Conceptual

I recently found myself sitting on a couch in a dark room inside the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts at USC watching a play-test of a brand-new interactive video game.  I use the term ‘interactive,’ because it was less like your typical Nintendo or PlayStation proceeding, and more akin to one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ movies, only digitalized, intricately detailed, and not a little influenced by the likes of Spielberg or Christopher Nolan.  The game takes place in a slightly futuristic society, and at one point, the protagonist, a detective, is sitting in his beat-down, windowless office going over clues, when he puts on a pair of special sunglasses.  These sunglasses allow him, and by proxy, us, the audience, to perceive his spacial environment as a pristine mountain-top, or a Redwood forest.  The effect is novel, and provokes a round of ‘wouldn’t-that-be-cool’ comments from anybody who’s watching, yet it also brings up an interesting, modern phenomenon.  I call it the ‘it’s not to you’ syndrome, and it works like this: you’re sitting in a beat-down, windowless office, but…it’s not to you.

Don’t get me wrong, this syndrome is hardly new or original, although it is intensifying in our digital age.  And one person who’s exploring this intensification is artist Jeffrey Wells with his newest exhibit Seeing While Seeing at the Bergamont Station Arts Center, a part of the Santa Monica Museum of Art.  Wells attempts to recreate the optical illusions of everyday life—the after-image of an exit sign, the undulating intersection of two vertical walls that meet at a right-angle—using video projections.  Thus the viewer is left questioning whether or not an illusion is physical or digital.  Both are percepts, separate from what some would call “objective reality,” but only one is an intentionally manipulated percept.

What Wells—along with the interactive video game, to a certain extent—may be attempting to illustrate is the danger of the ‘it’s not to you’ syndrome.  Because how do you really know what is?  Or who’s presenting what to you, for that matter?  And as the line between what is and what is to you gets smaller and smaller, what becomes of you?

Jeffrey Wells’s Seeing While Seeing is on view until April 17th at Project Room 1 in the Bergamont Station Arts Center, a part of the Santa Monica Museum of Arts.  Bergamont Station is located at 2525 Michigan Ave, Building G-1.  For more information, please call (310) 586-6488, or visit www.smmoa.org.

From George Washington on the Delaware, to Huck Finn on the Mississippi, to Katrina on the Gulf, rivers make up an integral part of the geographical, historical, cultural, political, and artistic landscape of the America we know.  And Los Angeles is no exception.  Yes it’s true that for the good part of the year, the L.A. River remains hopelessly barren, and provides a better bike path to Long Beach than it does a waterway.  But if you’ve ever actually step foot into that mighty concrete divider of our city, then you’d know it’s every bit as organic and symbolic as any other great river.  Whether it’s the plastic bag trees, the graffiti-worn banks, or the garbage disposal current, one would be hard-pressed to not find the same beauty that Mark Twain once described in his memoir, Life on the Mississippi, as “…a wonderful book…which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it had uttered them with a voice.”

On show until July 3^rd at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the collective exhibition entitled The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River (UGLAR for short) also uses the metaphor of a book, only this one screams its secrets.  Consisting of a wide range of contemporary, LA-based artists, this unique assortment of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and illustrations all converge like tributaries into one central theme: the Los Angeles River.

One oil painting called “Confluence” by Tyson Dolan portrays the intersection of two concrete canals, meeting and opening into the space of the viewer.  The colors are muted, almost foggy, and with the installed background sounds of dripping water and distant train bells echoing throughout the room, one gets the distinct feeling of being alone and drifting through Dolan’s industrial river-basin.

Another piece, up-and-comer Rob Sato’s “Land Admiral Lefebvre’s Fleet Makes Sail”, takes a more surreal, maximalist route.  This multi-medium, ‘Where’s Waldo’ mash-up depicts an elaborate, farcical, eighteenth-century showdown between the Blue-Coats and the Reds on the battlefield of the Los Angeles River.  There’s of course no water for the huge wooden ships, so the implied Admiral Lefebvre sails upon his own ocean, with hundreds of tiny minions carrying the actual waves themselves.  Not to be ignored in this spectacle are Sato’s frequent dips into brash absurdity: slave-like giants, a monstrous fish-man-beast riding a whale like an Avatar pterodactyl, and if you look hard enough, a modern car wreck upon the bridge over the river.

The biggest work on show, however, is a mural completed by all the contributing artists.  It’s title is “The River Experiment,” and it speaks to the theme of the collection, which is one of evolution, or perhaps more accurately, mutation.  Because The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River – to complete Mark Twain’s quote – “[is] not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.”

The Ulysses Guide to the Los Angeles River runs until July 3^rd at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.  For more information, please visit pmcaonline.org, or call (626) 568-3665.

