American Contemporary Art - December 2011

ART

AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY

DECEMBER 2011

Transmit.

Opening ReceptiOn: thuRsday, nOv. 17, 2011 • 5:00pm – 8:30pm exhibitiOn thROugh FRiday, dec. 23, 2011 guest cO-cuRatOR: Jae yang | aRt-meRge.cOm den conteporary art • Pacific Design Center 8687 Melrose Avenue #B261, West Hollywood, CA 90069 323 422 6340 • dencontemporaryart.com Ching Ching Cheng • Lauren DiCioccio • Danial Nord • Some Guy • Ann Stock • Nicola Vruwink

RICHMOND BURTON Los Angeles Paintings

November 30–December 31 Los Angeles 2, 2011, oil on linen, 60 x 48 in.

GEORGE LAWSON GALLERY | LOS ANGELES 8564 Washington Blvd. Culver City 90232 | 310-837-6900 | www.georgelawsongallery.com

GEORGE LAWSON GALLERY

DECEMBER 2011

AMERICAN

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CONTENTS

EXHIBITIONS New York Los Angeles Chicago San Francisco

32 36 39 39

ARTIST Emily Van Horn 43

FEATURES 12 16 20 22 26

The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver Letter from Washington DC A Conversation with Virginia Katz Ruth Pastine at Ernst & Young Plaza Art Travel Guide: Shanghai & Seoul

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Sue Williams: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, 2011, oil on canvas, 52”x62”

ON THE COVER Sue Williams Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous 2011, Oil on Canvas, 52”x62” More on page 36

24 Richard Kalisher PUBLISHER Donovan Stanley EDITOR Eric Kalisher DESIGN New York Editor Tali Wertheimer Los Angeles Editor Simmy Swinder Washington Editor F. Lennox Campello Contributing Editor Roberta Carasso Contributing Writers Tracy Tomko, Jae Yang Nicole Serrat, Sabine La Boussière

acamagazine.com

Advertising Inquiries advertising@acamagazine.com 561.542.6028 / Richard Kalisher © 2011 R.K. Graphics. All Rights Reserved.

Exhibition information courtesy of represented institutions.

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20th Century Art by Sidney Gross • Rolph Scarlett

• John MacWhinnie & artists of the Hamptons

Contemportary Art by Harriette Joffe • Eddie Rehm

Rejoice All Our Days -Harriette Joffe - 2007

Davenport & Shapiro Fine Arts www.

DavenportandShapiro.com

37 Newtown Lane - East Hampton - NY • 631 604 5525

THE CLYFFORD STILL MUSEUM: A HISTORY OF THE ARTIST

On November 18, 2011, the Clyfford Still Museum will open in Denver, reintroducing the public to the life and work of one of America’s most significant yet least understood artists. Housing 94% of Clyfford Still’s total creative output, the museum showcases the full scope of the artist’s 60-year career, including his rarely seen figurative works from the 1930s, paintings from the 1960s and 1970s created after Still’s retreat from the commercial art world, and the hundreds of works on paper that the artist created, often on a neardaily basis. The museum’s collection of approximately 2,400 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, the majority of which have never been on public display before, will provide an unprecedented opportunity to reflect on the full scope of Still’s legacy and his profound influence on American art.

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Designed by Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture, the new museum will provide visitors with an intimate environment to experience the art of Clyfford Still. The museum’s inaugural exhibition, cocurated by Director Dean Sobel and Adjunct Curator David Anfam, will feature approximately 110 works drawn from the Still collection, exploring both his early arrival at complete abstraction as well as the ongoing significance of figuration on his later work. The exhibition will include a number of paintings, works on paper, and objects from Still’s personal archives that have never previously been displayed. It will also include the only three Still sculptures still in existence.

“Still is considered among the most important and influential painters of the twentieth century, though the vast majority of his work has never been

exhibited publicly,” said Dean Sobel, Director of the Clyfford Still Museum.

“Our prior knowledge of Still was based on a small fraction of works that were in the public realm, a mere six percent of the artist’s creative output. The opening of this museum will provide unprecedented insight into the life and work of Clyfford Still, and will redefine how the artist is considered within the art historical canon.”

