KUNSTMASCHINE - Contemporary Art News, Reviews, and Events

ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations, la Biennale di Venezia, 54th International Art Exhibition, June 4th – November 27th 2011

Lea Schleiffenbaum — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:00:54 GMT

Everything takes a bit longer in Venice. The small, north-Italian city is car-free, the only modes of transportation are so-called Vaporettos—boat-buses—or water taxis, both hard to find and slow. Walking is usually the fastest solution, as long as one does not get lost in the city’s maze of canals and narrow alleyways. I arrive at three in the afternoon—I am here to attend the opening of ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations, the 54^th Venice Biennial—by the time I get to the apartment I am staying in, it is five. Getting lost or helping others trying to find their way is almost part of the Biennial experience. The best thing to do is to let go, adjust to Venice time, wander, and allow one self to be surprised. In the end getting lost might not be the worst; from the months of June to November every corner, every piazza, and every palace in Venice might hide another national contribution, a Pavilion, or a small exhibition.

This year’s Biennale is curated by Bice Curinger, director of the Kunsthaus in Zurich and founder of the contemporary art publication Parkett. With ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations the Swiss curator set out to explore contemporary art for its inner essence. “Popularization,” she warns, “should not be at the expense of complexity.” Following such rather elitist ambitions in search of value, self-reflectivity, and depth, Curinger turned the 54^th Venice Biennial into a serious, well-organized, but rather sober exhibition. Aiming to connect contemporary art with its pre-modern routs, she decided to include three paintings by old master Tintoretto, the painter of light. The masterpieces are hung in the first room of the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, following Philippe Parreno’s light installation Marque. The exhibition continues with big names, including works by Seth Price, Christopher Wool, Sigmar Polke, and Cindy Sherman. On display are high quality works by high quality artists. Everything fits; nothing is too crazy, nothing very surprising.

My slight disappointment with the Central Pavilion is softened by a visit to the Arsenale, the second venue curated by Curinger. The pace here is good. Curinger takes her viewers from large-scale installations, to smaller more intimate sculptures, paintings, and photographs. Monica Bonvicini is followed by Klara Liden, Rosmarin Trockel, and Urs Fischer whose candle wax replica of Giambologna’s famous sculpture The Rape of the Aabine Women will slowly burn down as the exhibition continues. Video work interrupts the general flow of the show in regular intervals, giving the viewer a chance to stand still for a moment and watch. Christian Marclay’s wonderful film The Clock stands out especially. Three days later I hear he won the Golden Lion for best artwork—which he fully deserves.

By far the most interesting concept Curinger introduced to this year’s Biennale is the so-called Para-Pavilion: Pavilions created by artists for artists. It is great to see artists set their work into a dialogue with other artists and cultures. Young Chinese artist Song Dong for example, collected one hundred old doors in Beijing and reconfigured them in Venice inviting African-French artist Yto Barrada, and British artist Ryan Gander to show their work within them. Eccentric as always, Austrian artist Franz West asked a total of 40 artists to fill his Para-Pavilion - a reproduction of his kitchen in Vienna - among them Mike Kelley, Sarah Lucas, Josh Smith, and Anselm Reyle.

This year’s Golden Lion for best national Pavilion was awarded Germany, for its reconstruction of a stage set by artist and director Christoph Schlingensief. Last year, Christoph succumbed to a long fight against cancer. A Church of Fear vs. the Alien Within was the second part of a trilogy written by Schlingensief following his first round of chemotherapy. Sitting on church benches in a dark candle lit room, visitors become witnesses to an artist trying to deal with life, death, and illness. Video projections of decaying animals, war, and fight sceneries are occasionally accompanied by a Wagner symphony; sometimes the voice of a woman reads aloud from the transcript of the play. It is hard to settle back into Biennial mode after such an intense and engaging installation.

The US is represented by Allora and Calzadilla. Working with former Olympic Athletes that execute choreographed performances on old US airway seats and upside down tanks, the Cuban-American artist duo questions heroic gestures and national self-presentation. Just like the Olympic games, international biennials swing somewhere in between competitive performance and peaceful encounter. Thomas Hirschhorn transformed the Swiss Pavilion into a vibrating Gesamtkunstwerk made of aluminum foil, old magazines, cardboard, and ear sticks. The Crystal of Resistance is a very physical, almost organic installation. Asking what art can do, how it can change the status quo, Hirschhorn engages his viewers in questions of politics, aesthetics, and transience. Hany Armanious’ subtle yet beautiful sculptural installations in the Australian Pavilion present a nice contrast to the many large-scale installations and performance pieces. Armanious casts everyday objects to reconfigure them in poetic assemblages. The French Pavilion stands right in front of the Australian Pavilion, and this year it stars Christian Boltanski, who deals with birthrates, death, and arbitrariness. This year’s choice for the Polish Pavilion has caused quite a bit of turmoil. Rather than choose a local Polish artist, the commissioners invited Israeli artist Yael Bartana to represent the country. Under the title …and Europe will be stunned, the young artist shows a film trilogy that asks Polish-Jews from all over the world to return to their country of origin, which needs them.

