CONTINUING & RECCOMMENDED, FEBRUARY 2012

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

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

Stefanie Schneider, "Running with Guns," 1999, C-print, 24 x 24".

Nostalgia is tricky; unmetered it easily slips towards sentimentality. Not so with Stefanie Schneider’s c-prints. Old motel signs, obsolete gas pumps, outmoded cars and other remnants from an earlier time in the Southern California desert inhabit her images, suggesting a place that has been left behind by all but those on the margins of society. Some with figures, such as “Daisy on Bed Hillview Motel” (2005), are staged and seem more like posed paintings than posed photographs. Her images begin their life as Polaroids. This, along with the subject, imparts a vintage quality to the work. Many of the colors are bleached, as if faded; others, as the woman’s hair and blouse in “Radha Shooting II” (2009), just seem off. All these elements — the setting, the sense of desolation, the coloration, and the positioning of the figures — infuse the images with ambiguity and an edginess that saves them from sliding anywhere near sentimentality (Scott White Contemporary Art, La Jolla).

Peter Halasz, "Tompkins Gate," 2010, oil on canvas, 48 x 78".

Peter Halasz is a young (in his late thirties) artist who has labored to create his own painting style, particularly in these seven new works, “Love Songs & Incantations.” These large oils on canvas or wood panel depict Halasz’s love affair with New York City’s parks and broad panoramas at night. Each meticulously rendered painting evokes a romantic evening, perhaps in an elegant restaurant on an upper floor, featuring a plate glass window overlooking an urban, yet bucolic setting. The scenes/paintings that the viewer looks out on - bridges, buildings, roofs, chimneys, lampposts, treetops - are all carefully lit by city lamps or ambient light. The effect is a slightly ethereal look, adding to the sense that each painted scene is extracted from our collective memories. “Fountain at Tompkins,” a 44 1/2 by 52 1/2 inch close-up of Tompkins Square Park recalls the scenes of nineteenth century Currier and Ives prints. There are many large trees, their branches entangled among each other, a gazebo and that diffused light, perhaps in a snow-filled public space. The 84 by 162 inch “Rainscape from East Broadway and Canal” is a rain swept view of lower Eastside Manhattan, including the suspended Williamsburg Bridge, presumably viewed from a building’s upper story. These paintings draw the viewer in, reminding one of art’s ability to open the senses (R.B. Stevenson Gallery, La Jolla).

Liz Goldner

John Banasiak, "George Brown's Bar - Funeral Reception," 1971, gelatin silver print.

"George Brown’s Bar," as depicted by photographer John Banasiak, was a friendly neighborhood place. A tavern in a Polish area of Chicago, more than 40 years ago it attracted locals of all ages, including children, teenage daughters, groups of 20-something males in a celebratory mood and overfed matriarchs and patriarchs, most grinning eagerly for the camera. In 26 intimate black and white photographs, Banasiak captured the social center he grew up in, felt sublimely at home in, and tended bar at while a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. These photos of his neighbors in the early seventies convey the artist’s keen eye for portraiture with the familiarity and lack of artifice that is best achieved by a member of that community. Pictures of friends and neighbors, posing with a spontaneity more typically seen in family snapshots, reveal an intimate world not often seen in professional photographs of this quality (Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla).

Jay McCafferty, "Alive #1," solar burn on paper, 22 x 22".

For both Jay McCafferty and Miguel Osuna, texture, form and density are vital. For their current bodies of work, each utilizes a process that is meticulously detailed, and, in our digital age, a little obsessive. Osuna creates pattern by an additive process using just a single medium — in this case ballpoint pen — while McCafferty constructs his forms by removing an element. He directs the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass onto large pieces of graph paper, often pre-colored, resulting in solar burns through the surface. The viewer feels the artist’s tight control over how the pattern, the subtle vertical and horizontal lines, and the understated color intermingle. But one senses a measure of unpredictability in the degree of darkness on the burned edges and in how it bleeds to a soft brown in some areas. In Osuna’s work, the viewer feels only the artist’s control. Individual lines spiral and swirl, overlapping infrequently to create a lacy texture, or multiple times, merging into a solid form. Although the formal elements are paramount, there is a delicacy and an intimacy in both artists’ work (Susan Street Fine Art, San Diego County).