After achieving national recognition and prominence for his abstract works in the 1940s and early 1950s, Still ended his relationship with commercial galleries in 1951, infrequently exhibiting his work thereafter. Following the artist’s death in 1980, the Still collection, comprising approximately 2,400 works by the artist, was sealed off completely from public and scholarly view. Still’s will stipulated that his estate

be given in its entirety to an American city willing to establish “permanent quarters” dedicated solely to his work, ensuring its survival for exhibition and study. In August 2004, the City of Denver, under the leadership of then Mayor John Hickenlooper, was selected by Still’s wife, Patricia Still, to receive the substantial Still collection. In 2005, Patricia Still also bequeathed to the city her own estate, which included select works by her husband as well as his complete archive. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper see the potential of the museum to help gain further attention for Colorado’s arts community.

“Having one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the world in Denver is an incredible collection for the city and our state.”

Designed by Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture, the Clyfford Still Museum is a dense, cantilevered two-story building of richly worked concrete. Featuring nine light-filled galleries on its second level, as well as a library, educational and archival resources, a conservation studio, and collection storage on its first floor, the 28,500-square-foot museum presents a compelling environment in which to view and appreciate Still’s work and learn about his life and impact. “This new building for the work of the artist Clyfford Still provides an intensely intimate and introspective relationship with his art,” says architect Brad Cloepfil. “The building is conceived as a nearly geologic experience, one that firmly holds both visitor and art in spaces amplified by natural light. The sequence from city, to park, to building creates a ceremony of repose that prepares the visitor for a personal and very physical relationship with this incredibly important body of drawings and paintings — whose power and presence are revealed

in natural light for the first time.”

One first encounters the museum through a grove of trees and landscaped forecourt, which provides a place of contemplation, decompression, and transition from the museum’s surrounding urban context. Through the trees, the structure of the building is visible, consisting of cast-in-place architectural concrete walls with a variety of surface relief and texture. The façade features thin, vertical lines of concrete that project from the building’s surface in a fractured, organic, and random pattern, creating a rich surface that changes in the intense Denver sunlight and forms varied shadows across the building.

The entry is revealed beneath a canopy of trees, and visitors are welcomed into the museum by a low, long reception lobby. Visitors rise from the lobby and reception area toward the natural light falling from the galleries on the second floor. The museum’s second level features nine light-filled galleries, totaling approximately 10,000 square feet. Each gallery is distinctly defined and proportioned to respond to specific aspects and needs of the collection and helps trace the distinct phases of Still’s career in chronological sequence. Gallery heights vary from 12 to 17 feet to accommodate changes in scale and media and to establish an intimacy with the

art. Two outdoor terraces and an education gallery offer visitors a moment of reflection and investigation during the

gallery sequence, and allow them to reorient themselves with the surrounding and distant landscape. Moving between galleries, visitors are providedglimpses into the collection storage and interpretive galleries on the first level.

The visitor’s experience of the collection will be enlivened by natural light that enters the galleries through a series of skylights over a cast-inplace,perforated concrete ceiling (see below). The geometry of openings in the ceiling creates an even field of soft and changing daylight in the galleries.

Diffusing glass, motorized shades, and electric light give curatorial flexibility to the gallery spaces, helping to support different gallery configurations and the museum’s rotating exhibition program.

Upon completing the primary gallery sequence, visitors may descend back to the museum’s first level to explore the painting storage, archive, and exhibition spaces. An open doublehigh corridor connects these facilities and will serve as an exhibition hall allowing visitors to further their learning of the history and life of Clyfford Still.

A “timeline” section of the corridor places the artist’s work in context with historic events and other artistic movements, and an “archive” hallway presents the everyday artifacts of the artist’s life and information about his painting technique and media.

From this corridor, visitors will also be able view the collection storage rooms, and assess the number of paintings produced during the artist’s prolific career. A visible conservation lab and a research center offer visitors additional resources for furthering their knowledge of Still’s career. This open corridor speaks to the institution’s founding principle of unveiling this once-private and very personal collection to the public, as it invites a gradual immersion in the works of Still.

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The museum’s inaugural exhibition will present a comprehensive survey of Still’s artistic career from 1925 through the late 1970s, documenting the development of his primary imagery and his early arrival at what would be considered Abstract Expressionism.

The exhibition is the first to explore Still’s pre-World War II figurative work, which points to the significance of figuration throughout the artist’s career.

