I'll work for art

April 8, 2010

The Origins of Cool

Billy Shire, owner of La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles CA

Last Friday evening the legendary La Luz de Jesus held an art opening for artists Scott Hove, Dennis Larkin and Max Grundy (April 2 – May 2nd ). The art opening also celebrated the expansion of La Luz de Jesus, and the closure of the Culver City location, Billy Shire Fine Arts. The reason for the closure is unfortunately all too familiar: plummeting art sales due to the stagnant art market. No facet of the art world is resistant to the weakened economy.

Artist Max Grundy in front his art from Out of Order

The art exhibited at Billy Shire’s La Luz de Jesus reinforced his reputation as the “King of Lowbrow Art.” Max Grundy’s graphic propaganda posters from the series Out of Order, epitomize the very definition of Lowbrow Art, its origins in underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, tattoos and other subcultures. Each image by Grundy is infused with a sense of rebelliousness, conflict and impending doom. It makes sense that subcultures darkest icons Sunny Bargar, the founder of the Hells Angels and James Hetfield from Metallica are collectors of his artwork.

Scott Hove in front of his exhibit Iced Out

Scott Hove exhibited his morbid collision of confection and carnage, Iced Out from the Cakeland series. The sculptures on display appear to be as saccharine as any pink frosted princess cake, but are actually inedible. The sculptures are formed using polyurethane foam and plywood, and various found objects (sharp knives, fangs and eyeballs). Frosted using traditional cake decorating tools and accessorized with fake fruit. These creepy confections turn our sweet tooth against us, as venomous creatures live inside the cakes.

All Photographs © Juan Madrigal

Max Grundy and Scott Hove are undeniably visually gifted and well educated individuals who could have been players in the mainstream art world, but for what ever mixture of reasons, decided to forgo the cultural cachet and complex protocol of the blue chip art world and peddle their skills directly to the mass-media marketplace. In spite of arts primary function as a luxury object for the wealthy, the art world still affects a surface disdain for commerce. Max Grundy and Scott Hove, like most the lowbrow world, are unabashed capitalists, placing their trust in the marketplace as the only fair arbiter of aesthetic quality.

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Filed under art criticism, art exhibitions, art history, Billy Shire, culture, Gallery Owner, Los Angeles, Lowbrow Art

Tagged as Art Opening, Billy Shire, blue chip gallery, Capitalist, Culver City’s Art District, Gallery Owner, Hells Angels, illustration, Juan Madrigal, La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles, Los Feliz, Lowbrow Art, Max Grundy, Metallica, Outsider Art, Recession, Scott Hove, Sunny Bargar

March 19, 2010

People Watching at the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk

Both times, I have gone to the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk I have met up with friends to some fun while checking the art. The first time, I saw some interesting street art, a few good paintings and some decent photographs. On my second visit, last week, however, I spent more time gawking at the estranged and eclectic crowd that filled the streets and the galleries than I did the art.

I believe this happened because the art walk is a community spirited event that encourages all to participate and attend, by having a very loose definition of what art is. In turn, making the art on display a hodgepodge of good and bad.

All photographs © Juan Madrigal

And yes, like many people before me and after me, I went to the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk, with the idea that I was going to view art inside, but rather, the art was on the streets, it was the people.

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Filed under art, Los Angeles, street art

Tagged as Art Crowd, Beginner Art, Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk, Los Angeles, Outsider Art, street art

March 10, 2010

Andreas Gursky’s Ocean series unveiled at the Gagosian

Last Thursday evening, I attended the Andreas Gursky’s exhibition (March 4th – May 1st 2010) at the newly expanded Beverly Hills Gagosian, designed by Richard Meier and Partners.

It’s more than a coincidence that Andreas Gursky, whose 99 Cent ll, Diptych (2001) photograph holds the auction record for the most expensive photograph ever sold ($3.3 million at Sotheby’s in 2007), is the first artist to exhibit in the newly expanded Beverly Hills gallery. Gursky’s large-scale color photographs of trading floors, hotel lobbies, raves, and landscapes are excellent at portraying the busy obliviousness of modern life. The magnitude of his photographs charges them with a sense of drama that is easily likened to the 18^th and 19^th century tradition of history painting, figures feel frozen, compositions seem staged and structures become patterns.

