ArtScene

It has long been accepted that good art favors truth over decoration; but the last half century’s worth of art practice has done a lot of chipping away to prove that it just ain’t necessarily so simple. The sprawling “Landscape Confection” exhibition makes it very clear that a lot of conceptually challenging art can also be visually loaded; rich to a bursting point. “¡Carnival!” points out, via its gorgeous selection of costumes and masks from these popular street events, that the decorative and purely visual is an authentic element and complex vehicle for all aspects of culture. And the “Masters of American Comics” exhibition shows that what was at one time regarded with, at best, patronizing distain can eventually acquire not just a respect, but a formidable cultural stature. See also “From the Land of Misfit Toys,” in which ordinary playthings are utterly transformed. The ability of artists to digest and recycle cultural models of the most disparate kind sweetens this month’s art landscape. Ann Veronica Janssens takes our local light and space tradition to a new place that registers as beautiful--not too long ago her recasting of this style might have just left us perplexed. Sandow Birk reaches way back to Dante’s oldest of classics to re-envision it for contemporary America. Shirley Irons knocks around the New Jersey meadowlands to come away with complementary photographs and paintings that force you to rethink common assumptions about the place. They all, in a variety of ways, contribute to our own changing response to the art we see. Perhaps it’s all best encapsulated in the big overview exhibition of graduates from our own Otis College over the last nearly nine decades: achieve a high level of skill, and then have the faith to leave skill to its own inventions.

As always, you’ll find more on the artists and their host venues referred to above in the exhibition capsules that follow.

Here are your links to some of the upcoming Preview articles that we will feature during March, followed by more about some of the upcoming month's highlights:

• SANDOW BIRK
In Fullerton, Birk’s rewriting and illustrating of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” set in contemporary urban America, fills two galleries to bursting. A figure is guided by an American Flag-cloaked guide, and one cannot help but recognize both urban monuments and the obvious demise of the cities. Lithographs by George Bellows in the San Diego Museum’s holdings served as the source material for Birk’s newest series, “The Leading Causes of Death in America,” which comprises the Koplin Del Rio show. In them we see our own collective dark, or at least down side. He depicts overweight, ailing and stressed out characters who inhabit a less than ideal world. Beautifully executed, these works fuse social commentary with its recurring twin, the unpleasant sides of reality (at Koplin Del Rio, West Hollywood; and CSU Fullerton & CSUF Grand Central, Orange County).
http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Articles0306a/SBirkC.html

• ROSE CABAT
Cabat is famous for what she calls “feelies,” so named because their diminutive size, lush hue, and the shapes of these fragile objects invite your touch. You gradually notice that there are ten shades of lilac, and can’t help but realize that these miraculously controlled sheens are facile enough to have been formed by Nature. These objects are exceedingly precious (at Couturier, West Hollywood).
http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Articles0306a/RCabatA.html

• ALYSSA MONK
Monks has spent the early segment of her career probing and considering what is compelling and distinctive about, mainly, the female figure. Current works at Bain consist of self absorbed bathers who allow our gaze to penetrate their nakedness even through the illusory safety of water and lingerie. Emotional coolness is a consistent aesthetic posture, with the artist as the constant and consummate observer (at Sarah Bain and Fullerton College, Orange County).
http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Articles0306a/AMonksA.html

• RAY ZONE on “THE EMERGING COMICS CANON”
A joint show at the Hammer Museum (West Los Angeles) and The Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA] (Downtown) titled “Masters of American Comics” marks art world recognition “that comics are a bonafide cultural and aesthetic practice with their own history, protagonists, and contribution to society.” Nevertheless the art form still wears the historical tag of the jester; after all, the newspaper funnies were created to make people laugh. But the same reflexive self-awareness involved in producing lasting art is evident in much of the work here as well. Whether regarded as mere funnies, or more high mindedly as “sequential art,” the intellectual elevation and historical clarification implicit in this show is, if anything, past due (at MOCA, Downtown, and the Hammer Museum, West Los Angeles).
http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Articles0306a/RZone0306.html

• Don't forget to go to the Gallery Pages section for the latest featured exhibition announcements and portfolios; there's always some new ones going up:
http://www.artscenecal.com/Images/GalleryAnnouncements/DisplaysAndAnnouncements.html

• You'll also find the updates for March’s Openings Calendar at:
http://www.artscenecal.com/Calendar.html