The exhibition will also consider rarely seen paintings and drawings produced

by Still after he retreated from the New York art world to Maryland in 1961, providing visitors with a greater understanding of Still’s impact on and relevance to Abstract Expressionism.

Installed chronologically over the course of nine discrete galleries on the Museum’s second floor, the exhibition establishes a chronology of Still’s 60-year career to provide an overview of the stylistic evolution of his oeuvre and the places where he created these works—including Alberta, Canada; eastern Washington State; Richmond, Virginia; San Francisco; New York City; and rural Maryland. The first exhibition galleries will include Still’s figurative and landscape paintings from the late 1920s and early 1930s, which demonstrate his representational style and introduce characteristics that mark his later work. Never-before-seen paintings, drawings, and prints made by Still in the 1940s reveal the artist’s arrival at characteristics of Abstract Expressionism earlier than peers such as Pollock, Rothko, and De Kooning. Still’s rarely displayed works on paper from all periods of his career, and his works from the 1960s and 1970s, which are marked by a lighter palette and greater economy of imagery, will also be displayed.

The exhibition is accompanied by a presentation of select objects from the Clyfford Still Archives, including letters, photographs, tools and materials, and various personal effects.

The museum is located in the heart of the Denver’s Civic Center Cultural Complex, near the Denver Art Museum. Visit clyffordstillmuseum.org

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Clyfford Still: (above) PH-343, 1937, oil on canvas, 45” x 35.5”, (below) PH-1023, 1976, oil on canvas, 114” x 172”. Both Images: Clyfford Still Museum Collection. © Clyfford Still Estate

Morton Fine Art (MFA) 1781 Florida Ave NW Washington, DC 20009 (202) 628-2787 www.mortonfineart.com mortonfineart@gmail.com

Letter from Washington, DC F. Lennox Campello

Percy Martin, Class of Dreams, etching, 12’” x 16”. Courtesy of Parish Gallery, Georgetown.

Each year, the Arlington Arts Center in nearby Arlington, VA, and part of the Greater Washington, DC region, has an annual call for artists designed to give emerging artists the opportunity to be chosen to exhibit at AAC. This year, for FALL SOLOS 2011, DC collector and curator Michael Pollack and independent international curator Melissa Keys, formerly of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), selected this year’s crop of promising emerging contemporary artists from across the Mid-Atlantic region. They selected Arden Bendler Browning, David D'Orio, Matt Dunn, Jason Irla, Stephanie Elaine Robbins, Rachel Sitkin, and Chloe Watson to present solo exhibitions in seven of AAC's nine galleries and the shows are up through December 30.

Philadelphia artist Arden Bendler Browning’s paintings on wall-sized Tyvek surfaces are the artist’s interpretations of her urban environment. The imagery is derived from actual images and also from use of Google maps — mostly focusing on her Philadelphia area neighborhoods. The scale alone makes them quite

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impressive (around 60 x 130 inches), but it is the sense of floating color elements in these vast images that transform them into highly interesting visual responses to an otherwise most mundane subject matter.

I'm quite familiar with glass artist David D'Orio's work — in fact he is one of the artists in my "100 Artists of Washington, DC" book — and thus I wasn't quite prepared to realize that I was going to be happily surprised by D'Orio's new work. For this show he has re-invented pull toys by taking them apart, rebuilding them in mostly quite threatening ways and in this process he has recontextualized them in a very original way (see opposite page).

Baltimore artist Chloe Watson seems to be one of those emerging artists that everyone is aware of and who soon will cease to be in that category. Her artistic dialogue is always fresh and interesting and I was attracted to visit her gallery first in response to the AAC's press release which told me that: "In the intimate space of the Chairmen’s Gallery, viewers are invited to experience

discreet places and people that punctuate Watson’s past. With the comfort that counting brings to both pleasant and annoying experiences, Watson revisits and codifies the 17 bedrooms she has inhabited throughout her life and the 73 jerks she has come into contact with." The Mondrian-like floor plans are elegant and surprising; leave it to a talented artist to turn experiences with jerks into cool artwork!