In Gursky’s photographs, it is the Camera’s unique position that helps him keep his firm grip on the world. Often, Gursky places his lens high above, far away, on cranes, or even on helicopters. In Ocean, Gursky’s newest series, the camera’s position is taken to new and sorrowing heights. For the first time, here, Gursky has stepped out from behind the camera to render photographs of the earth taken by satellites orbiting the world. The photographs feel larger than ever before, averaging some eight to ten feet, accentuating the very vastness they represent. A crust of the Arctic Circle, the edge of South Africa and other landmasses drifting off the very edge of the frame, emphasizing the enormous expanses of a world we now tend to think of as tiny.

Ocean l, 2010 c-print

Standing in the midst of Gursky’s Ocean installation, is an ‘unearthly’ art experience. All at once you are surrounded by oceans and immersed in the emptiness they represent. The impeccable installation of Ocean, mirrors Gursky’s interest that is not in the individual person, but in the human race and its environment.

All photos © Juan Madrigal

I must digress, to mention the eccentric crowd of rich and famous people that came out to celebrate the Gagosian’s newly opened space (the Los Angeles blogosphere, namely Smashbox Studios and Arrested Motion were buzzing about this). Artist Andreas Gursky, Larry Gagosian, John Waters, Diane von Furtensburg, Vera Wang, Adrien Brody among other notably famous individuals packed the Gagosian Gallery. The star studded crowd emphasizes Larry Gagosian’s undeniable position at the top of the art world as mega-dealer to the superrich and famous.

The sun never sets in the Gagosian Empire with galleries in New York, Los Angeles, La Jolla, London, Athens, Rome and Hong Kong.

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Filed under Architecture, art, Art Collector, art criticism, art exhibitions, art history, Los Angeles, photography

Tagged as Adrien Brody, Andreas Gursky, art, Art Opening, Beverly Hills, blue chip gallery, Diane von Furtensburg, earth, famous, Gagosian Empire, John Waters, Juan Madrigal, Larry Gagosian, Los Angeles, mega-art dealer, photography, rich, the Gagosian, Vera Wang

March 9, 2010

Book Signing: Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting at Book Soup, Los Angeles

Ed Ruscha signing books at Book Soup

Last Saturday evening, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have the great and famous Ed Ruscha sign his latest book, “Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting” at Book Soup, Los Angeles. Not only I am pleased have had the opportunity to meet Mr. Ruscha, but I also have a book signed by him added to my library.

Ed Ruscha signing my boyfriend and I’s edition

Fifty Years of Painting focuses on Ruscha’s majestic oeuvre of paintings. The publication, comes housed in a slipcase with the artist’s classic painting “Standard Station” (1966) on the front, and, alongside fantastic reproductions, it contains a preface by novelist James Ellroy, essays by Ralph Rugoff, Alexandra Schwartz and Ulrich Wilmes, a text by novelist Bruce Wagner, an interview with the artist by Kristine McKenna, an illustrated chronology and an exhibition history.

Not the most crispy clear images, but you get the idea

It is worth checking out Mr. Ruscha’s artwork if you have not had the opportunity.

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Filed under art, art history, Book, conceptual art, contemporary art, culture, Ed Ruscha, Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting, Los Angeles

Tagged as American Artist, art history, book signing, Book Soup, conceptual art, Ed Ruscha, Gagosian, Pop Art

January 22, 2010

Tara Donovan at San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art

While passing through San Diego last weekend, I had the opportunity to view Tara Donovan’s awe-inspiring exhibition (October 25, 2009 – February 28, 2010) at the MCASD.