Intimate observations--
Edgar Degas made extensive use of early photography in approaching his work, and this show underscores the cross referencing of media done by so many of the early Modernists. Works like the lovely pastel “Miss Lala at the Fernado Circus” confirm the close ties between the early avant garde and the fringes of proper culture. There is a stunning early self portrait of a 23 year old Degas, there’s the expected “Woman at the Bath,” viewed voyeuristically without her knowledge, and a folio of casual as well as revealing sketches (at Getty Center, West Los Angeles). . . . Bobbie Moline-Kramer shows a new portrait suite in which several large-scale faces and a series of 6 by 6-inch additional faces capture varying degrees of intense or contained emotion. Moline-Kramer works from composite photos of a person, randomly spliced together so that identity and symmetry are re-imagined and portrayed at moments of emotion where we have no more shame, when we laugh until we cry and the intimacy afterward is embarrassing (at Paul Kopeikin, West Hollywood). . . . The pristine landscape views of Astrid Preston continue to expand her amazing gift for observation and transformation of nature into something intended to inspire our respite and our thought. There is a shift in focus here, as in the small gem titled "Because of the Hours," in which an unusual array of color (usually avoided by her) and a profusion of gorgeously detailed foliage replace her previous stark Cartesian scenes. This new complexity evokes the pace and clutter of the information age (at Craig Krull, Santa Monica). . . .

A model of abstraction--
Alexander Ross’ signature abstractions look like branches of hardened green viscera, green fossils, or some other oozey analogue that suggests the growth and movement of nature in the most lush yet non-specific ways. Ross builds organic looking contraptions out of plasticine medium, photographs the models, studies the resulting shapes judiciously to maximize visual and emotive resonance, and then paints the unctuous green accretions against innocent sky blues (at Daniel Weinberg, West Hollywood). . . . Titled “Diaphans” due to the see-through quality of the 12 metal and 2 paper roughly shaped squares, each is rendered diaphanous by pristinely ordered holes Clytie Alexander has punched into painted planes. The works are crisp and clean, but they are not in the least bit cold. The panels are installed so that they hang just away from the wall support, and the backsides of works have been strategically painted in colors that cast a hued shadow on the wall. Op art meets minimalism meets perceptual color mixing (at Bobbie Greenfield, Santa Monica). . . . Initially they seem recognizable, but Michel Alexis’ new paintings are a teasing and taunting mixture of line and color that challenges the viewer to decipher what at first seems familiar but then quickly dissolves into abstraction. Line work is sometimes independent, serving to tie together sections of the work, at other moments seemingly random, moving in and out of the spatial layering. The beauty of the work lies in the sensuous blending of line and color (at Ruth Bachofner, Santa Monica). . . .

From eyesore to eye candy--
Eleven sculptors, painters, video or performance artists in From the Land of Misfit Toys customize playthings in ways that play up humor, cultural criticism and the questioning of preconceptions. British sculptor Jonathan Callan transforms children’s toys into the bizarre with injections of silicon. Walter Martin and his cohort Paloma Munoz subvert snow globes and install them in public places like the Wilshire/Normandie Metro Rail Station (at Otis College, West Side). . . . Irit Batsry transforms the gallery space by presenting projected as well as photographic images taken at Events Park in Milagres, Brazil. The vibrant color of the dilapidated buildings is distorted through her manipulations. What was seen versus what was transformed is hard to distinguish, especially because many of the images contain mirrors. The large scale presentation of vibrant and saturated colors dance on the walls (at Shoshana Wayne, Santa Monica). . . . Shirley Irons presents both photographs and paintings depicting the meadowlands of northeastern New Jersey. The meadowland is a place of transition, a place of both growth and decay. She explores the beauty that nature instills on a place which is otherwise an eyesore. Accompanying paintings are more placid studies of specific moments in time. The specifics of the place disappear as the power of the image takes over (at Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica). . . .

Weird beauty--
Landscape Confection points out that traditional concepts of landscape have been dramatically expanded. Jim Hodges’ curtains of delicately strung together silk flowers, silvery spider webs and carefully constructed neo-baroque forms are very much about shattering preconceptions and exercising the spirit of adventure. Australian artist Neal Rock’s lumpy, candy-like constructions look as if he’s subbed brushes for cake decorating gear. Rowena Dring’s carefully delineated landscapes look like a paint-by-numbers exercise, but up close one sees that these are not paintings at all, but shapes cut from cloth and sewn onto canvas with meticulous care. Beauty is in and decorative is no longer the d-word (at OCMA, Orange County). . . . Ralph Bacerra's decorative small to mid-scale ceramic creations nod to his close ties with Asia, his travels to China, Japan and Taiwan. Age and skill have lead him to favor gorgeous decorative objects, some with handles that imply use, others just beautiful orbs. Everything is thick with enamel ornamentation that fuses, in pot-like formats, stacks of recognizable things, anthropomorphic shapes, and a profusion of abstract patterning. Famous for his luster glazes, here they are rich, dark and deeply hued (at Frank Lloyd, Santa Monica). . . . Japanese painter Makiko Kudo presents large canvases with landscapes and foliage in eccentric blues, dirt browns and unlikely goldenrods. In Kudo’s hands however, land, a distant volcano, green knolls, and Hello Kitty snows are inhabited by cartoony, lanky Japanese school girls with cropped coifs. Her work aptly draws on the old and the ultra new in Japanese graphic traditions, and refuses to settle into the amine legacy (at Marc Foxx, West Hollywood). . . . Two projected light sculptures and a third reflective sculpture illuminate the gallery walls, filling them with colored light. Ann Veronica Janssens’ work is about how light and space coexist, and it most certainly relates to the aesthetic associated with the California Light and Space artists. At first glance the works appear too simple, but that changes as you move around them (at 1301PE, West Hollywood). . . .

