapery he wears is quite the opposite though. It swirls around his shoulders and creates deep crevices. The contrast of flesh and cloth with the asymmetry cause this piece to be more than just a torso fragment. It actually takes on quite a modern appearance, as do many of the other pieces.

The Villa is filled contradictions, especially now with the new architecture. The ancient Roman architecture of the Villa placed against a postmodern, stratified capsule is almost visual overload. Luckily, there is enough simplicity in form of the newest renovations on the exterior, that the original museum is not overshadowed. It's in the variation of materials (color, texture, size/shape) that the potential monotony is broken up. So whether on the grand scale of the entire site, or on the minute of a single piece, this museum of ancient art is a display of modernism.

Scott McFarland's The Granite Bowl in the Berlin Lust Garten

When I visited Regen Projects Gallery in West Hollywood to see Scott McFarland’s Works on Paper this weekend there was one piece that I was particularly drawn to because of the location it depicts, The Granite Bowl in the Berlin Lust Garten (2006). This inkjet type print photograph depicts a famous landmark in the German capitol, at that point a Prussian city, that was installed in 1831. My immediate draw came from my own experience of seeing this bowl during my travels to Europe. Then I remembered a particular painting in Berlin's Nationalgalerie close by, Granite Bowl in the Pleasure Gardens of Berlin by Johann Erdmann Hummel (c. 1831).
At first the photograph appeared to be a simple scene, one of no importance. The two young children, obviously related based on their similar physical features, seemed a bit awkward and posed, but otherwise, I thought it to be a snapshot, much like the one I took of the bowl while in Berlin. Upon learning how McFarland created this and many of his other photographs, I learned how complex of a scene this really is. McFarland uses multiple negatives, often taken over a matter of days, weeks, and even months, and combines them digitally into a seamless print. His interest is in breaking through the concept of a photograph being an image of a single instant in time and space.
A fuller narrative is created as well. With just one negative, there may only be one or two people depicted. We may just have the dog with his owner half shown, or even only half of the brother-sister group. But by overlapping the various negatives, Mr. McFarland manipulates his work into a greater piece. We can now ask ourselves, why are the brother and sister so psychologically distant? Or, who is the small girl with the accordion and where is her mother? Is her mother the woman with the baby carriage? How long has that man been sleeping under the bowl? These are all questions that can be asked together because the negatives are combined that couldn’t be asked if we had just the single frame.
Even Hummel’s scene of the same object is not as crowded. In fact, it is clear by the mere dominance of the bowl in Hummel’s painting, that it is not the figures that are the main subject, but the bowl itself. When the nineteenth-century artist painted the granite bowl, it was before it had actually been lowered. This allowed people to catch their reflection in the underside of the bowl. The bowl was part of a larger civic improvement project and thus was a symbol of civic pride and the power. The stone came from the Fürstenwalde, approximately 72 kilometers away. It was upturned by 100 men, hauled to the Spree, and then transported by boat.
If the bowl is the subject in Hummel’s painting, what is the subject in McFarland’s photograph? I’ve already said that by combining these multiple negatives, McFarland creates a fuller story. But, if we consider who/what is constantly present in every negative, we must conclude that the bowl, which also dominates the McFarland’s composition, is the main subject. The other subject that is present in each negative is the Berliner Dom, also in Hummel’s painting, though it is minimalized by placing it in the background and pushed into a corner in the composition.
Furthermore, in Hummel’s painting the figures have a significant amount of interaction with the bowl, but in McFarland’s photograph, not only do none of the main figures look at the bowl, but none of them look at each other. It is only in the background do we see people interacting with each other. This creates a sense of isolation between the figures. In Hummel’s painting, the bowl draws the citizens to it, unifying them even if it is just in their curiosity. To the people in the photograph, the bowl is nonconsequential, except for maybe the man who seeks it for shade.
It wasn’t until I started to research Scott McFarland and his work in this show that I realized how much more there was than a photograph of a place I had been to. Now I see that it is more than just a snapshot. McFarland’s process results in a photograph of complex relationships and interaction. By contrasting the photograph to Hummel’s painting of almost 200 years earlier, we see this shift in the two major relationships: human/human and human/bowl. Scott McFarland most likely wanted to create a photograph that expanded the concept of time and space in photography, but he got more.

Art and Los Angeles

Recently, an article was written in the New York Times about the art scene in Los Angeles. Most would associate the city with "Hollywood," but that appears to be changing. Art is beginning to take a important position in the psyche and persona of this city. And like the city, the art scene is as diverse and eclectic. Just as it is hard to define what is Los Angeles, because it is more than just Hollywood, it is hard to point to any one dominating style or movement.

My first year in Los Angeles, I frequented the art museums of Los Angeles, and now in my second year I'm beginning to become familiar with the galleries. In no way will I be so presumptious as to try and define what is L.A. art, but I do hope to begin a healthy critique of the exhibits and shows presented at both the museums and galleries in this city. I hope this blog is a source for those both educated and novices to art to read one person's opinion as well as a source of information of the happenings in Los Angeles's art world.