Untitled, styrofoam cups with hot glue

In the artist’s hands, common, mass-produced items – toothpicks, buttons, drinking straws – becoming captivating sculptures. Tara Donovan, an American sculptor transforms huge volumes of everyday items into stunning works of phenomenal impact. Assembled, layered, piled and clustered into large volumes, with an almost viral repetition, these products assume forms that both evoke systems and seem to defy the laws of nature. Her materials do not abandon their original shape; instead, upon being combined, they create increasingly novel structures.

Bluffs, glued buttons into a steep of mountain topology reminiscent of peaks seen in Chinese art

It is easy to recognize Tara Donovan’s work as descendant of various legacies associated with the transposition of utilitarian materials. In stretching the contextual boundaries of the gallery to accommodate the rebirth of common manufactured objects, Marcel Duchamp’s scandalous ‘readymades’ opened a veritable floodgate. Many artists over the course of Art History have exploited his conceptual formula and, in doing so, formed a lineage of resonant practices contingent upon the relationship of everyday life to art.

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Filed under art exhibitions, art history, Minimalist, San Diego, Tara Donovan

Tagged as art, conceptual art, contemporary art, Contemporary Art Museum, Female Sculpture, Marcel Duchamp, Minimalist Art, Postminimalist, Process Art, Readymade, San Diego, Sculpture, Tara Donovan

December 23, 2009

I he[art] Herb & Dorothy Vogel.

Herbert and Dorothy Vogel like the most unlikable art. They own a few inches of frayed rope with a nail through it. A curved lead pipe. A black cardboard square with definition of the word ”nothing” printed on it, in white. Artworks, by Sol Lewitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close and Lawrence Weiner are part of the more than 4,000 works that Dorothy, a 73-year-old retired librarian, and her husband Herb, a 85-year-old retired postal clerk, have collected with the most modest of means.

In the early 1960s, Herb and Dorothy quietly began purchasing Minimalist and Conceptual Art from undiscovered artists, for very little money. Devoting all of Herb’s salary to buy art they liked, and living on Dorothy’s paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Within these limitations, they proved themselves curatorial visionaries creating one of the most important Vanguard art collections the artworld has ever seen.

After thirty years of obsessive collecting and buying, the Vogel’s managed to fill every square inch of their tiny Manhattan apartment with art. In the early nineties, the Vogel’s gifted their entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. On the premise that the NGA does not deaccession their collection (selling their collection off to buy better art).

The Vogel’s story reminds the viewer, that art is accessible to all. And that, it is not limited to the elite few, such as Rockerfeller or Saatchi. Rather, to collect art, you do not have to follow trends or others advice, just listen to your own voice, your instincts. This is a radical message in today’s money driven art market, where art is another high-end commodity, meaning the artwork’s investment value takes precedence over its artistic value.

Megumi Sasaki’s documentary is a touching story about the Vogel’s love affair with art.

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Filed under art, Art Collector, art history, conceptual art, culture, Minimal Art

Tagged as Accessibility, Art Collecting, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, conceptual art, Deaccession, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, Megumi Sasaki, Minimalist Art, National Gallery of Art, New York Vanguard, Provenance, Sol Lewitt

December 15, 2009

Favorite Art Shows of 2009

After reading Peter Schjeldahl’s “Eleven Best Museum Shows of 2009″ in the New Yorker, I thought, I too will compile a list.

1. Please, Please, Please, Jeppe Hein, January 30 – March 29th 2009, The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, Canada

2. How Soon Is Now, February 7 – May 3rd 2009 The Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, Canada

3. Protect Protect, Jenny Holzer, March 12 – May 31, 2009, the Whitney, New York, New York, USA

4. The Problem Perspective , Martin Kippenberger, The MOMA, New York, New York, USA

5. And/Or, Johnathan Horowitz, P.S1, New York, New York, USA

6. Younger than Jesus, The New Museum, New York, New York, USA

7. Universal Gym, Thomas Hirschhorn, Gladstone Gallery, New York, New York, USA

8. Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years, November 2009 – May 2010, MOCA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

9. Lunch Break, Sharon Lockhart, Blum & Poe, Culver City, Los Angeles, CA, USA

10. Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea, June 2009 – September 2009, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