Matt Dunn is one of the new breed of street photographers who always seems to be there when the odd, the unusual, and thus the photographable happens. In the photographs on exhibit at AAC, Dunn's camera captures the moment when something went past normal or ordinary and into the region of eyebrow-lifting. As a result of this intense ability to be there at the right time, I suspect that Dunn has subconsciously developed an automatic sense of scene-setting and staging in order to illustrate points that he wants to make. A perfect example of this is "Joanie on the X2 Bus" (see page 20), easily the most powerful image in all of the current shows at AAC and one of the most interesting pieces of staged photography that I have seen in a long time. Dunn says that he wanted "to try to illustrate race/gentrification issues in DC by asking Joanie to pose on the X2 bus, which runs from Lafayette Park, NW (in front of the White House), through the Chinatown Arch, to NE DC, along H Street."

It's a brilliant staged photograph! Other than the sculptural model, who appears to be in total domination of the moment, ev-

(above left) David D’Orio, Play-Makers, 2011, wood, metal, and found objects, dimensions variable, photo: Peter Duvall. (above right) Chloe Watson, 73 Jerks: Self, 2011, from the series 73 Jerks, 75 colored pencil drawings on paper, each 7”x5”.

eryone seems to be a little uncomfortable here, from the seated guy to Joanie's left, who seems almost desperate at the sight in front of him; to the guy in the dark glasses behind her, clearly enjoying the anonymous opportunity to examine her rear; to the rest of the bus riders, all trying to ignore the anomaly of a scantily clad goddess in their midst.

Dunn also passes that "last summer, while working in Chinatown, I witnessed some people posing in front of the Chinatown Arch, making the "Asian eyes" gesture. I didn't quite get that shot but remembered that the artist/photographer Jeff Wall saw a similar scene in Vancouver. It inspired him to create his photograph "Mimic". Wall said that Mimic was also an homage to street photographers Gary Winogrand and Robert Frank." From that experience comes Dunn's photograph "Tourists in Chinatown," perhaps less racially charged than Wall's staged image, but just as powerful in a more subtle way, and accented by the way the passing person in the photo, waiting to cross the street as the tourists do their "Asian eyes" photo, observes them in quiet distaste.

And what makes this an even more powerful image, is that (unlike Wall), Dunn didn't have to stage this photo — this is the real thing,

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and Dunn notes that he has seen this same type of event happen

The latest version took place in a 27,000+ square foot buildthree times so far! ing in nearby Frederick, Maryland, where about 300 artists filled In the District, Georgetown's Parish Gallery showcased one every room of a former office building with wall art, installations, of the DMV's most venerable and influential printmakers, Percy videos and performances.

Martin, whose exhibition entitled “Bushmen Dreams” was one of

During my visit it didn't take me long to find this particular the most awaited shows of the year.

AOM's best work and after patiently walking through all floors Why? Because Percy Martin is a printmaker and teacher of and the basement, I am sure that the singularly unique video work art who has lived in the Washington, DC area since 1947. For of Richard Schellenberg wins my first vote for top pick of AOM over 25 years, he has been quietly working on a series of lush and Frederick. Tucked away in a corner of the first floor, Schellenberg technically complex prints detailing the daily lives and rituals of has two videos playing in two old, vintage televisions. In one of the Bushmen, a mythological people and culture born of Martin’s them, a young boy tells a dream story of a dream involving flying imagination. He studon Superman's shoulied printmaking and ders and directing the graphic design at the Man of Steel's moveCorcoran Gallery of ments. The storytellArt where he received ing is addictively odd a Ford Foundation and grabs the listener, Fellowship in 1966. In but it is the video that 1975 the National Enstops viewers on their dowment for the Arts tracks. In a very soawarded him with an phisticated marriage Artist-in-Residence. of video morphing, Martin taught private Schellenberg has creclasses in etching and ated a young boy ridhas been the Direcing on the shoulders tor of the W.D. Printand arms of George making Workshop in Reeves, the Black & Washington, DC, since White Superman from 1947. He taught at the the TV series of the New Thing Art and 1950s who was either Architecture Center, murdered or commitUniversity of Maryted suicide in 1959. land, Corcoran School Schellenberg's techniof Art, printmaking to cal mastery of video inmates at Lorton Prismorphing, coupled on, the Duke Ellington with the odd, but senSchool of the Arts sitive storyline, as well and finally the Sidwell as the vintage presenFriends School, from tation, make this one which he is now reof the best works of tired. As a result of all video art that I have that teaching and artisever seen. tic presence, there are Painter Phyla lot of DC area artists, lis Mayes also stood mostly those who were out via her very well schooled around here, executed set of self who received the spark portraits, nearly all of Matt Dunn, Joanie on the X2, 2010, C-print, 40 x 30 inches. of creativity from this which explore some talented artist, and I know that no art collection with any sort of odd facial expression. They are a genuine delight to the eye, both focus on DMV artists is complete without a Percy Martin in it. as a painterly exercise and also as an intelligent delivery vehicle Finally, DC art aficionados know that when one mentions for highly personal imagery presented for us to admire. The exArt-O-Matic, immediately two things come to mind: (a) hunceptional paintings of Margaret Dowell also stood out and here dreds and hundreds of artists grouping for a month or so in a large she displays her "Sidi Flowchart" series. In these powerful pieces, empty building and turning it into a magnetic extravaganza of art Dowell depicts the effects of alcohol addiction and eventual recovthat attracts thousands of visitors, and (b) most art critics hate the ery on her friend Sidi, from childhood to the present. In the hands democratic, unjuried, open process that allows anyone to parof a master painter like Dowell, the storyline delivers a punch to ACA ticipate. “How can an art show be any good without a curatorial the visual senses that is hard to forget. hand?” they point out as they miss the point of Art-O-Matic (or AOM as the locals call it).