A total of 89 countries are represented in this year’s Biennial, the most of any Biennial so far. Those who don’t have a pavilion in the Giardini or the Arsenale are scattered across the city in one of Venice’s grand houses or palaces. Political statements are followed by aesthetic expressions, rebellious actions by poetic gestures. Of course, Venice is ridiculous, over the top, an incorporation of art-world glam and spectacle. But in between getting lost, queuing, and meeting old friends and acquaintances, one inevitably ends up discovering some previously unknown artists, and sees new work of already loved ones. In the end the visit is always worth it.

Lea Schleiffenbaum

20th National Exhibition: Los Angeles Printmaking Society

Bryson Strauss — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:41:00 GMT

Los Angeles Printmaking Society, "20th National Exhibition" Barnsdall Park - L.A. Municipal Gallery

November 5, 2008
by Bryson Strauss
LOS ANGELES – Peter Frank pulled off another impressive curatorial feat for the “20^th National Exhibition of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society” this weekend.   Opening last Sunday at the L.A. Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park, the show featured a spectacularly diverse and competent body of work without being overly schizophrenic or myopic.
This exhibition featured the artwork of 193 printmakers and included two special exhibitions honoring Robert Blackburn (1920-2003).  It also included works from some of L.A.’s most revered graphic workshops, such Gemini, Mixografía, and Hamilton Press among others.
While in part driven by tough economic times, the recent heat around printmaking is not unwarranted.  The work is good and the rising interest in fine art prints has spurred on a series of strong exhibitions that includes the addition of the International IFPD’s Fine Print Fair at the L.A. Art Show. This, and a growing base of seasoned and nascent collectors has also drawn out the best in printmaking, illustrating the great amount of talent and vital possibilities of contemporary and traditional print media, including digital.
Highlights of the “20^th National Exhibition” were distinctly Los Angeles and included a fantastic large-scale (62 x 120 inches) stencil print on gold leaf paper by German ex-pat, Dirk Hagner entitled “Nuestra Señora.”  This print showed a sweeping cityscape view of L.A., where nature and light and humanity collide in a lyrical yet stark and precarious relationship.
That was followed by the Nicolas Naughtington’s political 62 x 32 inch, black and white woodcut called “Trabajadora,” which hung next to Dave Lefner’s very tight, nostalgic, reduction linocut entitled “ Arcade.”   John Baldessari also had cameo with a very cool, multi-media piece from 2007 entitled "Noses & Ears, Etc.: Couple and Man with Gun.”
Many of the other prints were experimental and bold, if not entirely compelling, such as Brian Anderson’s wood cut cast in concrete with rebar, or the etched glass postcards spread out on a back-lit pedestal near the entrance to the show.
While most of the artists were not widely recognized, the overall work was excellent and the curation and installation were remarkably cohesive.   A great exhibition!!

show runs through January 3, 2009

Dave Lefner, "Arcade", reduction linocut

Dirk Hagner, "Nuestra Señora", Stencil Print

Nicolas Naughton, "Trabajadora," woodcut

LA BIENNALE – Chasing Baldessari – Day Three

Bryson Strauss — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:08:00 GMT

Photos by Ashley "Holiday" Eaton

June 7, 2009

by Bryson Strauss

VENEZIA – Waiting for entrance to Bruce Nauman’s installation “Topological Gardens” at the American Pavilion, I was sideswiped by not one but three camera people breaking through the lines in pursuit of a shot or sound bite of Yoko Ono, who had just received a Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement from the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. It was a real paparazzi moment, Hollywood style!

Holiday and I had just viewed Ono’s minimalist text installation at the main Giardini building and had left nonplussed at best, bored senseless at worst. So even though we hold a warm place in our hearts for Yoko, we decided to stick with Nauman, rather than join the foray. We were waiting for ANGER and TEMPTATION. At least until we saw big, sasquatch-looking John Baldessari towering on by. Then I said, “Go get him, Holiday.”

Dropping everything, she dodged through the crowd, and being only 5-feet tall, easily ducked under the cameras and through the press to get right up on Baldessari. She smiled, he looked down (way down) and she got this shot. And he too had just won the Lion’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.

With all the excitement in the air, and still sweating profusely in the summer heat and humidity of Venice, we still anxiously awaited entry to the American Pavilion. After an hour, we crossed the threshold with very high expectations; being that 1) it was supposed to be Bruce Nauman’s opus/retrospective, and 2) the American Pavilion had just won the Golden Lion Award for best pavilion. Whoa! They were blowing out Golden Lion Awards this year.