“California Design, 1930-1965, Living in a Modern Way" installation view, 2011/12, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Anyone imaginative enough to envision, or old enough to recall an era when traveling by air to the Golden State or driving on it’s roadways was a pleasurable adventure, is likely to understand the role nostalgia plays in the exhibition “California Design, 1930-1965, Living in a Modern Way.” Compellingly installed to wind through the Resnick Pavillion's open plan and its naturally lit, single story the experience echoes the way Mulholland Drive crowns nearby hillsides. The whole thing displays the works’ clean lines, polished surfaces reflecting the California light, bright colors, meticulously inlaid woodworking, fluidity of design, use of new technologies, and influences by Asian and Latin artworks. The “bookends” of the show are a magnificently refurbished, shiny, aluminum Airstream trailer near the entrance; and a perfectly preserved white Studebaker Avanti, designed by Raymond Loewy towards the back.

This ambitious display of 350 plus objects - including furniture, ceramics, metalwork, fashions, textiles, architecture and industrial and graphic design - examines life in more optimistic times. An American Airlines ad, colorfully attests to the joys of seaside adventures under sunny skies. It promotes the California dream in an era when technological advances gained during World War II were increasingly applied to the housing needs of a portion of the booming postwar population attracted by expanding educational and employment opportunities created under the umbrella of California’s then benevolent climate. Among the many highlights of the show are the Charles and Ray Eames’ reconstructed Case Study house living room, Heath ceramics, furniture designed by R. M. Schindler and dramatically staged photographs of modernist California architecture by Julius Schulman. One of the most stunning objects in the show is a table from Bullock’s Wilshire’s sportswear department, made of inlaid mahogany, zebrawood, sycamore and other woods by German born Jock D. Peters (Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA], Miracle Mile).

Diane Calder

Robert Morris, "Remembering Bolzman Bind Time III," 1985, graphite on paper, 37 1/2 x 49 1/2".

The exhibition "Drawn" has multiple meanings and they are all invoked via a terrifically enjoyable selection of drawings from some of art’s most established names: John Baldessari, Roy Dowell, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Alexis Smith, etc. The drawn part refers of course to the bread and butter of art — the hand rendered, easy flow mark in pencil, ink or other media. It also refers to a kind of culling or choosing, which has been done with great care here, and to kind tautness and precision. In this intimate format prominent artists are found doing what we rarely expect of them and what is absolutely predictable, but with a close-in care and warmth not always palpable in the big ego pieces. David Smith is represented with coiled nest-like skeins of lines and dots that are unusually expressive. Robert Morris’ little apocalyptic graphite on paper scene of marks rushing to a perspectival one-point at the center can be taken as a storm, a tunnel, a sublime sunset/rise. It is a knock-out. It goes on and on from there for a marvelous viewing and a way to see the big hitters doing excellent but more personal things (Margo Leavin Gallery, West Hollywood).

Marlena Donohue

Georgi Tushev, "Stange Attractor," 2008, oil on canvas, 10 x 14".

"Strange Attractor" is a small show of small-scale oil paintings by Georgi Tushev. The black, white and gray palette, spare compositions, and painterly tactility make up a familiar sensibility, conveying a recognizable organic quality that has become a well-worn niche in painting. Except in this case, the accumulation of paint is not only especially thick, it’s also exceptionally precise – albeit organically precise – in its manifestation. As it turns out, it’s so precise that it is, in fact, science, or science meets art, anyway: Tushev uses paint with high iron concentrations, and then proceeds to attract the paint away from its surface using magnets. The resulting alchemical passages are rippling, honeycombing, and even pseudo-explosive formations that take what would otherwise be stale, visceral abstractions into something fresh and intriguing. They’re gestures that on one hand favor a process that emphasizes an absence of personal touch, while on the other managing to be about as visceral as possible without becoming sculptures; quite a contradiction to pull off. And the redolent perfume of oil paint still not yet dry is a nice added bonus, one that even fervent non-romantics will struggle to resist (Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica).

Michael Shaw

Carlos Bunga, installation view at the Hammer Museum, 2011/12. Photo: Brian Forrest.

