Culver City

I met artist, curator, and all-around art enthusiast Esteban Schimpf when he came out to the FineArtsLA: Panel of the Muses event we hosted back in June. He was there to support his friend, panelist, and co-board member of the Chinatown gallery, Actual Size LA, Lee Rachel Foley. Schimpf made himself known as the first—and most voluable—volunteer of the after-panel Q&A session. His passion for supporting art and artists was intense, genuine, and immediately recognizable (he railed against the idea that the physical limitations of Los Angeles—traffic, isolation, etc.—should in any way prevent an artist from doing their job). Following the discussion, he was quick to introduce himself, revealing a chummier, more casual side of his personality, yet still brimming with that same passion.

On Thursday, August 19^th, at 7:00 PM, Esteban opens his (to my knowledge) first personal exhibition in Los Angeles at the Carmichael Gallery in Culver City, and not surprisingly, his own work is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Schimpf, with the help of Stefan Simchowitz, has chosen to spotlight the work of fifteen other young, up-and-coming artists in an ambitious group show he has titled “Instant LA Summer.” Upon names only, I was admittedly unfamiliar with the artists on view, but after some instant LA research, the show looks to be extremely diverse in mediums and theme, but cohesive in pure enthusiasm. Essentially, it’s Esteban without Esteban. Here’s a quick, flip-through preview of what’s in store, but don’t hold me to it:

Los Super Elegantes: this musical duo, one male and one female, present three of their own videos, which are as much a part of their overall presentation as are their costumes, their on-stage theatrics, their public demeanor, sexual chemistry, and of course, their music—a Latino-influenced type of pop that owes a lot to show-tunes. Their videos, too, remind me of low-rent movie musical numbers (in one, a romantic, garbage-man Romeo belts out his love to a passing, balcony-perched Juliet).

Eric Yhanker: his piece, “Bizarro Picasso,” is a charcoal and graphite depiction of an old, wide-eyed bald man who looks kind of like the titular painter, but, in its tactility, more like something Jan Svankmajer would mold from clay. Photographic in its Chuck Close detail and sense of perception, the close-up portrait briskly departs from realism with its over-sized, features, namely the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears—the portals to our senses.

Josh Mannis: works in a variety of mediums, but his series of HD videos are the most striking. Like Yhanker, they concentrate on the frozen exaggeration of facial features, but in the style of a Japanese advertisement. Bright pastel colors, fleshy and freaky masks, limited body movement, and intense repetition characterize such works as “If You Don’t Know Anything, You Don’t Know This.”

Charles Irvin: a multi-instrumentalist as they say in the music world. He draws, paints, performs, makes videos, and simply exists. His works tends to be cartoonish, extremely colorful, and detailed, but in a soft way. It’s dream-like, psychedelic, and in-your-face. No subtleties here, save the man behind the man.

Kenneth Tam: another video-maker, but of the Dadaist ilk. His mundane, often single shot slices of life tend to take place in one setting, have a documentary feel to them, and are so direct and normal that they border the line on the absurd.

Maya Lujan: to look at pictures of her large-form, graphic patterns—architectural in nature—one would be quite surprised to hear that her installation in a 2008 UCLA exhibition was taken down due to the fact it included a simplified mandala that bore striking similarity to a swastika. In actuality, the piece was more akin to a kind of apocalyptic spacecraft, and it’s this exact questioning of shapes and patterns that shows up in most of her work.

Sarah Sieradzki: speaking of the architectural, her work presents mashups of varying shapes, materials, and textures—wooden frames, cement blocks, photographs—that look like models for massive monuments of future post-modernism (whatever that is). She seems to take joy in chaotic geometry, as well as the re-contextualizion of basic structures.

Pascual Sisto: also a multi-platform artist, he appears to specialize in playing with and subverting the viewer’s expectation. Much of his work starts off as a seemingly one-note image/idea—cursive neon lettering, a single-shot video of a motionless fruit tree—but will then either climax unexpectedly in a sudden spasm of movement (as with the fruit tree video) or double-back on its initial meaning (as with the phrase in neon: “Let us be Cruel”).