We entered and—this comment could be due to over familiarity with the work—the Nauman installations were for the most part anti-climactic, save the center piece, Nauman's 1967 "The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign)” and his cast hand installation. But as respected and creative as Nauman is, the American Pavilion was far from the best exhibit by any stretch of the imagination. It included work from several eras including the “Three Heads Fountain,” I believe from the Tate, some video art, and other neon pieces. The neon work was by far the most compelling. But up against the contemporary competition, it was a tough sell.

Nathalie Djurberg’s claymation projection and fantastical flora sculptures in the main Biennale building of Giardini, for example, was on its own a display of massive creation. And the Italian Pavilion, featuring Aron Demetz’s haunting life-size, roughcut, wooden figures and Giacomo Costa’s miraculous and enormously complex digital drawings, was brilliant, environmental, dramatic, and complex. (even if the overall curation of the Italian pavilion was somewhat confused).

Most poigant (or perhaps just humorous) exhibit for the day, I suppose, was across from the Russian pavilion, where the Berlin-based team of Elmgreen & Dragset installed a drowned man face-down in a swimming pool still wearing his evening clothes; shoes and socks at water’s edge, cigarettes and watch settled on the bottom. The title, “Death of the Collector.”

Time for some wine…

LA BIENNALE – “The Birds Nest” – Day One

Bryson Strauss — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:01:00 GMT

Photos by Ashley "Holiday" Eaton

June 5, 2009

By Bryson Strauss

VENEZIA - On Friday June 5, 2009, the 53^rd Biennale opened to private audiences with a bang that rivaled the World Series. Set among the gorgeous alleyways and waterways of Venice, art poured out of every crevice as throngs of artists, collectors, consultants, gallerists, and writers flooded the streets headed for the Arsenale and Giardini, where countries from around the world curated their best artistic talent.

To set the scene, the two main venues are the Arsenale and the Giardini. Holiday and I started at the Arsenale, which is the old armory and boatyard built in the thirteen hundreds consisting of no less than 20 contiguous spaces featuring fifty-foot ceilings and stretching half the length of a football field each. The entire structure is the shape of a reverse “L” and one enters near the Grand Canal and traverses almost the entire island moving from one exhibit to the next.

Within the controlled environment of Arsenale exhibition spaces, the journey is a sensory overload of sight, sound, and touch. While the spaces are called pavilions, the distinction between each section is loose, emphasizing both the unique cultural language of the exhibiting countries and the international cross-cultural nature of art itself.

Since such huge spaces naturally lend themselves to huge artwork, almost all of the exhibits involved large-scale environmental installations. Thus, as one moved through the show, he or she became a participant in the artwork and was usually completely surrounded by the installation. The effect was hypnotizing.

On the first day, while scrambling for our press passes, we met up with Tiffiny Lendrum (of Lendrum Fine Art in L.A.) and made our way straight to Pae White’s (from Pasadena, CA) incredible bird installation, which was a separate project from the American Pavilion. The “performance” was scheduled for 2 PM and Holiday and I arrived just as things were getting underway. In less than two weeks, Pae had woven an entire ceiling of crisscrossing multi-colored string that resembled a laser light show and that hung about halfway down from the actual ceiling of the pavilion. Then, with a walkway down the center, she created long, ornate, hanging sculptures and chandeliers out of birdseed and resins. Along each side of the space ran what seemed like giant birdcages of steel and wood.

The sound of the birds could be heard from outside the building and as we entered, their calls sometimes drowned out the voices inside. The feeling was if we were in the cage surrounded by birds. But as we moved through the exhibit, no birds were to be seen and yet the calls were clearly organic, not recorded. They could have been hiding behind barriers, or walls, and maybe it was just one or two after all.

Finally, a tourist with a tan vest taking pictures of the birdseed chandelier appeared to linger curiously long. Convinced a bird was calling from within the chandelier, he pointed his camera and others gathered around to search for the source of the call.

Pae finally gave it up, explaining that the lingering “tourists,” were actually traditional Italian bird callers from countryside near Venice. It was fantastic.

That night the sea rose above the seawalls and the streets of Venice flooded……

LOOP FAIR 2009, “The Place for Videoart Lovers” May 21-31, 2009

Bryson Strauss — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:25:00 GMT

June 1, 2009

by Bryson Strauss

BARCELONA – LOOP Fair in Barcelona this weekend demonstrated the spectacular possibilities for video art. Now in its seventh year, and claiming to be the first dedicated video art fair, LOOP is clearly creating one of the most advanced and active dialogs about the creative opportunities (and veritable obstacles) for video art in the contemporary art world.