Occupy L.A. has not taken over the lobby of the Hammer Museum! The sprawling appendage currently hugging the respected institution’s entry walls is a temporary, architecturally scaled, site-specific installation built by Portuguese born artist Carlos Bunga. Constructed from cardboard embellished with vibrant strokes of flat house paint while museum visitors passed by on their journey from one gallery space into another, associations with transience and status are intentional. Bunga accelerates the deterioration of his project through performances in which he cuts, punches and tears at its cardboard walls. While Bunga’s on-site installations reflect his fascination with temporality in decaying urban building sites, they also enable the multi media artist, whose earlier drawings, paintings, collage, sculpture and video work are on display in the Lobby Gallery, to expand his practice into locations outside studio or gallery spaces. Ironically, the area adjacent to the Hammer’s theater is currently being torn up for reconstruction, adding an unexpectedly relevant element to Bunga’s work (The Hammer Museum, West Los Angeles).

Izhar Patkin’s "The Dead Are Here" brings some very intriguing innovation to the table, if falling short when it comes to the choices of imagery. The centerpiece of the show is an installation, a room with 14-foot high walls within the gallery, within which is hung painted curtains made of ink on tulle, a very fine netting also called, aptly, “illusion.” Rather than being hung taut, the curtain loosely folds in on itself, producing an ethereal, atmospheric quality. The landscapes depicted – also seen in individual, smaller works that are about seven-feet high – are of a cemetery, with cherry blossom trees, a running stream and large tombstones topped with Fragonard-like figures, amidst more standard, unadorned headstones. And if you look carefully enough, you’ll also find two ‘living’ figures, each sitting at the bases of separate tombstones. The source for the content depicted within these layers is Patkin’s collaboration with the late Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali, who wrote an epic love story from which "The Dead Are Here" is derived. Though the installation’s particular ethereality is initially nearly breathtaking, given a longer look the haunting quality that was presumably intended to be evoked gives way to something almost kitschy. The colors are a bit too cheery, and the tulle’s green grass becomes a bit muddy. The work from Patkin’s collaboration with Ali will be rolling out in greater depth at the Tel Aviv Museum and at MASS MoCA over the next couple of years, and between now and then, one hopes that the images that are chosen for these upcoming “illusions” will produce a better fit with this innovative unfolding of painting-meets-sculpture, with the ever-so-subtle aid of digitization (Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica).

Robert Rauschenberg, "Tibetan Keys (Double Bevel)," 1987, photo screen decals, handpainted screen ink, steel, powder coating, polyurethane, 10 x 10 x 36".

Usually when we see a blue chip artist in a smaller local gallery, the fare is third tier prints that have flooded the secondary market. Nothing could be further from the work by Robert Rauschenberg on view here. Included are some of the more provocative, smaller scale works I have seen by this artist locally in a while. There are two very unusual polyurethane boxes in odd polyhedron shapes onto which hand-painted screen prints have been transferred. They are both called “Tibet Keys” and in the most effective of the two you see a pun on the word ‘keys’ and on the whole idea of Zen renunciation of the senses. A serene Buddha is matched with a very phallic looking, perhaps Bombay street facet poking out of a wall, its dilapidated on-off key dangling at the end. Several dye transfers go beyond all those ink jet, vegetable dyed works that Rauschenberg fell into from the '80s on using his travel photos. Do not get me wrong, those are fine if predictable, but several in this little jewel of a show are exceptional. A standout is the photogravure “Lotus II,” yoking a collapsed overhead bridge reflected in a still pool below it with the serenity of a lone lotus and the banality of all terrain tires (Leslie Sacks Contemprary Art, Santa Monica).

Scott Short, "Untitled (blue)," 2011, oil on canvas, 21 5/8 x 17 1/2".