11. The year isn’t over yet…

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Filed under art, art exhibitions, art history, conceptual art, contemporary art, culture, Los Angeles, New York, P.S.1, photography

Tagged as 2009, Blum & Poe, Gladstone Gallery, Jenny Holzer, Jeppe Hein, Johnathan Horowitz, LACMA, Los Angeles, Martin Kippenberger, MOMA, New York, New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl, PS.1, Sharon Lockhart, The Contemporary Art Gallery, The New Museum, The Vancouver Art gallery, The Whitney, Thomas Hirschhorn, Younger than Jesus

December 14, 2009

R.I.P. Larry Sultan (b. 1946 – December 13th 2009)

According to the New York Times, photographer Larry Sultan has died of cancer. Mr. Sultan is one my favorite photographers. Rest in Peace Larry.

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Tagged as cancer, dead, Larry Sultan, photography

December 11, 2009

Read it. Loath it. Love it. Forget it. “My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic”

Art collector, gallery owner and founder of the global advertising agency, Charles Saatchi is famously publicity – shy, a reluctant interviewee who never attends his own gallery openings, or anyone else’s for the matter. This book brings together his unflinching responses to questions he has been set over the last few years by journalists, critics and members of the public. Whether the questions are related to art, advertising, money or his personal life, Saatchi answers them all with disarming and sometimes brutal frankness, creating an enlightening and entertaining first-hand account of the most influential art collector of our time.

Q: Looking ahead, in 100 years’ time, how do you think British art of the early 21st century will be regarded? Who are the great artists who will pass the test of time?

A: General art books dated 2105 will be as brutal about editing the late 20th century as they are about almost all other centuries. Every artist other than Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Damien Hirst will be a footnote.

Q: Do you wash your hands after has a wee?

A: I have an acute sense of hygiene so I wash my hands before I have a wee.

Q: If you were commissioning your own portrait, in which medium would you choose to be represented?

A: I’d rather eat the canvas than have someone paint me on it.

As you can tell from these unusual questions the book is an interesting read.

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Filed under art, Art Collector, art criticism, art history, Book, Charles Saatchi, contemporary art, Gallerist, Gallery Owner, Museum Director

Tagged as art journalism, book review, Charles Saatchi, contemporary art, cynical, Gallery Owner, mega-art dealer

November 30, 2009

An evening in Culver City Arts District

Last Saturday evening, we checked out Culver City’s Art District, where many of the cities most esteemed galleries hosted art openings: Roberts & Tilton, Peres Projects, Blum & Poe and LAX Art. The night was bustling with art lovers hoping from gallery to gallery.

The most popular exhibition was Sharon Lockhart’s, Lunch Break at Blum & Poe’s newly renovated mega gallery. To create Lunch Break, Lockhart spent a year at the Bath Iron Works, a massive shipyard in Maine – observing and engaging with workers during their daily routines. The resultant film installations and series of photographs focus on the activities of these workers during their time off from production.

In the meditative film Lunch Break, Lockhart incorporates subtle movement and a static photographic gaze to examine her subjects. The camera work is slow and sustained, as it inches it way down the corridor; we experience what was a brief interval in the workday expanded into a sustained gaze. Lined with lockers, the hallway seems not only an industrial nexus but also a social one. Over the duration of Lunch Break, we see workers engaged in a wide range of activities, reading, sleeping, talking and eating. The soundtrack is a composition designed in collaboration with Becky Allen and filmmaker James Benning, in which industrial sounds, music, and voices slowly merge and intertwine. Together, picture and sound provide an extended meditation on a moment of respite from labour.

The frame constantly fills with teeming workers as they head home after a long day’s work in Exit. As viewers, we must completely surrender conventional narrative expectations and let ourselves be transported into the atmosphere and idiosyncratic detail of life at the shipyard. We develop a sense of comfort and sentimental camaraderie with the workers as they enjoy restful moments amidst mechanical labour. When the final frame passes the shutter, we have become so enmeshed with shipyard life we do not want it to end.

All in all, Culver City was worth it, the art scene is a lot more connected than in other parts of Los Angeles.