The strength of the show rests on the hybrid concept of the fair and impressive citywide organization. LOOP is an Art Fair, Art Festival, and Art Conference all at once, which creates varied spaces for experiences with and conversations about video art. It shows both the depth and the breadth of what is happening with technology, with video as an art medium, and with video art within the art market.

Based out of the Hotel Cataluyna Ramblas in the center of town, LOOP is a massive 10-day event with installations and discussions at major museums, galleries, hotels, and universities all around Barcelona. More than 35 world-class galleries presented along with hundreds of celebrated artists, curators, scholars, and collectors.

The artwork itself was refreshing and tight. Typically video art’s relationship with short film can be cantankerous, the central difference being the ambiguous narrative quality of the content. Video art tends to be based almost entirely on high-concept and aesthetics, with no mandatory adherence to plot or storyline. In order to address that challenge and set itself apart from short film, a trend has been to avoid narration and/or literal imagery altogether

and to lean toward abstraction, animation, and manipulation of imagery. Interestingly, the LOOP Fair artists did not shy away from human narrative by any means, and it worked. Most of the art exhibited told stories in some manner but with a kind of creative license that only seasoned artists can achieve.

Highlights included Christopher Grimes installation of Marco Brambilla’s incredibly complex and powerful “Civilization (Megaplex), 2008,” which will apparently also be a centerpiece at the new Standard Hotel in New York. And Knut Klassen of Olaf Stüber Gallery installation of “Liv 2006/2007,” which won the 2009 Premio Epson for excellence. The overall sophistication of the art and the fair offered promising glimpse at the future of video art. Collectors seemed to get it, and the language of printmaking and photography (limited editions and artist proofs) is certainly starting to rest comfortably with collectors of contemporary art.

In addition, LOOP is probably the most successful use of the hotel model art fair. In this case, the light can be controlled and the furniture and beds, while disappearing into the darkness, provide seating and comfort for visitors. Hotel Catalunya Ramblas is also the right venue. Though located within a historical building in the heart of the city, the interior has been designed as a hip boutique hotel akin to the Standard or Avalon in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills respectively. LOOP is perhaps the one of the tightest alternative fairs going. Viva Barcelona!

Hark, I Hear the Cannons Roar

Bryson Strauss — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:07:00 GMT

May 29, 2009

by Bryson Strauss

BARCELONA – With the Jean Wells exhibition the following night at Imaginart*, LOOP Fair opening, and with the Venice Biennale and Art Basel around the corner, it may seem odd to launch into a European art blog with a story about a futból game. Given the severity, however, it would definitely be a cultural misstep to ignore what happened when Barcelona Club and Manchester United squared off in Rome and Barcelona was shooting for a triple cup.

We knew nothing of it upon arrival. But after a 15-hour flight and a 7-hour nap, I stepped out on my balcony on Travessera de Gràcia to polish off the final pages of some airport pap I had planned to finish in flight (and that I’d no doubt entirely forget upon turning the last pages), to the echoing cheers of invisible fanaticos!! With people tucked away in apartments and bars and storefronts, their chorus of chants and admonishments ricocheted off the old buildings and through the empty streets of Gràcia. Lara, my friend and former student in Los Angeles, called to say, “If the Barcelona Club wins, Gràcia is going to be crazy.” It was an understatement of monumental proportion.

Holiday and I pulled ourselves together, stepped out on the empty streets at around 8 PM, and followed the noise through small alleyways and along cobble stone roads until we arrived at Plaza de Sol. Cañas (small draft beers), flags, trouboudors, chanting…and then bam! Barcelona Club won!

What happened next was akin to someone pulling the trigger on a concourse of cannons. The entire city ignited. We met two French designers for Renault and headed toward the Plaza de Catalunya. People poured out of every crevice. Grabbing some drinks, we knocked and banged our way as hordes of people stampeded down Passeig de Gràcia, finally pausing at Antonio Gaudi’s masterpiece, Casa Batllo. Holiday shot video while I entertained an architectural history lesson from the French guys. Beers for one Euro.

As the crowd density increased, we all flowed into the Plaza de Catalunya and at about midnight the cacophony of cheers, fireworks, and horns reached a deafening crescendo. We hung tough until jetlag and drunkenness did us under and we staggered home. I love futból. Someday I may actually see a game…on TV. Bienvenidos a Barcelona.

KEHINDE WILEY: The World Stage: Brazil at ROBERTS & TILTON

Bryson Strauss — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:51:00 GMT

I think painting can be a bloodsport. I try to paint as though it were.

