MERLE SCHIPPER
Martin Lubliner, "Betty
Asher and Ken Tyler", photograph, 1968, from the exhibition (hosted
by Craig Krull Gallery) and catalogue, "Photographing the L.A. Art
Scene: 1955-1975."
Some of the catalogues recently issued look back
to the '50s and '60s in the L.A. art scene, recalling a time when this community
was just emerging as a major art center. Young artists were then plunging
into untried modes and mediums, engaging new ideas and fearlessly taking
chances that they might not dare attempt now. But then, damage to careers
was hardly a problem, for they received little notice, and sales, if they
occurred at all, were rare.
This comes to mind when looking through Photographing the L.A. Art Scene:
1955-1975 (Santa Monica: Smart Art Press, 1996), not a large-format
book, but packed with images from another time. As the catalogue of the
recent show of the same title at the Craig
Krull Gallery at Bergamot Station, it's a permanent record of the work
on the walls. Opening it confronts you with the period, be it nostalgia-evoking
or a revelation of events of which you were heretofore unaware. Although
it tends to focus on the milieu that formed around the Ferus Gallery (1957-1963),
it is not limited to that presence, while bringing to the our attention
incidents ranging from the Wally Berman arrest to the Babitz/Duchamp chess
game.
Along with great shots by pros such as Charles Brittin, Dennis Hopper, Jerry
McMillan, Edmund Teske and others, some not principally recognized for their
picture-taking prowess, it includes brief essays by Krull, Larry Bell, Ed
Ruscha and others.
Then
there is Kienholz: A Retrospective (New York: Whitney Museum &
D.A.P., 1996), accompanying the exhibition of work by Edward
and Nancy Reddin Kienholz. The principal essay by Curator Walter Hopps,
who, with Keinholz operated the original Ferus gallery, offers the close-up
observations of a long-time friend of the late artist, whose work foresaw
conceptualism. Hopps recaps events of those times, including the front page
scandal caused by Keinholz' Back Seat Dodge '38 at his 1966 LACMA show.
The essays include one by Marcus Raskin that looks at Keinholz' merging
of illusion and reality in relation to violence in the American society
of the '50s and '60s, along with the perceptions of Jurgin Hartin, Thomas
McEvilley, and others. Commentaries by Hopps and Rosetta Brooks accompany
the plates.
Ed Moses"Crazed-Cracked", zcrylic and asphaltum
on canvas, 75 x 120", 1995.
The continuous change he
finds underlaying the work of another member of the Ferus Gallery group
is examined in depth by curator John Yau, who sees Ed Moses as a unique
figure among postmodernists. In examining his work from the early, atmospheric
Gorkyesque drawings and vertical-band paintings reminiscent of Guston, through
the 1961 Rose drawings and paper constructions, to his mid-'90s work, in
Ed Moses: A Retrospective of the Paintings and Drawings, 1951-l996
(UC Press: Berkeley & L.A., l996), the catalogue for his recent smash
show at MOCA. Yau looks into the artist's
adoption of motifs such as those in Navajo weavings, along with the impact
of Buddhism. While he is attentive to Moses' interest in the architecture
of Venice, his studio base during most of a career spanning five decades,
the writer refers to the artist's engagement of "southern California
light" only in relation to his memorable deconstruction of the Rico
Mizuno gallery in 1969. Except for a brief reference to Sam Francis, the
curator finds sources and influences in New York.
Ferus and the Light and Space movement both get attention in Laura Meyer's
essay "From Finish Fetish to Feminism" in Sexual
Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History (
L.A. & Berkeley: UCLA/Hammer & UC
Press, 1996), published with
the exhibition that took place recently at the Hammer.
Chicago, then Judy Gerowitz, at the time used much the same synthetic materials
as Larry Bell and Craig Kauffman. While receiving praise for formal content,
in Meyer's view she was not recognized for the expression of a "new
female identity," despite the attention to "maleness" attributed
to the others' work, and did not find notice for its specifically feminist
sexuality nor for its significance for the feminist art movement, which
found its base in Los Angeles in the l970s.
Editor Amelia Jones discusses critical views of The Dinner Party
when it was originally presented along with the issues raised as "sexual
politics." Other noteworthy essays are by Anette Kubitz, who looks
at responses to The Dinner Party in Europe; Susan Kandel, on stripping
away the veil of female imagery; Laura Cottingham on lesbianism and its
place in the feminist art movement; and Nancy Ring, questioning the absence
of racism and anti-Semitism in The Dinner Party (we find Chicago
confronting anti-Semitism more recently in The Holocaust Project
[1993]).