Madonna said it well.  Everyone wants to know what it feels like for a girl… Now, at New Image Art gallery in West Hollywood, you can get that much closer to figuring out what life must be like on Venus.  Called Put Your Finger On The Button: Women Photographers, their current exhibit is a group show featuring fourteen photographers who’ve covered a respectable amount of ground with cameras in hand.

On now through February 6, 2010, the show’s underlying theme isn’t necessarily the content, although many images feature somewhat haunting faces of women in varying states of disarray.  The message of the show is more focused on revealing what it is these women saw, how they present their subjects, and then what that all says about women in general – if anything. Jeaneen Lund’s haunting image of a woman in fishnet stockings, character shoes, and some kind of lacy black ensemble, for example, is significantly less sexy than it sounds – its really more sad. Then, Lauren Dukoff’s image makes you want to play “Put Your Records On,” by Corinne Bailey Rae while Rebecca Wright’s photo basically says “potty training doesn’t have to be so complicated.” It’s Alma Carmina Marquez’ photo of a black cat in front of a TV on the side of the street that speaks volumes in just an instant.  According to suspicion, you should never cross the path of a black cat. Similarly women, often associated with the feline nature of cats, shouldn’t be crossed.  Don’t forget it.

In typical female fashion, that the photographs don’t all cover the same subject matter just shows how adept we are at multi-tasking.

“Put Your Finger On The Button” will be on view through February 6 at New Image Art.  For more information, please call (323) 654-2192 or click here.

We all dream in our own style – some of us have dreams of grandiose places, some have anxiety dreams about some upcoming event, and the lucky ones have kinky dreams.  It often takes more than just looking at someone to work out what their dreams might look like.  But, and I’m really generalizing here, I have a feeling that the two artists currently on view at LeBasse Projects in Culver City have got the wonderfully indie dreams of film favorites like, say, Ellen Page or Michael Cera down.

On one hand, Scott Belcastro’s exhibit, called “Chasing the Last Glimpse of Light,” is full of paintings (somewhat big, acrylic paintings) that show a sort of Where The Wild Things Are existence with fuzzy mountains, a red menacing sky, and a lone reindeer beneath the stars.  He has a simplistic painting style with colors that are more muted than vibrant – the paintings are ultimately a delicate view of the wild and twisted world we live in.

Then, there’s Linda Kim and her exhibit, “A Light Within.”  The two painters easily complement each other – her style has a similarly minimalist, yet dreamlike quality with animals making their way through the mist or sleeping beneath an intensely blue sky.  The immediate difference between those two is actually their use of color.  Where Kim employs color blocking techniques and a more diverse and concentrated use of hues, Belcastro seems to want you to wander through his world with a more fragile touch.  Kim also presents her work on little wood “houses” – which really make you wish you could crawl inside and lay down.  You’d probably have some pretty crazy dreams in there.

Scott Belcastro and Linda Kim’s works will be on display at LeBasse Projects through January 2010.  For more information, please call (310) 558-0200 or click here.

Sometimes, here at Fine Arts LA, we notice the subtle changes in the fabric of Los Angeles’ art scene, but also we like to point out those heavy-hitters that are on the top of our list to keep an eye on. (Hi, Gustavo!)  Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Sharon Lockhart has been busy here with a show at the Hammer Museum and another opening this weekend at Blum and Poe.  When she is not teaching at the Roski School of Fine Art at USC, she is continually documenting the small, overlooked corners of society in intimate, investigative photographs and films.

Her exhibition Pine Flat Portrait Studio at the Hammer Museum consists of photographs and a 135-minute, 16mm color film, Pine Flat (2005), all which were captured in the small, rural town of – you guessed it – Pine Flat, California.  Tucked away from the rush of the city, Lockhart had only planned to stay for a month, but the pull of something quite dear and exquisite roped her into staying for nearly four years.  She studied the town and found a particular interest in the way the neighborhood children behaved.  Part anthropologist, she set-up shop – specifically a portrait studio – and photographed these kids as they wanted to be.  They chose their clothing,  props, and overall attitude to fully capture each individual’s complexity.  To complement the photographs, Pine Flats, the accompanying film, documents these children going about their day playing and serves as a reminder of how we perceived time as a child when we were with our friends and alone.

Furthermore, Lockhart’s film Double Tide will be screened Thursday night at the Billy Wilder Theatre.  This film captures a natural anomaly – low tide occurring twice within daylight hours – while a female clam-digger works along the mudflats of coastal Maine.  “Double Tide creates a portrait of a relatively unseen and singular form of labor, taking as its subject a worker whose job is defined by the most elemental and unchanging forces of nature.”