- Kehinde Wiley

KEHINDE WILEY

The World Stage: Brazil
ROBERTS & TILTON Gallery

LOS ANGELES – Even if the work is starting to seem conceptually tired, the hype surrounding Kehinde Wiley is not unwarranted. Ever since Wiley exploded in 2005, following his Brooklyn Museum exhibition and subsequent appearance on the cover of Art in America, he has steadily staked out more turf in the contemporary art world while helping to put figurative painting back into play in a major way.

His new exhibition at ROBERTS & TILTON in Culver City, entitled The World Stage: Brazil, maintains that trajectory, demonstrating that Wiley’s craftsmanship and vision continue to evolve and translate into paintings that possess incredible visual and intellectual stamina.

With respect to raw chops, his work is starting to approach that of some big hitters, such as John Currin or Odd Nerdurm. Very few young painters, however, have dealt with the subtle, rich qualities of skin tone, facial expressions, and the human form as well KehindeWiley, though others are coming close—remember Alex Melamid’s “Holy, Hip-Hop!” show at Forum (and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit) last year.

In The World Stage: Brazil exhibition, Wiley executes large-scale paintings of handsome, young, black men set against elaborately patterned backgrounds of tropical flowers and/or rococo-wallpaper designs. His models are posed in positions imitating the sitters of Old-World paintings or historic monuments, displaying attitudes of conquest and leadership.

Beyond the mere craftsmanship, however, Wiley’s understanding of art history and his commitment to new ideas is surprisingly refreshing. George Santayana’s famous quote seems to apply to art as much as it might apply to politics, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Wiley’s knowledge of historic paintings and specifically portraiture, gives him the power to quote, without repeating, to use historic ideas to address pressing contemporary realities. Wiley says, “Often times when I go to the great museums throughout the world, most of the pictures on the wall don’t happen to look like me. In my pictures I’m trying to sort of correct for a bit of that. My job as an artist is not to paint the world as a type of Utopia. What I do is I respond to the world that I’m given.”

With this body of work, Wiley has ventured south to Brazil in search of his subjects and by doing so has taken his dialog about power, race, society, and sexuality beyond the historic and geographic confines of an African-American experience. He is attempting to challenge, reverse, and possibly lampoon the tenets of Old-World prejudices and social hierarchies as expressed through traditional portraiture and, in this case, through early New World propaganda.

Wiley says “I use a number of sources in the work. Part of it is religious iconography and religious painting. But the other part has to do with society portraits. In those paintings, it’s more about the landed gentry. The very powerful rich white men on their land looking confident and strident. There is a language of power that is in those paintings. Ultimately, what I’m trying to do is to craft a language that investigates that type of power.”

His characters are larger than life, cocky and sometimes flamboyant young men gazing casually into the viewer’s eye. The mere size of these paintings exaggerates their presence, “infusing his paintings,” according to Thelma Golden, Director of the Studio Museum, in Harlem, “with his own sense of how monumental he feels his subjects are.”

But Wiley takes it further by over-accentuating the feminine qualities of the traditionally masculine strength within old European art. He explains, “As a culture, we have in some ways codified the decorative as belonging to the feminine. And I am depicting young black men who are perceived as being hyper-sexual with a propensity toward sports and anti-social behavior. These things are codified as being very masculine and by juxtaposing that with something that is seen as being feminine, I think we sort of blast through both. A type of supernova that lays bare the absurdity of these codes to begin with.”

Viewing his work, we begin realize the conspicuous absence of black men in art history, a realization that Wiley had growing up in Los Angeles. He recalls, “When I was a kid, I would often times go to the Huntington Library and Gardens where there was an amazing collection of 17th and 18th Century British portraiture. As an artist, I always look at these great masters as the ‘father that you must slay’ and put yourself into the picture [instead].”

As a burgeoning celebrity in his own right, Wiley’s opening night at ROBERTS & TILTON was a packed Hollywood-style event with lots of fashion and posturing. Fortunately, however, it possessed equal amounts of sincerity and content. Mingling among the TV celebs and art-hipsters were world-class curators such as Simon Watson, who helped break out Wiley in New York, and Max Presneill of the

Torrance Museum of Art, along side collectors such as Michael Ovitz, of CAA fame, and Gerald Casale from DEVO. Refreshingly, most people were actually looking at the art instead of each other…and for good reason.

-Bryson Strauss

Kehinde Wiley
The World Stage: Brazil
ROBERTS & TILTON
April 4 – May 30 2009

5801 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, California 90232  
T 323.549.0223 F 323.549.0224
www.robertsandtilton.com

GOOD TO GO EXHIBITION - NEWSPACE GALLERY

Bryson Strauss — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:49:00 GMT

I'm interested in the digging out of each artist, to dig out their innermost capacity for feeling, for empathy, for reductiveness, to translate human values and frailties into art.