Daniel Desure: in his prints and photographs, there’s a cold, stillness that tends to break down time into single moments, whether its a car crash refracted into centrifugal prisms, or a can of paint in the midst of spilling. Desure seems to distill catastrophic moments into the way we often remember catastrophic moments: as single images.

Emily Mast: time is of the essence to this choreographic artist as well. She sets up complex, theatrical installations utilizing actors, props, lights, and costumes, which collide into a kind of Beckett-ian sense of nihilism. But within these dramatic interpretations is a clear sense of narrative, which is inherently married to time, and thereby, meaning.

Emily Steinfeld: a sort of found object artist who seems to enjoy the accidental/purposeful layering of solid things—how one thing can mold into another as if a chemical compound. Her series of structures entitled “Covert Cells” utilizes sheeting to cover objects like wine bottles and telephones so that they may be confused for a single entity.

Simon Haas: mainly primitive, muted browns and melancholy. As the title of his piece “A Brief Moment After a Bath” suggests, he finds subtle beauty in the skipped-over moments of life. The lead surface and the wide, gestural brush strokes of this oil painting have a wavy, watery feel to them. Like waking up from a dream and dealing with its immediate aftermath.

Mark Hagen: intricate, graphic designs made for specific technological uses. He designed a 360 wrap, for instance, to be hypothetically used on the antiquated bowling shoe so as to maximize arch support for the bowler. As a child, he helped his father part out and restore Post-War Studebakers, and he seems to have been elaborating on this work ever since.

Sean Kennedy: also works in design, but in a much more tactile sense. He builds layers of both abstract designs and found objects to create geometric patterns that are simple at first glance, yet wildly complex upon inspection.

Orlando Tirado: exotic, striking photographs and/or collages of imagery. The title of his piece, “ShamanColash or Land, Sea, and Air (Self Portrait)” speaks to the bizarre juxtapositions framed in the would-be tired genre of self-portraitry. To borrow a reaction once used to describe the first artist on this list (Los Super Elegantes), Tirado “[makes] the audience nervous. Nobody does that anymore.”

-By Joshua Morrison

Stefan Simchowitz presents “Instant LA Summer,” an exhibition by Esteban Schimpf, runs until September 10, 2010 at the Carmichael Gallery. The opening is  on Thursday, August 19^th, at 7:00 PM. For more information, please visit www.carmichaelgallery.com, or call 323.939.0600.

Unless you work in advertising, or unless we’re talking about the genius of the new Old Spice ads, it’s safe to say that art and advertising are rarely synonymous.  We’re generalizing here, but oftentimes some people believe that ads are where the arts go to die; we’ve all heard of “selling out.” The MAK Center for Arts and Architecture and MOCA agree and are sick of seeing the twelfth billboard for Calvin Klein perfume with no respite or cultural buffer.

Their project, How Many Billboards: Art in Stead, is based at the Schindler House in West Hollywood and features 21 commissioned works displayed on billboards all around town.  These aren’t hidden in off-the-grid sites, either.  You can find them from east to west near Sunset and Vine, near Melrose and Fairfax, and on Venice Blvd in Culver City.  Artists include John Knight, Christina Fernandez, Martha Rosler, and Eilieen Cowin with such messages on display as a bold “Astonish” on Beverly and Pico or a frame of simple, slightly menacing gray clouds on La Brea just north of Venice.

To get a better idea of this genius, rogue project, MOCA is hosting a film screening on Thursday evening (during the Downtown Art Walk) at 6:30pm.  The free screening will feature videos chronicling How Many Billboard’s insights into the worlds of pop culture, media, and advertising.  You’ll see Phantom Limb by Jennifer Bornstein, Endless Dreams and Water Between by Renee Green, and Lottery of the Sea by Allan Sekula.

All in all, the project is not one of these petulant-child-artist-who-complains-for-no-reason types.  It is a new and semi-revolutionary way of high-jacking those pieces of visual information we see all too often: billboards.  Sometimes we do enjoy glancing up to see Jake Gylenhaal’s face promoting his latest film and sometimes we need a little cultural sustenance.  It’s all about balance.