The latest phase of Scott Short’s long-standing, thoughtfully conceived mechanical reproduction-based paintings continues to scintillate, even as the project has now been going on for over a decade. Using Aristotle’s “Law of Excluded Middles” as his his point of departure for paintings appropriately enough entitled “The Excluded Middle,” Short uses the idea of absence to make reference to truth. Short begins with a piece of colored construction paper. This piece of paper is copied multiple times on a copy machine. The textures of the grain of the paper become a pattern of black and white forms that Short then enlarges and paints with exacting detail onto large canvases. The resultant abstractions have a hint of familiarity (at least if you’ve been around copy machines) - high contrast black and white oil paintings that allude to the organic, as in microscopic cell organisms and the like; print smears. Then there is the images’ primary anchor: print reproductions referencing nothing in particular except for themselves, portraits, in a sense, of multi-generational copies. They are visually disorienting abstractions that are at once about translation, faithful reproduction and the language of abstraction. The works resonate from a distance as well as up close. In one of the smaller works, "Untitled (Blue)," a dense patterning in which white fades into black going from left to right (or vice versa). You’re even placebo-affected into believing that you’re actually seeing, in what is in fact black paint, a dark blue tint (Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica).

MS/Jody Zellen

In 1981 Shelia Pinkel organized an exhibition at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery entitled “Multicultural Focus” that presented the works of myriad local artists of color whose photographic practices spanned many genres. It was one of the first exhibitions to specifically deal with multiculturalism, a term which has by now become ingrained into the theoretical canon. “Refocus: Multicultural Focus” includes recent works by nineteen of the original artists and looks at how their practices have changed over time. The ideas spawned by the original exhibition are still present, and many of the artists’ works continue to address social and political issues. The artists include Arden Alger, Don Anton, Stephen Axelrad, Carroll Parrott Blue, Elizabeth Bryant, Gillian Brown, Steve Berens, Dennis Callwood, Todd Gray, Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Willie Robert Middlebrook, Patrick Nagatani, Joan Salinger, Rick Tejeda Flores, Linda Wolf, Nancy Webber, Mihoko Yamagata and Bruce Yonemoto (Santa Monica Art Studios, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica).'

Karen Liebowitz, "Skinning Leviathan," 2011/12, acrylic on the wall, 16 x 30'.

Large scaled murals are normally expected to be long-lived. The iconic exception is the mutilation Diego Rivera purportedly deemed “cultural vandalism” of his “Man at the Crossroads” in Rockefeller Center. The limited amount of time visitors will be able to see Karen Liebowitz’ 16 by 30 foot painting, affixed to the wall of the main gallery, is less than one month, lending to any efforts to visit the dramatic work before its demise the flavor of a religious pilgrimage. That Liebowitz sought out an uninterrupted painting surface for her ambitious vision is understandable. That the artist proposed to concentrate so much effort into such a short period of time is as heroic as the gang of strong young women she portrays in her re-imagined, animal centered myth. The elephant in the room in this case appears to be a monstrous hybrid shaped like a whale with squid-like tentacles. In nearly neo-Surrealist fashion, Liebowitz brings an apocalyptic prophesy to life in the form of her crew of strong female characters, garbed in attractive, bright yellow work clothes and shiny black boots, intent on demolishing the grey corpse of the gigantic beached sea creature. This magical thinking is intriguing (Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica).

DeWain Valentine, "Gray Column," 1975/76, polyester resin, 140 x 87 1/2 x 9 1/2".

"From Start to Finish: DeWain Valentine’s Gray Column" is an exhibition of just one artwork, a 140 inch high by 87 1/2 inch wide by 9 1/2 inch deep, flawless, luminous gray column of polyester resin. The sculpture is accompanied by didactics and photographs describing how and why the artist created the piece. While the work itself, a magnificent, minimalist sculpture conceived and fabricated in 1975-76 and never before seen publicly, is impressive, the descriptions of its creation and 35-year maintenance are fascinating in their own right. They illustrate the artist’s obsessive nature and concurrent fear of failure in making the work, and describe his collaboration with experts in the plastics industry for its creation. Photographs and videos depict making preparatory drawings and maquettes, weighing the material, pouring it and then pigment into large barrels of resin, the hour-long process of mixing the materials, and the final sanding and polishing. As a one-of-a-kind artwork, “Gray Column” evokes and anticipates Maya Lin’s 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. and represents an artist’s determination and heroism to stretch the boundaries of the then new techniques and media that Valentine and others made a signature of contemporary art. This was a groundbreaking work that had been relegated to oblivion until the Getty seized this moment to show it in all of what turns out to be its glory (J. Paul Getty Museum, West Los Angeles).