-Joni Gordon

Good to Go
Newspace Gallery
5241 Melrose Avenue
September 16 – December 16, 2006

Newspace Gallery's Good to Go exhibition is a crash course in 33 years of L.A. art history. Featuring the work of 114 artists from 1972 to today, including Jeff Price, David Amico, Martha Alf, Robert Cumming, Mike Kelley, and Arata Isozaki (to name only a few), this show is more than a satisfying assault on the senses. It's an explosion with a big flash that celebrates the art, the artists, and the indefatigable efforts of its leader, Joni Gordon all before the light fades and the doors close forever.

After ten shows a year for thirty-three years, Gordon is finally worn out. She commented in a recent Vernissage TV interview, "I am physically tired. It's still compelling to me, joyous, and fascinating but it's physically exhausting." On December 16, 2006 the exhibit space of her gallery will close as she embraces her new status as a private dealer. This is the final bang. Though the gallery was originally founded by artist Jean St. Pierre in Laguna Beach, CA, Gordon took over the failing operation in 1975 after it moved to the current Melrose space. From there, Newspace became a launching point for many young artists, some of whom went on to garner fame and the occasional fortune.

The individual works featured in Good to Go range from knock-out to plain-Jane. Combined, however, they make for an amazing installation piece, something akin to an Italian salon on meth. Sculptures, oil paintings, works on paper, tapestries, photography, furniture, steel, metal, plastic, light and dark, all packed and pushed into every corner of wall space with various pieces on the floor. Judging from the range, quantity, and quality of the imagery, Gordon must still have serious pull with her collectors and artists, as it would take a curator at MOCA five years to pull off something half as elaborate.

One refreshing aspect for me...and perhaps I just needed a break from all the smarty-pants museum curating...is that this show is not interpretive. There's no theme or thread except that all of these artists have shown with Gordon over the years. Some works are for sale and some on loan but all are displayed like a diary of creativity for a very honest, raw look at Gordon's career and her contribution to the Los Angeles art scene. The only framework is the space, the history, and Gordon herself. So much is left to the viewer that one can't help but be inspired, if not a bit overwhelmed. Even as a new comer, I felt a kind of sadness, a sense of loss as I scanned the photos, press clipping and works from three decades of art exhibitions. Many names I knew, some I did not, but I could see their place in time and the movements that they represented.

The show includes a rare abstract piece by David Amico, one of the pioneering artist of the downtown art scene who started showing with Gordon for the first time in 1976 (that was before Amico opened his 9000 square foot loft space on Broadway to the youthful creative contingent of the time). And there is an earlier work by Mike Kelly, who started with Newspace in a group show called "Balls" back in 1981, two years before MOCA had anything to do with him. Even David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein enjoyed their time in the mild light of Newspace for a group show called "Important American Art," though neither have work featured in the current exhibition. You can see drawings of MOCA by architect Arata Isozaki, photographs by Laura Aguilar, and several works by Jean St. Pierre, the original founder of Newspace.

But this show is perhaps more about Gordon than the art. Gordon developed a compulsive interest in art as a child. She recounted, "If I made one dollar I'd go out and spend fifty cents on art." That continued throughout her life. It was Gordon, for example, who bought Vija Celmins first piece out of Celimns graduate show at UCLA in the 1960s. Then she called up gallerist, LACMA curator, and collector Betty Asher to boast about Celimns. Asher in turn phoned Irving Blum of Ferus Gallery fame. The chain of events in which Gordon either participated or inspired shaped the West Coast art scene and figured on the national and international spheres as well. Gordon's experience is full of such pivotal moments and Good to Go is an exciting visual memoir of her story.

While Joni Gordon will no doubt continue to be an important presence within the contemporary art scene, the symbolic significance for Newspace closing as a public exhibition space cannot be overstated. Don't miss this opportunity for a glimpse of history.

-bryson strauss

For miles of anecdotes on the L.A art scene, see Gordon's oral history interview with the Smithsonian Institution. www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/gordon02.htm

LIGHT AND SPEED EXHIBITION - BEVERLY HILLS

Bryson Strauss — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:06:00 GMT

October 25, 2006
Light and Speed
460 Degrees Gallery
Beverly Hills

Installation art and car sales meet like rock stars and amplifiers at the 460 degrees exhibition called Light and Speed at 269 N. Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. Arne Quinze's wild, wooden sculpture, Miranda Lichtenstein's sober, meditative photography, and Pascual Sistos's öber-urban, interactive, video installation add curiously beautiful lines and movement to the showroom of the new Lexus LS. Yes, it sounds crass but it works. Very cool.

Continuing the tradition of blurring the lines between capitalistic exploits and artistic creation, curator Sabastien Agneessens from Formavision with assistance from Shamim Momin of the Whitney Museum of American Art, orchestrated a hotshot exhibition and car show that marries sound, structure, vision, and motion to create a unique future-tech environment for which to showcase the new Lexus (which itself is an insane work of art, if not an overkill exercise in conspicuous consumption. More on that below.).