How Many Billboards screening at MOCA will be held Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 6:30pm.  It’s FREE!  Please call (213) 621-1745 or click here, for more information.

Ever wonder what happened to Ed Templeton?  That professional skateboarder turned internationally renowned artist, photographer, D.I.Y. innovator, entrepreneur, ‘Beautiful Loser,’ and book publisher?  Well if you haven’t, then Ed Templeton has.

His eclectic career as both a skater and an artist has always seemed to be about his own relationship to time and motion.  In his famous photography book, Teenage Smokers, for instance, each medium to close-up image of a young person with a cigarette has the feeling of personal impermanence, like a flash-memory of a kid you might have seen at the mall once when you were nine.

Templeton, especially in his most recent work, seems to be obsessed with these fragile, ephemeral moments, and what they might mean.  His 2008 book, Deformer, which took him 11 years to complete, examines his youth growing up in the ultra-conservative suburban “incubator” of Orange County, using childhood letters, notes, photographs, sketches, and paintings to tell his story with as much physical accuracy as possible—even if it’s all long gone.

His latest photography show, The Seconds Pass, at the Roberts and Tilton Gallery in Culver City once again has Templeton on the move.  These thirty-some separate collages of pictures, mostly all taken from the vantage point of a moving vehicle, attempt to capture exactly where he’s been these last few years, so as not to miss a passing second.

Ed Templeton’s The Seconds Pass can be viewed at the Roberts and Tilton Gallery in Culver City until April 3.  Roberts and Tilton is located at 5801 Washinton Blvd.  For more information, please call (323) 549-0223, or visit www.robertsandtilton.com.

Kimberly Brooks had a great idea recently.  The local, Venice-based painter decided to look into the art that plays a role in our everyday lives and the people holding the cards behind it.  She looked beyond museum shows, beyond advertisements, and into the world of fashion that is so often considered less of an art form and more of a necessity.  The men and women working behind the scenes to make our world a touch more glamorous are artists who recognize that the necessity of fashion can be one of the more creative enterprises in our lives and it can be one that makes (or doesn’t make) the right impression.

In her latest series of paintings, called “The Stylist Project”, Kimberly Brooks scoured the world of stylists, costume designers, and Creative Directors to delve deeper into the minds of who exactly is dressing our most photographed celebrities and our most watched characters in TV and film.  She painted Vogue’s Creative Director Grace Coddington and Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant in their most comfortable settings (albeit in their most fabulous clothes).  She painted Elizabeth Stewart, a stylist for the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar, with a gorgeous and colorful palette and she captured the nervy and frazzled essence that is Rachel Zoe.

We got a chance to sit down with Brooks to discuss just what went into “The Stylist Project” and the upcoming show at Taylor de Cordoba gallery in Culver City.  We learned very quickly that stylist is a pretty loose term to us amateurs, but in the business, a stylist can be anyone who fashions a photo shoot (often-times called a Creative Director) to someone who styles a celebrity for a red carpet event.  Brooks’ colors and masterful way with a paintbrush allows us into this inner sanctum of fashion via the world of art – it’s almost as if we know them just by looking at these paintings.

Check out our video interview and go say hi to your new friends (the stylists, of course) at the opening reception at Taylor de Cordoba gallery on Saturday evening (February 27).  The show runs through April 3, 2010.  For more information, please click here or call (310) 559-9156.

We need to talk.

That phrase is probably the worst promise of punishment anyone could say. It likely means you messed up big time at the company holiday party as you sang karaoke until the wee morning hours.

But it is even worse when you hear it from your significant other. We know; you don’t need to hear that from us.

Well, beware; the Culture Club L.A. needs to talk to you. But rest assured that it won’t concern your wild-child lifestyle. Instead, the Culture Club L.A. has coordinated an art panel/town hall event to talk about the state of the ever evolving Los Angeles art world. With guests Dean Valentine and Sara Watson, Marc Richards will moderate this discussion and audience participation.

You can bring up what’s on your mind in regards to art in LA, starting with: why is that chair in front of the Pacific Design Center so huge and can you sit on it?

