Our current Previews feature our editors' and contributing writers' evaluations of exhibition that open or continue into the current month, so as to provide you with the opportunity to view those that are of interest to you.

To look up past articles you can go to our archive of Articles forward from April, 2010; or Articles prior to April, 2010 will be called up from a database separate from those starting April, 2010, so you will experience differences in appearance and navigation.

Here are our Previews and Recommendations for February, 2012:

Tim Ebner with new works in progress

Rosamund Felsen Gallery, February 11 - March 10, 2012, Santa Monica

by Diane Calder

Readers intent on utilizing this preview as a kind of Goggle map, complete with titles, dimensions, placement in the gallery and unabridged descriptions of every work designated to be exhibited in Tim Ebner’s eagerly anticipated new show, are out of luck. Decisions governing what will make the cut were yet to be finalized as publication deadlines approached, facilitating a shift in my focus towards insights gained regarding Ebner’s practice, production and concerns during a discussion with the artist while examining some of the new work in his studio early in January.

Flavio Garciandia, "Untitled"

Couturier Gallery, January 14 - February 25, 2012, Miracle Mile

by Betty Ann Brown

Flavio Garciandia’s current paintings are equal parts de Kooning, Twombly, and Cuba. That’s de Kooning’s pink and green abstractions from the 1940s. And late Twombly works like "Blooming, A Scattering of Blossoms" from 2007, where red scribbles are spread over an even creamy ground. And the sparkling, water-brightened light of the artist’s native Havana. It’s a tasty mix: sweet without being saccharin; deep and rich, without becoming obscure. And it’s an elegant art historical stew.

Sean Cheetham, "Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams," 2011, oil on Arches paper and linen.

Katherine Cone Gallery, February 11 - March 12, 2012, Culver City

by A. Moret

Robin Leach coined the catchphrase that toasted viewers to “Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams” at the conclusion of each episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” a syndicated T.V. program that chronicled the opulence and glory of celebrities. Painter Sean Cheetham borrows the tagline for his current solo exhibition with a series of portrait paintings that trace lone women, often tattooed and pierced urbanities with teased and colored coifs in a world that is neither decadent nor worthy of syndication. Often depicted in solitary domestic environs clouded by a sense of impending dread and contemplation, Cheetham’s subjects are the exact opposite of whom Robin Leach had in mind during his fond farewells.

Ellsworth Kelly, "Colors on a Grid"

Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA], January 21 - April 22, 2012, Miracle Mile

by Marlena Donohue

The work of Ellsworth Kelly somehow fights with the rhetorical framework of a written review. Any formal verbal description is bound to sound repetitive: one after another of intensely colored half arcs or subtle variations on the theme set against equally well calibrated fields of color (“Red/Blue, Untitled,” 1964), or grids made from multi-hued squares able to reference both Euclidian axes and some whimsical patchwork (“Colors on a Grid,” 1976).

Andy Goldsworthy, "Leaf Horn," 1996, sweet chestnut leaves and thorns, 11 3/4 x 13 1/2 x 5 1/2".

© Andy Goldsworthy. Photo courtesy Leanne Hull Fine Art, LLC

Andy Goldsworthy’s exquisite “Leaf Horn” (1996) represents one approach taken by the artists in “Dissecting Nature:” utilize the striking characteristics of natural materials, in this case, sweet chestnut leaves bound with thorns, to construct a new form. Iran do Espírito Santo employs another tactic. In “Untitled (Parta 2)” (2001), he applies latex paint and ink to MDF — not simply a wood panel, but a manufactured wood panel — to emulate nature. By creating the illusion of the rich, rough surface texture of natural wood, he establishes a context in which the viewer must decide if this is a clever one-liner or a lead-in to questions on a metaphysical level. Regardless of the artist’s approach, one of the unifying themes here is the significance of texture. From the pristine precision of Hreinn Fridfinnsson’s “35 Drops,” (2005), in which shimmering glass drops are hung in a single, vertical line suggestive of dripping water, to the rough, dry surface of Goldsworthy’s chestnut leaves and the near-abstract, highly magnified photographs of Maiko Haruki, the exhibit reminds us how much nature can teach us about texture and how attentive these artists are in their inquiries (Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla).

Judith Christensen

Our current Previews feature our editors' and contributing writers' evaluations of exhibition that open or continue into the current month, so as to provide you with the opportunity to view those that are of interest to you.

To look up past articles you can go to our archive of Articles forward from April, 2010; or Articles prior to April, 2010 will be called up from a database separate from those starting April, 2010, so you will experience differences in appearance and navigation.

Here are our Previews and Recommendations for January, 2012:

Don Antón, “Little Prayer Before the Journey”

January 11 - April 7, 2012 at USC Fisher Museum of Art, Downtown

by Jody Zellen

While many art institutions under the auspices of Pacific Standard Time are investigating how different communities - often segregated by location, race or gender - asserted their presence, it is important that the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies (LACPS) is also included in this history. Artist run organizations like LACPS that first emerged in the 1970s offered not only spaces to exhibit works not being shown by mainstream venues, but provided a sense of community. The impetus behind such organizations was to bring together a group of like-minded people to talk about ideas and issues that could develop into exhibitions as well as publications.

Moshe Elimelech, "Untitled #7"

January 7 - February 11, 2012 at L2kontemporary, Chinatown

by Bill Lasarow

Much contemporary art strives for high seriousness, compressing art historical source references and philosophical musings into coy objects meant more to be disentangled than simply enjoyed for their appearance. Formerly a graphic designer, Moshe Elimelech is inexorably drawn to want to tickle the eye with visual clues that blow the door of viewer engagement wide open rather than merely ajar.

Robert Kingston, “Skirmish”

January 14 - February 25, 2012 at Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Santa Monica

by Andy Brumer

If painter Robert Kingston were a poet, readers might associate his work less with the cerebral machinations of a T.S. Eliot, or the personal confessions of a Robert Lowell. One might, however, align him with the soulfully sensitive “Projective Verse” eruptions of Charles Olson, Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan. That group established the poetry component and cornerstone at the once vital but now defunct avant-garde, North Carolina-based art school called Black Mountain College. They felt that their poetic lines unfolded into the metaphorical ‘open field’ of the blank page and were driven into creation via the cadence and duration of breathing itself. These poets, like their Abstract Expressionist forebears, stood committed to producing a process-oriented art from the center of their bodies. The late Cy Twombly might stand as a painter-practitioner of this, if not a similar aesthetic. Not surprisingly, people often position Kingston’s work alongside Twombly’s.