Arne Quinze's installation is sick! His three linear miles of 2 x 3s (Canadian odd-cut) woven, nailed, and strapped into a giant undulating form is a perfect execution of controlled chaos. The sculpture appears to be spilling like a wave of blond pixie sticks out of control, rushing through the room in a sweeping graceful gesture that dives under air ducts and leaps over walkways. Thousands of sticks crammed into that relatively small space lifts you up, carries you around the room and deposits you right at the vehicle.

Quinze is not an upstart. He's part one of Quinze & Milan, a modish design firm based in the U.S. and Belgium. Earlier this year, Quizne garnered some attention for his similar, though grossly larger, structure at Burning Man. This time using nine linear miles of the same boards, he erected a ginormous monster in the desert called Uchronia, measuring almost 200 feet long, 100 feet wide and nearly 50 feet tall. Photos and gossip suggest it was an amazing and explosive site, if not a criminal waste of natural resources. They burned it, of course. All in the name of art, baby!

Bolstering Quinze's sculpture in Light and Speed between the wooden waves, and crashing boards, are two ten-foot opposing video screens set about three yards about. Created by Pascual Sisto, each screen features a montage running in a seamless, continuous loop. One screen shows vehicles on a nighttime freeway flowing into the space while the other pictures vehicles flowing away. The images are spliced and cut as to create a 360-degree montage of smooth, flowing, almost meditative movement and flickering light. The affect is almost hypnotic.

On another wall, Sisto projects a video using a super-groovy, high-tech projector called a Reactrix. This machine allows Sisto to generate moving pictures on the screen that can interact with viewers. Button-like images with the names of each artist float across the screen. When the visitor touches the "button," a short video about the artist and the installation starts up. According to the Reactrix website, the projector is a combination of animation and motion detector technology. The images, as they drift across the screen, are synced up with the motion detector and thus when someone breaks the beam, it triggers the animation component. In this case, it makes it far more interesting then static video and more closely approximates, or rather caters to, the internet-style experience. Click and run. Click and run.

The final component of Light and Speed, is Miranda Lichtenstein's zen-like photography. Packed off in a corner that doesn't seem to altogether go with the show, as the "feng shui" of this little sitting area seems all wrong in relation to the rest of the installation. The photos, which in their own right are knock-out, are mostly of people in contemplative/meditative states or places. Lichtenstein is excellent with space and the human form and here she creates a comfortable tension between the two. This calming sensation is consistent with the whole peace within chaos vibe of the show, but a little out of whack with the light and speed concept. (Also, check out Lichtenstein's Polaroid show at the Hammer. http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/103/).

If all the energy and movement of the combined efforts of these artists is to highlight those sleek, calming qualities of the Lexus LS, it's a success. The installation almost stands alone but the vehicle remains a key grounding stone to the experience (and I swear I don't work for Lexus or any automotive affiliate). This modern day hotrod lists for $70,000 to $85,000 and according to the literature and demos, it actually drives itself. The parking feature is the most talked about, where a clumsy parallel parker simply pulls aside an empty spot, pushes a couple buttons on the LCD, and the car steers into the space by itself. I love gadgets so hyper-futuristic, I-Robot style driving gets me all jittery. It's a sweet ride. Look here: http://www.lexus.com/models/LS/.

Light and Speed is successful as both an art piece and a marketing tool. Obviously, the installation helps to elevate the consumer product to the level of fine art but the vehicle holds its own. After all, this is not a Ford Taurus we are talking about here. The Lexus LS is Fat City! Here the work of Quinze, Sisto, and Lichtenstein, draws attention the artistry of the automotive designers and engineers, who unfortunately remain anonymous. I suspect shows like this will become an endemic model for contemporary art, where the creative classes are plugged into technology and commerce while big companies with deep pockets vie for innovative ways to infiltrate recalcitrant, artsy, technologically savvy, and very slippery, young consumer groups.

-bryson strauss

Light and Speed
October 21 - November 3, 2006
269 North Beverly Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
888.747.4504
www.460degrees.com

LAUREN GREENFIELD - EXHIBITION FAHEY/KLIEN GALLERY LOS ANGELES

Bryson Strauss — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:04:00 GMT

Lauren Greenfield's exhibition THIN at Fahey Klein is a disturbing, schizophrenic experience where one suddenly feels something like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown yelling "My daughter, my sister. My daughter, my sister," until someone slaps you out of it.

Photography is inherently glamorous, especially fine art photography at a major Los Angeles gallery. Therefore, a photo exhibition featuring young women struggling with eating disorders and life-threatening low self-image is not just a little bit challenging. It's seriously confrontational.

