In early December, I traveled to Buenos Aires, where I always encounter wonderful art and exhibitions, ranging from early Modernist to Contemporary, some of which I will note briefly here. Time and again in Buenos Aires, I have seen work by Latin American artists little known to me who were shortly thereafter the subjects of major museum and gallery exhibitions in the U.S. and elsewhere. I will therefore point out work by artists--a number of women in particular--whose art caught my eye. At MALBA, Museum de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, where I always begin my trip, the permanent collection galleries featured abstract work of the late 1950s by the Brazilian artists Lygia Clark, who had a retrospective at New York's MoMA in 2014, … [Read more...]
Alex Prager La Grande Sortie
Upon entering the Lehmann Maupin Gallery on Chrystie Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, you are greeted by applause. On a small video screen inserted into a large white wall, a seated audience faces you and claps. Most audience members are enthusiastic, while some appear distracted or bored. Nevertheless, you may well feel pleased, gratified, appreciated. It occurred to me that seeing this would be a lovely way to start each day. The video provides an introduction to Alex Prager's La Grande Sortie, an installation consisting of work related to the production of the Los Angeles-based artist's ten-minute film of the same title commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet. (It may be recalled in this context that Prager's debut as a … [Read more...]
Underground Museum
An ArtTable Southern California event once again provided my first introduction to an extraordinary Los Angeles art space--the Underground Museum. It is situated in a series of connected storefronts on Washington Boulevard in Arlington Heights, a largely working class Black and Latino neighborhood in the heart of L.A. The space once served as the family home and studio of Noah Davis, a young African American artist who a decade ago began to achieve considerable renown for psychologically penetrating figurative paintings based on Black experience. Davis was also a gifted curator and in 2012 established the space as an alternative art venue for exhibitions and events, with primacy given to community engagement. His shows were brilliant, … [Read more...]
Doug Aitken: Electric Earth at The Geffen
If you currently have no plans to be in Los Angeles before January 15th, when Doug Aitken: Electric Earth closes at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, make them, as the exhibition is a must see (it will also be shown at The Modern in Fort Worth, May 28-September 24, 2017). The exhibition is well worth the journey as it itself presents a journey, one whose images and experiences will long be impressed upon the eye and mind. The forty-eight-year-old Aitken was raised and trained as an artist in the Los Angeles area--its landscapes, cityscapes and sunsets figure prominently in his art--and he has long been familiar with The Geffen, whose spaces he has reconfigured so as to offer multiple paths of exploration to his work of the past twenty years … [Read more...]
Eric Fischl Rift Raft at Skarstedt: The Naked and the Nude
After viewing the exhibition Eric Fischl: Rift Raft at the Skarstedt Gallery in New York a few months ago, I pondered the artist's extensive use of the female nude in this, his most recent series of works. While nudes have been ubiquitous in Fischl's paintings from the early psycho-sexual suburban narratives of the early 1980s to the less overtly allegorical, more formally oriented beach scenes produced in recent years, the new works offer a twist on his exploitation of the female nude as content. These paintings represent a continuation of his Art Fair Series begun in 2013. Having been invited to an art fair to give a talk, he was appalled and fascinated by the attendees and their responses (or lack thereof) to the art on view. He then … [Read more...]
Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles
Five years in Los Angeles and I finally made it to the Craft and Folk Art Museum with a Southern California ArtTable event and I'm glad I did. The museum is practically across the street from LACMA and is a few doors down from the new Los Angeles branch of the Sprueth Magers Gallery. Two exhibitions are on view through May 8, 2016. The first, Little Dreams in Glass and Metal, presents paintings, sculptures and objects selected from a vast collection of American work in enamel dating from 1920 to the present belonging to the Los Angeles-based Enamel Arts Foundation. Bernard N. Jazzar and Harold B. Nelson, who established the foundation devoted to this under-documented art form, are both specialists in design (the latter is Curator of … [Read more...]
David Hammons at Mnuchin: Institutional Critique
The exhibition David Hammons: Five Decades at the Mnuchin Gallery left me feeling cold and disquieted. Not that this artist's work, which I've long admired, is not brilliant, passionate and deeply moving. It's that there is a terrible, chilling disconnect between the work and the venue. This disconnect is something sought by Hammons, which he exploits to politically and racially pointed ends. The exhibition critiques the gallery, the art market and the historically, predominantly white art world as a whole, systems that financially support his work and hold it in high esteem. David Hammons is an African-American artist, now 72-years-old. He emerged on the L.A. art scene in the late sixties in the context of the Watts Riots and the ensuing … [Read more...]
On the Opening of Hauser Wirth & Schimmel
Over the course of the past year, I've had the privilege of attending the press previews of three remarkable public institutions devoted to modern and contemporary art. In May, the new Whitney Museum building opened on Gansevoort Street in lower Manhattan. In September, The Broad was inaugurated in downtown L.A. Today, the new campus of Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, located near the Los Angeles River in downtown L.A., offered the press its first view. Wait, you may well say, Hauser Wirth & Schimmel is not a public institution, but a commercial, for-profit gallery, yet another outlet of the mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth with locations in Zurich, London, New York, Somerset (England) and now Los Angeles. However, it is an art center … [Read more...]
Enrique Martinez Celaya Studio Visit
A few nights ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Culver City studio of Enrique Martinez Celaya, whose work I have long admired, together with a small group from ArtTable. Martinez Celaya moved back to Los Angeles two years ago after a ten-year hiatus, during which time he lived in South Florida (where he retains a studio) and Berlin. Martinez Celaya is an old-fashioned artist in the sense that he paints in oil and wax on canvas and creates sculptures cast in bronze that are rendered in a representational manner. However, his works go beyond naturalism to embrace poetry, poignancy and wonder, being rich in implied narrative and displaying a deep-rooted humanism. Each provides a journey into its own world and experience. Each is … [Read more...]