Adam Ross, "In an Indeterminate Place #2," 2012, oil, alkyd and acrylic on canvas over panel, 84 x 72".

Adam Ross' current abstract paintings make reference to places that could be but are not. In the series of works entitled, “In an Indeterminate Place” he returns to sanding and varnishing layer upon layer of oil, alkyd and acrylic paint, allowing these materials to attract and repel each other. The push pull between the materials and the primary colors that Ross chooses to use imposes a foreground to background relationship on the abstract forms. Ross further pushes this illusion by painting a geometric shape - like a square or a series of lines in flat tones of gray, on the surface of the painting, thus forcing the eyes to look through as well as around these shapes to the textures below. The atmosphere generated through the layers alludes to outer space or underwater yet is neither. While Ross is best known for his abstract works of sanded surfaces, the fact that he also drew and painted imaginary cityscapes resonates in these new pieces. Ross’ return to abstraction carries with it the underlying sense of place and that these abstract worlds are based on the earlier imaginary cities (Angles Gallery, Culver City).

Peter Alexander, "12/12/11," 2011, urethane, 46 x 41".

Peter Alexander’s crisp and cool wall mounted sculptural objects resemble large shards of glass tinted with various shades of color. The polyester resin objects are thick at the top, mostly square, but thin out the way an icicle sharpens to a point. The translucency is engrossing and leaves the viewer drooling over the treatment of the surface. The geometric and straight edges at the top and side of each piece recall minimalism, but the deckled and organic bottom along with the gradation of lime green and misty blue brings in elements from the natural world. The soft and subtle variations of color can also be read as a horizon line that brings to mind the floating blocks of color within the paintings of Mark Rothko. The combination results in an organized or perhaps synthesized view of the natural world. Appropriately titled “Drips” each piece hangs off the wall and casts a recognizable shadow the further it extends. Like frozen shards of glass they serve as both abstract paintings and sculptures (Nye + Brown, Culver City).

G. James Daichendt

Robb Putnam, "Dunderhead," 2011, fabric, leather, plastic, rubber, thread and mixed media, 106 x 67 x 69".

Robb Putnam makes huge sculptures of dogs from soft found materials including discarded clothing, old shoes, rags, plastic garbage bags. He weaves them together with colored thread. Beginning with a wooden armature, these works grow from nothing as the bulk of the materials fill in the forms. Putman’s sculptures evoke characters from children’s books - specifically Snoopy - but are in actuality imagined characters. The works are playful at the same time they speak about waste, fears and vulnerability. In “Castoffs” Putman creates both large scale and tabletop works. Some are just animal heads that cascade of the pedestal, while others are larger than life full-bodied canines. Putnam includes a wall of fabric tongues as well as painted and drawn studies of these animals. “Dunderhead” is a mixed media work that is 106 inches tall. The animal is more inviting than threatening, yet there is something mischievous about its complacency. As if seeing beneath the skin, Putnam’s animals have an air of innocence yet speak to something beyond themselves (Walter Maciel Gallery, Culver City).

Kevin Cooley, "Matador Cave," 2011, color photograph.

Kevin Cooley’s “Take Refuge” mines the dichotomy of cool vs. warm to extreme degrees, both literally and figuratively, and in such a way that you’re convinced that the photographic medium is the ideal vehicle to take us there. The warm reds, pinks and oranges of campfires - or their simulated brethren in the form of sophisticated lighting design — are set off by the cool blues and/or grays of sky and snow at dusk, or dawn, in such dramatic fashion as to summon Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” if less ominously. As much as the title suggests a survivalist element to these man-against-nature scenarios, Cooley’s lured toward the formal dynamic as much as anything. "Devoe Street Refuge" is a smaller-than-car-sized snow hill on a street corner in Williamsburg, a light glowing from within. "Matador Cave" is a large scale, ethereal depiction of Malibu’s own Matador State Beach, the warmth of its cave – in all its fake fire-lit glory - apparently as knowingly fictitious, or as blissfully aware, of the aforementioned snow refuge. "Take Refuge" also extends its oeuvre into video, but with a distinctly different spin. “Devil’s Churn” features a red child’s raft being tossed about in a violently tide-heavy cove, while “Fire and Tide” embodies the cool/warm theme in real time, with another campfire, this time sitting in wait for its imminent demise (Kopeikin Gallery, Culver City).

