Posts Tagged ‘Andy Warhol’

In the underrated classic Los Angeles film L.A. Story, Steve Martin fails to get a reservation at L’Idiot, a fictional hot L.A. restaurant with a line out the door, ticker tape reading the income level and importance of each dinner guest, and paparazzi at entry and exit. As Martin and his dinner guest leave, paparazzi back away, screaming, “Never mind! They’re nobodies!”

At the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, the opening of “Dennis Hopper: Double Standard” felt more like a cinematic tribute to Los Angeles stereotypes than a serious exhibition. Before passing away at the age of 74 due to complications from prostate cancer, Dennis Hopper had an uneven career in art, mostly dedicated to imitating his slightly older artist friends. But at the opening, it didn’t seem to matter.

The opening was much more exciting than the show itself. Curated by Julian Schnabel, the exhibition drew an eclectic crowd from all corners of the city, everyone obsessed with the scene moreso than with Hopper’s art. Wearing gowns of peacock feathers and skintight high-waisted bandage shorts, guests took pictures of people outside, pictures of themselves, and pictures inside the gallery. Waiting by the bar, a woman wearing six-inch red high heels whispered to me, “Just to let you know, Diane Keaton and Liv Tyler and the lady who used to be married to Charlie Sheen are inside. Diane Keaton! I almost peed my pants!”

Inside, Diane Keaton was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was obscured by the giant fiberglass sculpture of a Mexican waiter looming in the entrance, which might have been a cultural symbol of fear, or stereotypes, or something. Either way, it rang hollow. Hopper began his artistic career with painting in the 1950’s. Some early abstract pieces on small canvases show promise, or at least, the promise of promise, which fades later on. Equally unsuccessful works use found objects and graffiti, including an early drawing of a woman with a mustache scribbled above her upper lip. As commentary on femininity and pop culture, it falls flat and graceless.

Hopper was most renowned as a photographer though, and the black-and-white photographs from the 1960’s are the best part of the exhibition. In one of the loveliest pictures, a young, golden Jane Fonda wears a bikini and aims a bow and arrow into the distance, full of promise. Other subjects include Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ike and Tina Turner cheerfully posing with a giant inflatable Coke bottle.

After the year 2000, however, Hopper reproduced some of these earlier photographs to billboard size, with garish results. “I kind of hate this,” said one woman, standing next to a giant black and white reproduction of Andy Warhol, who is holding a droopy iris flower and oozing self-importance. The piece seems preoccupied with itself, more like a painting in a Hollywood comedy about the L.A. art scene rather than actual art.

And after looking at the umpteenth photo of Warhol, the title of the show begins to make sense. One wonders, did Hopper’s creativity lead to his fame, or was his fame a result of his access to renowned artists and celebrities? Are the two qualities really inseparable from one another? Was Dennis Hopper’s artistic fame a double standard? After all, Hopper starred in everything from Easy Rider and Blue Velvet to “classics” like Speed and Super Mario Bros., and dabbled in all types of art, equally embraced for his creative eccentricity as he was exiled for his drug use. But Hopper’s cinematic career was more interesting than his artistic one, and as a big survey exhibition, the show sells Los Angeles short. The art scene in the city is much more complicated and intriguing than this exhibition gives it credit for, and MOCA must have access to many more talented artists.

But as the night wore on, no one at the opening seemed to care. The guests stood at tables outside, drinking from clear plastic cups, and everyone watched one woman yelling and dancing to DJ tunes by herself. A plump MOCA photographer leaned against the wall, waiting to capture the L.A. moment.

- By Cassandra McGrath

“Dennis Hopper: Double Standard” is on view at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA until September 26. For more information, please visit www.moca.org, or call 213-626-6222.

What does pop culture mean to you? The first thing anyone might think is Andy Warhol – largely considered the father of pop art – and his Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s soup, and Mickey Mouse prints.  On now through February 20 at the William Turner Gallery at Bergamot Station is your chance to redefine pop art for our generation.  Large-scale, colorful prints by two artists, Mikel Alatza and Kadir Lopez are full of color, texture, and familiar faces and things.

Mikel Alatza’s works range from a skull with the Mastercard logo to a clowned, vibrant, contorted painting of Julia Roberts.  Angelina Jolie has been given fire engine red hair and a bright red clown nose next to Paris Hilton whose tan looks even more fiercely dangerous than usual.

Kadir Lopez takes a more muted and almost vintage approach to the pop art world.  His Shell print features a river and skyline fitted within a Shell gasoline sign while his Wrigley’s piece has a distinctly political, textural feel.

Andy Warhol had his finger on the pulse of popular culture in the 70s (we still use the phrase he coined “fifteen minutes of fame” with great frequency) and perhaps its time we find an artist who knows how to transform our current pop culture icons into wild, vivacious prints that speak to us today.  Are you team Alatza, team Lopez, or both?

Mikel Alatza and Kadir Lopez’ exhibits will be up at William Turner Gallery through February 20.  Please call (310) 453-0909 or click here.

In art history, there are only a few things you can count on.  We argue and debate everything from dating ancient Greek statues to the definition of post-modernism.  But the Norton Simon Museum shows that there is one thing you can count on: portraiture.

To accompany the installation of Jean-Augustine-Dominique Ingres’s Comtesse d’Haussonville, the Norton Simon Museum presents Gaze: Portraiture after Ingres.  Curated by Leah Lehmbeck, the exhibition contains close to 150 paintings, sculpture, and photographs from their collection.

The concept is simple, but the execution is quite rich and a great excuse for the Norton Simon to bring out great works from their inventory.  Starting from portraits that were directly influenced by Ingres in the early to mid-19th century, we see this genre develop from those academic, commissioned paintings of Ingres’s era to Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work to the portraits of 20th century masters and eventually pure abstraction.

The exhibition succeeds using portraiture as a case study of not only the development of this genre, but also it delineates both the apparent and subtle stylistic changes in art of the past two hundred years.  It includes such artists as Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Amedeo Modigiliani, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Andy Warhol among others.

Portraiture.  When light installations and performance art fail you, it’s one thing you can count on.

Gaze: Portraiture after Ingres at the Norton Simon Museum closes April 5th, 2010.  Click here for more info.

Image: Pablo Picasso, Woman with a Book, 1932;

The Norton Simon Foundation;

© 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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)