Here, Greenfield's work beautifully documents an ugly truth using one of the same mediums that is in part responsible for creating the illnesses in the first place. And we, as consumers and critics of art, find ourselves alternating between feeling sympathy, sadness, and guilt for the subjects to actively objectifying the "models" as perfect tools for creating remarkable, memorable, emotionally evocative, and timeless works of art. The feeling is not unlike what happens when facing Diane Arbus' images from the mental asylum just before her death. Gorgeous, horrible, gorgeous, horrible.

Greenfield, however, is an expert, not only as an empathic anthropologist documenting "Girl Culture, " which she has been doing for more than a decade, but as an artist as well who can turn the most unsettling image into a stand-alone masterpiece. This latter point is perhaps the biggest hurdle with THIN. Greenfield's portraits are indeed magic. They have that inexplicable something that makes photos magnetic but which cannot be grasped by common language or taught to other artists. It's that final element after an artist has harnessed a vision and mastered a craft that breaths the final life into a work of art. It is nothing less than the artist herself.

Pushing past any hesitation toward the subject matter, this show is definitely worth seeing. The accompanying book helps frame the experience more compassionately than I would and apparently, the film by the same title is being celebrated worldwide.

-bryson strauss

Check it out at:

Fahey/Klien Gallery
148 North La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 934-2250
http://www.faheykleingallery.com/

MIRIAM WOSK - SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART

Bryson Strauss — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:02:00 GMT

Miram Wosk's artwork is a rush! It's hard to imagine that there is anything left of the artist when one steps into her exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. To give that much to your art should use you up, eat you up, wither you away.

The complexity is immense and each piece seems to emanate its own light. But here's what you have to contend with as an art lover, critic, snob, or whatever. Wosk's paintings are unapologetically and absolutely beautiful, even pretty. Collaged with sparkles, paper, sequins, and the remains of genuine sea life, she creates an adventure of the senses. It's honestly like nothing you've ever seen, except perhaps in a whacked-out dream.

While I hesitate to present images, because in this case they really are an injustice to the work, I'll do so here because as recalcitrant web freaks, you are bound to Google her anyway.

Check it out. I highly recommend it.

-bryson strauss

The Santa Monica Museum of Art is open Tuesday to Saturday 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. http://www.smmoa.org/

ALEXANDRA NECHITA - THE AUCTION

Bryson Strauss — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 01:48:00 GMT

To raise a bunch of money and donate a slice toward world peace, Alexandra Nechita and her promoters staged a schmancy auction at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Sunday. I went because I HAD to see where the child prodigy had gone since the craze in the 1990s, when a 12-year-old Nechita was fetching $200,000 for some of her larger paintings.

Now apparently a full time art student at UCLA, I had some high hopes for Nechita but worried she had been crushed and corralled under the pressure and seduction of money, international celebrity, and her Dad. But, I also hoped beyond all hope that she was a young, female Howard Roark in disguise, indefatigably plugging away at her own vision.

Alas, she was not...or perhaps she was and I just couldn't see it. Even her collectors and promoters were still talking about her Picasso-style work, as if that's a good thing. And, yes it's pretty much the same. But then again, I suppose Monet painted over 200 water lily paintings so perhaps she's just getting it out of her system. And they are interesting to look at, sometimes. A little new exploration, however, would be nice.

Nonetheless, two pieces from the auction did stand out. The first, a quiet Picassoesque Bronze that was so inventive and well executed that you couldn't help but be captivated by the creativity and craftsmanship. Soft undulating forms created a feeling that was demure and not a little bit sad. A great piece, really. I can't remember the title and it wasn't listed in the catalog but you can watch her making it at http://www.nechita.info/

The other, perhaps the most interesting if not the most attractive of the show, was a dark abstract expressionist work called "Constellation XXXXXIV." Given the number, I suspect that there are others like it somewhere, a lot of them. Thick blues and subtle purples swirl amongst a glittery white background. Here she's achieved a nice play of light and a texture and movement of paint that commands a contemplative pause. Ultimately, this work was simply refreshing, and it felt like a tentative step toward "finding herself" as an adult artist.

With all that said, I cannot deny that Nechita is both enormously talented and creative, with amazing craftsmanship to boot. I suspect, however, that she needs to break it all down, go down the dark path of "screw you art" with lots of screaming, cussing, and rolling in piles of salt and shit until she can finally say "up yours dad, collectors, galleries, and money mongering freaks. I don't care if you like or you can sell it. I KNOW WHO I AM!!! I'd rather eat cat food than compromise for one more second.

But, still, regardless of my opinion or others, her artwork was estimated for the Sunday showcase at $30, 000 to $240,000. Apparently no cat food dinners in the near future.

-bryson strauss

P.S. The images here are not the actual pieces from the show. They are type samples.