Tanya Batura, "Achromic A," 2011, clay, acrylic, wood pedestal, 23 1/2 xc 17 x 17".

The absence of color in Tanya Batura’s “Achroma New Sculpture” delays the unease that inevitably settles into any viewer taking the time to be with her work. White, stark, and deceptively simple, seven sculptures of heads lie in repose on similarly white, stark, geometric plinths in a circle about the room. While earlier sculptures were sometimes recognizably using medical and pornographic imagery with splashes of red staining the mouth, these expressionless and colorless busts appear pristine and classical, although a geometric chunk removed from the forehead here and a nose tip sliced off there reveals a different degree of violence. Like a character from Haruki Marakami’s surreal fiction, it is impossible to tell when the reference to classical sublime becomes that of contemporary grotesque. Indeed, a closer look reveals that necks, cheeks, and foreheads are distorted, severed even, with a slippage between body parts. Nor are the works are marble as they appear to be, or any other carved stone, but hand-crafted clay, and painted with many layers of acrylic paint (Western Project, Culver City).

Jeannie R. Lee

Brian Bress, still from "Cowboy (Brian led by Peter Kirby)," 2012.

Brian Bress’s “Under Performing” is a uniquely boundary-busting extravaganza that also manages to remain true to the artist’s baroque, photo collage roots. The show is fronted by a 20-minute video called “Creative Ideas for Every Season,” a rather high production value affair featuring an older woman on a car ride accompanied by various bizarre characters en route. It’s far more intriguing visually than as a narrative, and sets the viewer up for the series of freakishly charming video portraits in the main room. Like photographs, only moving slowly and in much higher definition, the portraits include characters – such as "Fancy Dress Ball (Brian)" and "Janus" – that, in their elaborate get-ups, meld in and out of their backgrounds as they rotate in a slow circle. Among the group portraits, the faceless-masked "Family (Devin, John, Jason, Lewis)" and "Relatives" (same group), wear masks made collage-like as they bob in front of a rolling backdrop of painted waves. The most memorable portrait is "Cowboy (Brian led by Peter Kirby)," in which an all-white cartoon-ish cowboy character (the costume is a full-torso and head covering made out of what appears to be a white rubber or foam), draws a caricature portrait of his own on a transparent glass surface that’s level with the screen (a technique also employed briefly in the "Creative Ideas" video). Though "Under Performing" in general, and "Cowboy" in particular, are open to a wealth of interpretations, it’s all so visually innovative and idiosyncratic as to be appreciated even through its incredibly forthright self-consciousness (Cherry & Martin, Culver City).

Ingrid Calame, "#334 Drawing (Tracings from the L.A. River and Arcelor/Mittal Steel)" 2011, color pencil on trace Mylar, 112 x 72".

Ingrid Calame makes tracings of debris on sidewalks or streets. She or her assistants carefully trace large areas in public spaces that are then transferred to large sheets of vellum or to walls. This Sol Lewit style approach to creative collaboration produces intricate compositions of overlapping stray marks. The delicate works are drawn with colored pencil or, in the case of the site specific wall work, with colored chalk-lines which emphasize their fragility. Calame works with a subtle gradient of colors that create a cohesive compositional whole no matter the size of the work. Also on view are paintings by Raffi Kalenderian. These representational works depict the artist and his friends in casual and intimate settings. Kalenderian imbues the works with the suggestion of passing time and portrays his subjects in different positions within the composition, suggesting ideas of simultaneity (Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City).

Tim Bavington, "Heart Above Head #5," synthetic polymer on canvas.

Tim Bavington admirably fills the quota for stripes this month in his exhibit "Heart Above Head." His use of vertically arranged lines is a simplistic formal ingredient that varies in width and tone as they travel up and down, sometimes disappearing all together. Each work uses a different combination of electric neon and artificial color that delivers a final product bordering between abstract and real. "Heart above Head #5" demonstrates this middle ground, as it faintly resembles the visual readout of a radio frequency. By mixing a large number of colors with soft edges Bavington creates a noticeably different tone among the eight compositions. While there is little drastic change between works, the metaphorical waves of sound are like the ultimate screen saver of the future. The saturated colors seem to bleed beyond the canvas and beg for a little movement. Bavington has built upon conceptually cool plastic roots in California with his vertically enhanced pieces. Visual representations of the audible, it’s difficult not to embrace the musical aesthetic that fills the room.