Let’s Talk Art is this Wednesday, February 10th at Angles Gallery (2754 La Cienega Blvd.). Admittance is $10 and will benefit LAXART. Click here for more info.

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.

Fuel up your car and pack some snacks because come this weekend, you will be zipping around Los Angeles to stay on the pulse of the art scene.  It may be easier said than done, but you can be the judge of that…

Start your Saturday at the Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City with a panel titled “Pop Art and Ethics,” which will be moderated by Ed Schad and include Irving Blum, David LaChapelle, Holly Myers, and Catherine Taft.  This discussion will explore what makes pop continually vital, continually hated, and perhaps a state of art practice that will always exist.  If you have two or three cents, be sure to throw them in.  [Panel is Saturday, December 12 at 2:00.  Click here for more info.]

Over at Regen Projects in West Hollywood, Glenn Ligon’s new exhibition Off Books is made up of paintings that continue Ligon’s study of James Baldwin’s seminal 1953 essay Stranger in the Village.  Ligon’s work focuses on themes found within this text, including cultural identity, the decipherability of the other, and the burden of history.  [Opening reception is Saturday, December 12, 6 – 8pm.  Click here for more info.]

Grab a drink at the Mountain Bar as you continue the adventure in Chinatown.  The doors for Chinatown galleries will be wide open during Chinatown Art Nights.  At FOCA, the exhibition All Time Greatest, curated by Natilee Harren, explores how an artist’s musical tastes add another dimension to his or her work.  We are hoping to find someone’s guilty musical pleasure.  Beyoncé, anyone?  [Opening reception is Saturday, December 12, 7 – 9 pm.  Click here for more info.]

Continuing northward, in Highland Park, workspace is playing it digital in “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,” curated by Graham Kolbeins, which features a looped screening of videos.  These films explore reviving and exorcising the recent past.  [Event is Saturday, December 12, 7 – 10pm.  Click here for more info.]

If you are still on your art high from Saturday, swing by MOCA to watch Herb & Dorothy on Sunday.  This film features a couple, a postal clerk and librarian, who amassed one of the most important collections of contemporary art by buying art work “we liked, what we could afford, and what would fit in our one-bedroom apartment.” [Film is Sunday, December 13, 3–5pm.  Click here for more info.]

Those are the rounds to be made.  It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it.

Abstract painting tends to be more difficult to appreciate when you see it for the first time…or the second or third for that matter.  Why?  One simple reason is an abstract artwork isn’t as recognizable as a Campbell’s soup can or as accessible as a landscape or Magic Eye – although, we can debate that Magic Eye business.

But it is important to remember that as you wile away the time staring at an abstract work waiting for it to speak to you, we have two pieces of advice.  Firstly, it won’t speak/Facebook/tweet to you in your frustrated state.  And second, enjoy the experience of looking, of examining the color and shapes that rise and fall across the canvas.  For someone’s sake, it’s suppose to be a pleasant experience.

At the Honor Fraser Gallery, Tomoo Gokita’s white canvases are filled with blue abstract shapes floating and slipping into place.  It is hard not to try to identify each form, similar to a child seeking animal or object shapes within the clouds.  You can also start to understand why this exhibition is called Heaven.  The blue paint upon the white canvas hung on a white wall creates a feeling of suspension that crosses the series of multi-sized canvases.

Take a deep breath.  See, that wasn’t so hard.

Tomoo Gokita’s Heaven closes December 19th at the Honor Fraser Gallery.  Please click here for more information.

This week, we’ve been glued to Culture Monster, discovered Lady Gaga’s philanthropic side, and have seen many Angelenos brave the opposite coast for Art Basel: Miami.  All in the name of art.