And if you haven’t had your fill, Lockhart will present her latest exhibition at Blum and Poe titled Lunch Break with its opening reception this Saturday evening from 6-8.

Pine Flat Portrait Studio closes January 3, 2010.  Please click here for exhibition info and here for film info.

We have a head’s up to all those Eastsiders (and brave Westsiders) that don’t feel up to the Culver City gallery opening routine this Saturday night, but need a healthy dose of this city’s arts scene.  There’s a new contender in sight and we only have two words: Block Party.

Block Party is a one-night tour of contemporary art exhibitions in non-traditional spaces, including apartments, studios, and storefronts.  Organized by Daniel Ingroff and Paul Pescador, Block Party will feature a wide range of curated shows throughout Highland Party, Lincoln Heights, and Mt. Washington.

We haven’t received word if Dave Chappelle is going to make it yet.

Click here for more information.

For a man so well known for his work in developing “Hard-edge painting,” Lorser Feitelson’s later works have a real sense of movement and fluidity to them.  Hard-edge painting is a style the incorporates geometric lines, color blocking, and, at times, the resulting optical illusions.  Think of Piet Mondrian or Theo van Doesburg, alongside Feitelson, for well-known examples of the style popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

Feitelson was instrumental in building the style with his wife (and former student), Helen Lundeberg, and Karl Benjamin, among others.

It seems that later in life, however, he shifted from harder edges and toward the more conceptual, fluctuating style of painting on view now at Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery on Melrose Ave.  They’re attractive to look at, colorful, and almost feminine in that they have such natural curves.  This exhibit serves to recognize a man who’s talent is not only extraordinary, but has been underrated for quite some time.  It’s not the kind of modern painting that some roll their eyes at (i.e. white canvas with a single blue dot); these paintings are bright and moving and almost whimsical.

Feitelson would have been happy to see this kind of work go up – rumor has it, he was quite popular among artists in LA always having groups of artists come to his house for long discussions on the pitfalls or benefits of Hard-edge painting.  He’d have been the type you’d either avoid or stand in line to chat with at an opening.  We’re guessing the latter…

Lorser Feitelson: The Late Paintings will be on view at the Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery through December 12, 2009.  For more information, please call (310) 276-0147 or click here.

It may have been when Cher said to Tai that Amber was a “full-on Monet” that it dawned on me that fashion and art were always meant to go together – she said that Amber looked good from afar, but that up close she was just a big mess.  Thanks to Amy Heckerling, fashion and art have coexisted happily ever since.  Okay, chronologically they had been coexisting long before the genius of Clueless, but let’s just say Cher brings up a very important point.

While some deem fashion less than something to trifle with, the design and art world (and many other worlds, really) feels that it’s actually rather significant – it’s the most relevant kind of art because we wear it everyday.  Beyond hiring Herb Ritts or Richard Avedon to photograph Cindy Crawford in Versace, the marriage between fashion and art is an inevitable and fruitful one.

Every other year since 1996, Hugo Boss, for example, has awarded the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize to artists working in any medium from around the world in conjunction with the Guggenheim Museum.  The winner not only receives a trophy and $100,000, but they’re also granted a solo show.  Past recipients have included Matthew Barney, Marjetica Potrc, and last year’s Emily Jacir and have run the gamut from working in new media to architecture, poetry, sculpture, and film.  It was created to recognize emerging and innovative talent in contemporary art and has become, over the last twelve years, a coveted honor in the art world.

Chanel has, since its inception, been synonymous with haute couture and, if there is such a thing, haute art.  The label’s famed double Cs, it’s perfume No. 5, and it’s quilted bag have all inspired fashion mavens and artists alike and none more than the twenty artists who participated in last year’s Chanel Mobile Art installation that traveled from Hong Kong to Tokyo and New York.  These twenty artists were invited to create works inspired by Chanel’s iconic quilted bag, which were then displayed in a ‘mobile pavilion’ designed by architect Zaha Hadid.  While the exhibit was discontinued in an effort to respect the economic crisis, it was an enticing new way of experiencing the connection between fashion and art.

Another fashion/museum experience hit Hong Kong earlier this year with “Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation.” An exhibit detailing the relationship that Louis Vuitton has maintained with the arts for over 150 years, the project included a new building designed by Frank Gehry as well as works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cao-Fel, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jeff Koons, Bertrand Lavier, and more.  They wrapped the museum with blown up images taken from the covers of popular novels that take place in cities around the world; the blown up covers welcomed visitors to (or warned them about) a whole new kind of fashion and art experience.