In an adjacent gallery, the paintings of Feodor Voronov mix brightly colored lines and forms that twist and turn inside out as they overlap and travel in what seems to be a somewhat organized pattern. Titled "Word Paintings," the geometric inspired compositions cause a dizzying effect as single words are camouflaged in direct sight through simplistic patterns and colors. The words themselves are barely noticeable nor do they seem important when viewing the work. What may be a device to start a painting, the Russian born artist continues to leave breadcrumbs that display his process. There is a roughness to the work that is unusual for someone who pulls from formal inspirations. The unprimed canvas, expressiveness of some brush marks, and the noticeably negative space display lines of thinking for what appears to be a formal question solved visually. The artist’s finished pieces fight implied rigidity with uneasiness and tension that make each work appear like a visual puzzle (Mark Moore, Culver City).

GJD

David McDonald, "Self Portrait (Visible Self)," 2011, cement, wood, hydrocal, metal, enamel paint, 35 x 18 x 12".

David McDonald makes modest and unassuming sculptures from low-tech materials that end up commanding attention. His ingenious way of putting disparate materials together emphasizes not only their formal qualities but how the formal is linked to the conceptual. The works on view are self portraits that need to be interpreted as studies of the self. Each of the floor sculptures contains a cylindrical element that emanates from a concrete base. Some of the forms are contained, as in “Self Portrait (Protected Self)” where a red shape encased in raw cement is topped with a wooden box-like form. “Self Portrait (Visible Self)” combines stacked shapes of blue-painted wood alongside a painted vertical cylinder surrounded by white metal fencing. “Self Portrait (Underground Self)” couples a stack of wooden frames with a white-painted cylindrical shape grounded to a concrete base. Poles of rebar, each with a red top, protrude from the sculpture and are also drilled into the floor, the effect being to extend the area the sculpture occupies. McDonald’s sculptures are personal and iconic. There is an awkwardness to them that soon disappears as one realizes there is nothing arbitrary about their construction. The floor sculptures, when seen together become different aspects of the self, a self that is silent and unassuming at times, but assertive when they need to be. In addition to the floor sculpture, McDonald has also created a series of small wall works that are collaged arrangements of what appear to be be paint chips. Entitled “Fractures,” they produce a sense of enigma (Carter & Citizen, Culver City).

Daniel Richter, "Ooaz," 2011, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 106 1/4".

Art might be summarized by saying it is over and over again that place where contradiction is socially allowed, where it is tolerated by our otherwise vigilant psyches through the sheer seduction of beauty. The German artist Daniel Richter’s show is titled “A concert of purpose and action," a phrase taken from America’s official declaration of war on Germany in 1917. Its invocation here suggests that history is auto-verifying, supporting the tellers. The other thing writ large here is that war is the ultimate contraction. The manner in which Richter teeters between the sublime and the traumatic in these large scale, over 7-foot loosely expressionist paintings is fresh and powerful. He paints in oil with splendid control that is able to get this old master pigment to look like neon oranges, jet black silhouettes, oozy, drippy marks echoing on-the-fly street tags. What this style of working does is reference all at once the world of music graphics, posters, war propaganda and the long history of art. In “The Sublime,” almost caricature-like figures shaped of Kara Walker-type black cutouts either dance or die (it's hard to tell which) in a craggy mesa-like moonspace under rolling popsicle-hued skies. In “Another Wasted Night,” near black smudges coalesce into what we read as soldiers in infra red head gear marauding through psychedelic backgrounds instead of Fallujah Province. The mixture of play and trauma, anxiety and beauty are finely tuned; so perfectly re-purposed to our current ethos, when givens like history, progress, violation and survival are more contradictory and free-floating than ever (Regen Projects, West Hollywood).

Maryls Fuegod, from the series "Mascaras / Masks," wood, crystal, canvas, acrylic and sequins, 20 x 20 x 2 1/2".