Surrealist Man Ray came on the local
scene here before all of that, 1940-l95l, having been offered free transportation
from New York after fleeing Naziism in Europe, to become an "isolato
in Hollywood." Essayist Dickran Tashjian brings 
to light the only now-told story of
Man Ray's stay in L.A. in Man Ray: Paris>>L.A. (Santa Monica;
Smart Art Press, 1996), the beautifully designed and illustrated volume
which accompanies the museum-scale show at Tom Patchett's Track
16 Gallery and the Robert Berman Gallery.
With brief passages by both Patchett and Berman, an interview with James
and Barbara Byrnes (the latter then art curator at the Los Angeles County
Museum in Exposition Park), who were at that time closely associated with
the artist within a milieu that included Henry Miller and the Walter Arensbergs
(who never bought any work by Ray). Probably most important for the artist
was his meeting with Juliet Browner, who became his wife, but he continued
to work productively at painting, photography and object making--especially
chess sets --while here. Although he had exhibitions, including his first
retrospective in 1944 at what was then the Pasadena Art Institute, in "continuing
unnoticed" as he put it, he undoubtedly found L.A. well removed from
Paris not only in miles but in its attitude towards contemporary art.
Work by Ray is also included in Visionary States: Surrealist Prints
from the Gilbert Kaplan Collection, published by the Grunwald Center for
the Graphic Arts, UCLA, for the exhibition just ended at the Hammer.
This volume is packed with illustrations that should remind art viewers
that the innovative forms and untried techniques of the past can still make
for exciting viewing.
Following Riva Casteleman's introductory essay on collecting prints in America,
Robert Rainwater discusses the printmaking of of key figures such as Max
Ernst and his invention of "frottage" in 1925; he examines the
importance of the Paris dealer Henry Kahnweiler, who introduced Andre Masson
to the idea of a book with original prints. Miro's automatism, especially
in lithographs that reflected his response to the outbreak of the Spanish
Civil war is also examined here, along with Dali's Les Chants de Maldoror,
among the "heliogravures" which combined photography with intaglio,
to mark an exceptional, if controversial achievement by the artist as a
printmaker.
Timothy Baum discusses other Surrealists as well, particularly in relation
to book art, mentioning Masson's erotic etchings for books by Louis Aragon
and Georges Bataille, while also praising Dali as then at his best. He singles
out the importance of Hayter,who moved his Atelier 17 to New York at the
outbreak of World War II, as a catalyst.
Man Ray may have thought he was isolated in L.A. but Agnes
Pelton (1881-1961), who spent her late years not far from Palm Springs,
was not only an isolated figure, but her most remarkable work was until
now little noticed during recent decades. The subject of a retrospective
originally organized by Michael Zakian for the Palms
Springs Museum, and shown more recently at Pepperdine
University's Frederick R. Weissman Museum, the catalogue for 
Agnes
Pelton: Poet of Nature, presents the highly imginative
images of an artist who sought to reveal the essence of things rather than
their outward appearance, engaging with the occult as well, choosing the
flame, which frequently appears in her work, as her personal emblem. A founder
of the Transcendental Painting group with Raymond Jonson, and a contemporary
of Georgia O'Keeffe, Zakian's text reveals her as a modernist of rare sensibility
for her times or even since, creating paintings that exude a fragile, vaporous
atmosphere, perhaps reflecting a personality whose melancholy state might
have had its source in the event of a family scandal, her grandmother's
liaison with Henry Ward Beecher!
Ports of Entry: William S. Burroughs and the Arts (Los Angeles: LACMA, 1996)
should make this multi-faceted personality accessible as an artist if he
is only familiar to you as a writer, which is probably true for most acquainted
with his books, considering that, as essayist Robert Sobieszek tells us,
he only showed his visual work after the death of his collaborator Brion
Gysin, in 1986. Gysin was the primary influence on the use of techniques
that Burroughs adopted, principally the collage-like ideas such as the "cut-ups"
as well as the "fold-ins" and other inventions that engaged chance
and randomness to contribute to an "expansion of consciousness,"
much like the writing, which also abandoned convention. Here Sobieszek also
acquaints the reader with Burroughs' experiments in music and his impact
there on a range of figures from Herbie Hancock to Kurt Cobain.
The show is not scheduled to open at the Hammer
until January 28, 1997, but the catalogue for Too Jewish: Challenging
Traditional Identities (New Brunswick & New York: Rutgers University
& the Jewish Museum, 1996) in which Jewish artists examine their identities,
is already available. While it illuminates a number of serious issues, it
offers a good deal of delight as well as information. Following a brief
forward by Linda Nochlin recalling her memories of the Hasidim she disparaged
while growing up in Crown Heights, New York, Curator Norman L. Kleeblatt's
"Passing into Multiculturalism" discusses the work in the show
as it refers to commonly attributed stereotypes, such as body parts and
the idea of the "Jewish American Princess", or in relation to
traditions and the place of the Jew in American society, subjects further
examined in other essays. These include, most notably, Rhonda Leiberman's
witty "Jewish Barbie", and the sober piece by Margaret Olin on
Jewish art critics, principally Clement Greenberg.
And thats the bunch for this year. Happy holidays!