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Ø    Stuck in customs… Crewest Gallery in downtown LA has just opened their exhibit of Iranian artists, but as a result of remaining turmoil due to the election uproar, the artists’ biographical information and even artwork has been extremely difficult to obtain.  Now a painting of a group of men against a green background remains in Iran as officials refuse to allow a work that depicts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s oppression to be shown.  Green has become the color that symbolizes political oppression in the country.  (LA Times)

Ø    More cuts… The UBS Art Gallery in Manhattan, run by the Swiss bank, will be closing at the end of October in an effort to save money.  This comes as less than stellar news considering how often UBS has financially supported international arts organizations.  (ArtINFO)

Ø    Glenn Beck stirs the pot… Glenn Beck, of FoxNews fame, has ignited controversy with his “9/12 Project” poster design.  Earlier this month, Beck went on one of his typical rants speaking out against the “communist” artwork and design at Rockefeller Center.  Then, he released a poster for his taxpayer march in Washington DC with three, red thrusting fists superimposed on the US Capitol reminiscent of posters created in the early 1900s used by the Industrial Workers of the World union and then used in the 60s by both feminist and anti-war movements.  (LA Times; Culture Monster)

Ø    Off to the races… With September comes a fresh new start for the art world.  A new season has begun: last night LA’s galleries were open till all hours offering food and drink (mostly from our city’s famed trucks) in honor of a new round of exhibits and artists to discover.  The Irving Penn exhibit at the Getty, for example, will be one for the books.  The Daily Beast’s “Art Beast” is getting excited about the Juergen Teller exhibit at Lehmann Maupin in NYC and Xavier Veilhan’s conceptual art installation at Versailles in France.  (Daily Beast)

Ø    On the hunt… Detectives in Los Angeles are searching for ten paintings by Andy Warhol that went missing from the private home of collector Richard L. Weisman.  The paintings include images of famous athletes including OJ Simpson, Chris Evert, and Jack Nicklaus, which were commissioned by Weisman and called the “Athlete Series.”  He’d tried selling the pieces as a group in 2007 for $28 million, but no luck.  He just happens to be related to Norton Simon himself – quel controversy! (NY Times)

I remember the first time I stepped onto CalArts’ campus.  My mom, her fiancé, my younger brother, and I all went to see a dance performance featuring choreography by the school’s top dance majors.  Jittery with excitement, I had been dancing my entire young life and was no more than thirteen.  The stage was set in the center of the performance hall, with seats wrapping all around it – very de rigeur – and we sat down hoping to experience some fresh choreography and to see dancers with gorgeous extension; we were hoping for something new.  But, we were scarred for life. 

The one performance of that night that makes me cringe to this day was a pas de deux, if you could call it that.  There was one dancer in a metallic, green body suit who undulated on the floor to the sounds of her partner: a man in a green tank top, green denim skirt, and green stockings screaming into his microphone like a broken record.  It was ridiculous and nearly offensive – almost as if the audience would accept anything if it’s tagged as art.  It brings to mind so many other artists in different disciplines that produce these hyper-modern works, call them fine art, and scoff at anyone that doesn’t get it. 

That memory first conjures up John Cage’s 4’33.  If you haven’t heard it, so to speak, you’re not missing much.  It is four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence because he felt that since he “had nothing to say, he should say it.”  I don’t believe I’m the only one frustrated by his wrapping up silence and calling it a composition, which is as unintelligent as bottling air and selling it as a hot commodity. 

Or am I the only one?  Here’s the long-standing debate – is this art? When you step into a gallery or modern museum and see that all white canvas save the blue dot in the upper corner, do you stand and ponder its meaning or do you think a kid could paint that? Are these artists producing this work just to push the boundaries of what we, as art lovers and their audience members, will consider art?  As unbiased as I wish I could be, I feel my own sentiments on this are clear. 

This kind of debate has a plethora of sub-sections: how far back do we go and who is included in this hyper-modern artist group and who gets a pass?  While much of each side’s argument is based on the talent and skill on display, it’s also largely about personal taste.  For example, I’m incensed by John Cage, but I love Mark Rothko. 

Then, there was the 2007 film My Kid Could Paint That, which took a look at the fact that, indeed, a kid was painting comparable works to those that hang on gallery walls and earn international acclaim.  If a kid can do it, does it take away its value? Mozart was composing as a seven year old – does that mean composing is easy or invaluable? No, but on the other hand, the kid was finger-painting on a canvas and got a gallery show. 

Many a great mind has taken on the burden of this debate.  Salvador Dali considered it a “grandiose tragedy” while Jackson Pollock believed that “the strangeness will wear off and… we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.”  Paul Gaugin held that modern art signified the “loss of art’s audience.  [That] art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”  Poet John Ciardi once wrote, “modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.”  So in your great minds, what is art and what crosses the threshold? Where does it start to become an offensive display of who can be more bizarre?