Artists are known to break barriers, but when barriers are built by a dictatorial regime, based on deceptions, stiff controls, and continuously inhuman limitations, artists must use unconventional means to get their message across. The selection of eleven artists that make up "¡Cuba!" employ a variety of those means - sardonic humor, tragic expressions, and cleverness - to convey their impassioned desire for freedom, the reality of which seems not forthcoming. William Perez creates a stainless steel, incised acrylic and painted sculpture entitled "Battleship," a metaphor for Cuba, a snake-like island floating alone in the Caribbean Sea. Ernest Javier Fernandez’s black and white photograph shows people moving in a line towards a makeshift boat, a desperate attempt to escape. Hanging from the photo is a colored neon light sculpture that spells out IDEAS. As in all the art here, it describes a wrenching scenario of hope that may never be realized, making death an accepted possibility. Esterio Segura creates a red Pinocchio sculpture, the hand-made boy who lied. Here he lives in a cage, as his growing nose becomes a huge wooden fishing pole with an empty hook at its end. He stands helpless, trapped with no fish to catch, no place to go, and nothing to do, frozen in the lies he tells and is told. Wearing a mask is an essential part of Cuban culture; Maryls Fuegos paints herself with and without her mask, pretending to be patriotic, always hiding her identity. One of her best works is about her fear when she realizes that the mask has fallen off and who she really is is exposed for all to see. All of the art questions: is there really hope of change? Alejandro Campins paints a toddler looking out at the sea, symbolizing what many Cuban parents dream for their very young children (Salt Fine Art, Orange County).

Roberta Carasso

Since 1995, Jean Clad has curated over 20 exhibits across California and Ohio. Out of this curatorial experience came her knowledge and love of book-art which can be seen in “21 Artists Create Books.” In the past, Clad’s shows were organized around categories, themes, or specifications; but not this time. With no limit to materials, size, or content, the books selected are daring, one-of-a-kind works that push boundaries. A collective magic seems to thread through the creative imagination, craftsmanship, originality, and audacity of each individual expression. And why not? When “visual art” and “book art” co-mingle, some of them even spout poetry. The delights of new discoveries are at the core of this exhibit for both artist and viewer. Each piece is extremely compelling; but since it’s impossible to cover them all, here are a few examples. Visitors to the museum will stop in their tracks at the sight of Edith Abeyta’s bunny installation, a construction of 80 little bunnies from pages torn out of the “Encyclopedia Americana International Edition Volume 25.” Augmented by buttons, thread, wire, and ribbons, they are crammed onto a shelf staring out into space. By contrast, Terry Braunstein has altered four small books (“Anniversary Waltz,” “Old,” “Peace, Perfect Peace,” and “Meta+Morphe”) by incorporating theme-specific collages into each one. After being transposed into sculptural art, the four are exhibited as a unit.

Linda Ekstrom created “Thread” by shredding pages from the Bible, molding them into thread, then shaping them into a mysterious, metaphysical ball. Conversely, Paul Johnson constructed “The Enchanted Dream House” (a unique pop-up book) from special watercolor paper and industrial dyes overlaid with pen drawings. In “Album Children,” Beatriz Mejia-Krumbein explores the politics of family and parenthood in the tragic surroundings of her native Colombia. It’s not a happy baby-book, but a political indictment of child abduction and illicit adoption practices. Jim Machacek is represented by “The Kimono Book.” Using an accordion format he collaged prints of kimonos with selected Japanese haikus, then packed them in a clam-shell box covered with iridescent silk. Visitors will be spellbound by “My Story,” Carol Miuri’s elegant, stoneware pot containing papers, photographs and drawings that reveal her family’s history in a Japanese detention camp. An award-winning book artist in both Italy and the United States, Pia Pizzo presents “Memento,” provocatively composed from a vertical stack of rice paper pages held together by links of gold leaf and topped by a stone. Sue Ann Robinson's “Words, Out” is a spill of 11 gallon-sized paint cans. Inside each of them are pages of text, plastic letters, and powered pigment that represent a chapter in her ongoing novel (University Art Gallery, CSU Dominguez Hills, South Bay).

Shirle Gottlieb

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