Los Angeles in Pieces & Parts

Images from Culver City gallery walk on Washington Blvd between Helms Walk and Fairfax Ave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deer at Getty Villa the Italy in LA

The calm and serenity of this recreated Pompeii Villa is easy understand, when in  Disneyland-style a deer frolics so near!

LACMA is always an iconic art stop

and bright experience especially when you start our day in the neighborhood with pastries and beyond from Republique.

HAMMER!!!

This museum is so potent and dynamic that my experience fell into two distinct categories. The Armand Hammer Collection revitalized my love of some long life favorites, mainly Gustave Moreau. There is always so much to learn from the skill of these traditional masters. The beauty of these compositions and my, clearly bias, love of bouquets translated elegantly into "The Stories Of Almost Everyone" exhibit. Every object has a story. What does it mean when you place that object and that story in an institutional setting and burden it with a canon of higher meaning? Some of these works were pure cheek, while others were heartbreaking records of human history. 

Indulgences:

The pop up shop at Hammer (Rat Bastards), GUCCI (another theme park moment waiting in the long Rodeo Drive line to get into the storefront) Laduree Salon de Tea (the height of French decadence, eventually I’ll patron every Laudree in the world)

The End

at the Castle in the Rain - Greystone Mansion and Park

An icon in the film industry. It was worth winding up into the Beverly Hills as this epic house made for a great last look at the L.A. cityscape, even through a rainstorm.

FIRST THURSDAY refresh

I can not tell you how many time when chatting with a fellow artist that I hear "Oh, First Thursday, I haven't been to that in years..."  

Well, I go out. I find it important to know what is going on outside of the studio in my own city, even if it is uncomfortable or disappointing, and sometime it is a disappointment. I am pleased to say that February's events brought artistic delights!

A refreshing range, variety and the new. Here are the highlight for those of you that missed out on the sights: 

PDX Contemporary Art: Night & Day  Jeffry Mitchell January 12, 2016 to February 27

Museum of Contemporary Craft: Work Time by  Rowland Ricketts January 29, 2016 – April 23

Immerse yourself fully in the world of indigo! These huge swaths of cloth hang on the celling overhead, obscuring the spotlights at night one was enveloping in blue.  

Pond Gallery: Wild Apple Girl by  Rebecca Artemisa 

NEW gallery UNION KNOTT: Wages of Fear by Sean Croghan

So new fresh and tiny that there is not a web page yet but this is a hip and authenintic space @ 2726 mlk jr blvd portland, oregon


Pieces of New NEW York YORK....Museum

The Museums of New York are huge institutions of art, serious, grand, and mind blowing!

I visited as many as I could and soaked in as much as I could, this is what I absorbed. 

NEUE GALERIE museum for German and Austrian art

This jewelry box of a Museum was featuring the work of Egon Schiele.

The exhibit was intimate and yet crowed (bonus sighting of Bruce Willis). Hung salon style you were plunged in to a raw world of psychological portraiture. 

I have been a long time fan of Schiele ever since my first year of art school when I graduated from the joyous work of Gustave Klimt (I should mention that the most stunning Klimt painting I have ever seen is part of the Neue Galeries’ collection among other striking art nouveau and deco artifacts) onto the darker work of his protégé; Schiele who instead of using pattern and design to build up the magic in his portraiture (like Klimt) striped all of the ornamentation away leaving you with an honest confutation of the subject. This helped him to pushed the social limits in portraiture. He had a brief but potent career, dying at an early age. This exhibit was intimate and yet crowed (bonus: sighting of Bruce Willis). Hung salon style you were plunged in to a raw world of psychological portraiture. 

 

Pieces of New NEW York YORK......Museum

The Museums of New York are huge institutions of art, serious, grand, and mind blowing!

I visited as many as I could and soaked in as much as I could, this is what I absorbed. 

 

GUGGENHEIM

Guggenheim

At the time of my vist The Guggenheim was featuring "ZERO a countdown to tomorrow 1950- 1960."  Zero is an art collective of German artist born in a zeitgeist of positivity and exploration in post war Germany.  

Zero (1957–66) founded by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene and joined in 1961 by Günther Uecker, and ZERO, a larger international network of likeminded artists, including Lucio Fontana, Yayoi Kusama, Yves Klein, and Piero Manzoni.  Work by more than 40 artists from 10 countries who were united by an aspiration to transform and redefine art following World War II.

These works were stunningly cohesive with the unique architecture of the fabulously spiraling Guggenheim. The show was laid out not only chronologically but by artistic expression. Starting with minimalist color fields Yves Klien "Blue" the tastiest among them (this "blue" is one of the great loves of my life), kinetic paintings on timers kept me enthralled and added to the whimsical spontaneity that these artist where trying to capture, the artist then stated deconstcutying the canvas but punchering ripping and burning the surface. All of these exploratory gestures evolved from 2-d into 3-d  kinetic light instillations, some of which were intragted with film and performance, all timed to push these installations into the realm of grand happenings!