• Not only did Lady Gaga perform with the Bolshoi Ballet for MOCA’s 30th anniversary gala this month, but now the museum is auctioning off items used during the performance.  The gala, according to The Daily Beast, raised $4 million for MOCA (phew!) and Gaga’s costumes are the gift that keeps on giving – some of the items to be auctioned off include Prada dress, a Frank Gehry designed hat, and masks by Baz Lurhmann and Catherine Martin.  {The Daily Beast}

• We knew baritone Nathan Gunn had a notable effect on the ladies, but were blithely unaware that his influence on his fans is such that they’ve coined the term “barihunks,” for hunky, baritone leading men in opera, a group in which Gunn is a favored and founding member.   The buff, tall glass of water will perform in LA Opera’s upcoming Barber of Seville, but according to Culture Monster, there are a number of blogs devoted to these barihunks. Now, even tenors are getting in on the action.  {LA Times’ Culture Monster}

• A staff strike at Paris’ Centre Pompidou was extended this week and some fear that the strike could spread to other museums nearby including the Louvre and Versailles Palace.  The staff are upset over planned job cuts and after a meeting with France’s Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand went sour this week, it doesn’t look like Parisians will be getting their contemporary art fix too soon.  {ArtInfo}

• Once Thanksgiving passes, it’s only a blink of an eye before the art world descends on Miami.  December 3 – 6, the tanned retirees of Miami will be joined by artists, collectors, gallerists, and curators for Art Basel: Miami.  LA galleries represented this year include Blum & Poe, Michael Kohn Gallery, Regen Projects, and Roberts and Tilton Gallery.  {Art Basel: Miami}

• Also on LA Times’ Culture Monster this week, a list proving that LA’s theatre scene is worth it’s salt.  Charles McNulty notes Geffen Playhouse’s Equivocation, LA Jolla Playhouse’s production of Bonnie and Clyde, Love’s Labour’s Lost at The Broad Stage, and Mary Poppins, which recently opened at the Ahmanson, among the manifold ways in which this city continues to support live theatre.  Take that New York (and Seattle)! {LA Times’ Culture Monster}

There are only four days before Thanksgiving.  Heaven knows Fine Arts LA has plenty to be thankful for.  Let us count the ways!

The Surging Number of Food Trucks — These bad boys (and girls) are making a presence at practically every art event in Los Angeles through Twitter-based campaigns.  With delicious cuisine ranging from Indian food to gastro pub food to dessert, we want to thank you for saving us on many Saturday nights after downing one too many Grolsch beers.  Thank you, food trucks!

LACMA Film Program – You never fully appreciate something until it’s gone, or until it’s hanging on by a thread just waiting to be cut by the budget police.  Thanks to the wonderful people at Save Film at LACMA, we are fortunate to have the rich film program of classic and international films at LACMA away from its grave.  And we couldn’t be more thrilled by the fact that through this grassroots effort, we will be sitting pretty watching all of our favorite films, at least until June 2010.  Thank you, Save Film at LACMA!

MOCA’s Comeback – One year ago, we were all shocked by the reports that revealed MOCA was teetering on the brink of financial disaster.  And look at ‘em now!  They are keeping their doors open with the help of philanthropist Eli Broad and the work of countless others.  Taking it all in last night at MOCA’s 30th Birthday Party, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a Lemonade red velvet cupcake with the best of them all while catching a preview of their latest show.  Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years reveals the best of MOCA’s inventory, the tastes of chief curator Paul Schimmel, and the vision of curators before.  Thank you, MOCA and Eli Broad!

The Broad Stage — Speaking of Eli Broad, there is a lovely contemporary gem on the horizon in Santa Monica – The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage.  The home of dance, theatre, voice, chamber music, film, and spoken word, it is as if the Walt Disney Concert Hall’s little sister is making its claim on the Westside bringing home the best talents without a trip on the 10 freeway. Thank you, Broad Stage!

Gustavo Dudamel – Even before he arrived, this city was crazed about this talented, young man from Venezuela.  As the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel’s personality, playfulness, and passion have been infused into every portion of his program.  Making grown women (and men) behave like children and professing their crush at any given moment, Mr. Dudamel has taken this city by storm one concert at a time and has caught the attention of everyone including those unfamiliar with classical music. Bienvenido, Gustavo, y mil gracis!

And finally, we are most thankful for you, dear readers…  Without you to check us out daily, to recommend us to your friends, and to Google image search the most oddest things to find our website, we would cease to exist.  So thank you!!

What are you most thankful for?

Image: David Rex Ketchum