Leaving cultural typecasting behind--
Otis--L.A. is a visual story of an art college inextricably linked to this city and to the growth of its creative life. Subtitled "Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art," and tracking 88 years of art emanating out of Otis by its alumni, the show makes clear that Otis College has been a serious seedbed for ideas, diversity and a cache of talented artists, from noted painters like Gajin Fujita or Sandow Birk, to painters turned conceptualists like Barry LeVa. If other schools trade on brands as conceptual think tanks or design dens, this show indicates that the school has concentrated somewhat traditionally (to good ends, based on what we see here) on high level of skill achieved, and then left to its own inventive devices (at Barnsdall Park, Hollywood). . . . A provocative project poignantly titled Leaving Aztlan denotes an important departure from race, from racial thinking, and the confining lure of heritage as defined for minorities by centrist notions. The ten Latina/o and Chicana/o artists in the show offer up some very sophisticated concept works that insist on being read more broadly than contravening stereotypes of magic realism and the barrio, and who push forward the notion that good art is thoughtful rather than racial (at SM Art Studios Arena 1, Santa Monica). . . . The title Beyond Borders is a metaphor that describes both the differences and contrasts of the four exhibiting artists. Daggie Wallace creates in luscious painted pastels, forming sensuously realistic individual portraits. Manuela Reitz’ acrylic paintings are mystical semi-abstractions where a story is told, but the details are more in the colors, texture and composition. Salma Arastu’s paintings of natural subjects, such as the sun, flowers, or moonlight, exude an Oriental enchantment. Susan Rush renders an inventive assortment of figures that are reduced to living in small circular spots that float in a broad field of colorful tribal-looking abstract mixed media collage (at Space on Spurgeon, Orange County). . . .

Art as cultural lens--
The phenomenon of ¡Carnival! festivals as current day cultural production is explored via elaborate costumes and masks, reflecting a range of masquerade and performance themes, and the complex symbolism of such events in Laza, Spain; Venice, Italy, Basel, Switzerland, Oruro, Bolivia; Tlaxcala, Mexico; Recife/Olinda, Brazil; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; and New Orleans. For authenticity, the celebrations and rituals are brought to life in real time through photographic murals and videos of recent Carnivals (at UCLA Fowler Museum, West Los Angeles). . . . In paintings that attempt to fuse divergent aesthetic roots, Thomas Frontini translates dreamlike visions into parables of warning. Using juxtaposition, Frontini evokes a tense pull between images of present--a mom on her cell phone--and past--battling centaurs. The overblown sensuousness of the flora and the lushly monstrous fauna risk becoming absurd, but also serve to seduce us into this extravagant fantasy world (at Lawrence Asher, West Hollywood). . . . In the group exhibition An Image Bank for Everyday Revolutionary Life, each artist was invited to make work based on images taken from or inspired by the photographic archives of the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. While the majority of works produced are photographic, some made wall drawings, others videos; yet all the work in the exhibition speaks to a political or social issue. The installation speaks to the power of the archive and how, even when times change, certain issues remain compelling (at Gallery at REDCAT, Downtown). . . .

Unexpected pairings--
An interesting three-person show ranges from the comedic to the austere. The comedy comes Adolph Simpson’s filled-to-profusion collages, packed with Bosch-like mosaics culled not from dreams but from mass media. As for the austere, Kavin Buck makes enamel on canvas compositions all varying the theme of vertical hard edge bands in pungent colors. The middle ground is held by Ken Bracken, who stacks obscure, delicately limned biomorphic suggestions of real objects onto the center of three-foot canvases where as much space is left as marked (at Bert Green, Downtown). . . . Photographer Liza Ryan’s “enhancement” of selected bits of human anatomy and landscape with graphite, charcoal and collage elements has you look at how a twig or a vine can fuse with human hair, or how the veins of the skin are similar to those of a leaf. These quiet works are lush and dense, and sparks an intense examination of the tenuous relationship between reality and illusion. Meanwhile, the late Leon Golub is concurrently represented with colorful collection of works based on classical myths that is overshadowed by his dark, intense explorations of the violence of war. Paint is scrubbed into unstretched fragments of linen that suggest tattered, blood stained banners (at Griffin, Santa Monica). . . . Drawn defies old historical associations of the pencil sketch with the stodgy classical studio and its pristine traditions. Contemporary drawings run from the tromp l'oeil sleeper in velvety sheets by Pawel Kupiec, to the nightmarish surreal pen on paper by Alex Feliciano, in which a segmented man teeters on one enlarged, frightful limb. The half dozen artists here demonstrate that good drawing is never dead or outdated (at Art Murmur, Downtown). . . .