Read more from Campello at dcartnews.blogspot.com

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A Conversation with Virginia Katz Sabine La Boussière Virginia Katz is an abstract artist, based in Orange County, California. Her muse is the environment and what it consists of, which she integrates into her art, shown primarily in museums and galleries throughout Southern California. Influenced and prompted by the landscape itself, she also appreciates Mark Bradford's paintings that are the result of his interaction with the streets of LA, Julie Mehretu's use of semeiotics in her paintings, Richard Long's natural systems, and Georgia O'Keeffe's landscape-based abstractions, among others. Katz has a fine sense for detail. Aside from using complex art-process techniques, which she skillfully masters, she approaches her works like a scientist.

For example, in her Ocean piece “The Difference a Day Makes,” she produced an installation of drawings based on her perception of tidal cycles in which each line she drew corresponded to the size and color of each wave as it broke on 11-foot- long Washi scrolls. In another project, “The Hunt,” she examined people parking their cars and walking to stores at a local shopping plaza (for a 12-hour work-period) and indicated each shopper's movement by drawing a line to and from their destinations. In contrast to her earlier work, where she observed the environment first-hand, her recent “Land Series” is based on satellite images of the earth's surface.

always taken seriously the words people use when expressing thought and then questioning those views. I tend to look at the other side in every argument. So, Philosophy just seemed a good fit for me. It is the only field of study I know that underpins every other subject. There is a system of logic at work in Philosophy that, at first, seeks to clarify basic questions and then moves forward toward complexity. This principle underlies any inquiry. I don't view studying Philosophy and then Art as “changing directions.”

Philosophy's application in Art is the underpinning of my aesthetic practice.

SL: In 1985 you graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy and about 20 years later you received your Master's degree in Fine Arts. Why did you change directions and how do these two fields of interest come together in your work?

VK: Well, Philosophy is a subject that had and continues to have great appeal and satisfaction for me. I've

Formations - Aqua Minor, 2009, mixed media, mixed process on paper, 66" x 36".

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SL: For the past few years, you've been mainly concentrating on the environment.

You first made a series of the wind, then the atmosphere, ocean, place and land. What is it that fascinates you about environmental issues?

VK: Although I was born in Brooklyn, New York, as we all know, a major metropolitan area, I spent the majority of my youth upstate in a rural, mountainous and denselywooded region. As a young person, my playground was the woods. In winter, my friends and I would iceskate on my friend's frozen pond. We rode horses all year long, hiked and picked wildflowers in the spring. In summer, we built forts in the woods, waded through icy cold springs, collected rocks, camped and hiked. Looking back, I think that I paid close attention to everything around me. I remember how, after a snowstorm, the sound of quiet from the insulating snow was a sensory shift, the perfumed scent of the air during autumn, when the entire forest was changing color and shedding its leaves, and the calls of the Blue Jays and the locusts in summer all gave me pause.

Another important influence

was my father, who was a landscape architect and forester. I grew up being exposed to his knowledge of trees and plants. He considered their cycles as they interacted with seasonal changes and chose them as a design element of landscape.

SL: You are from New York, but have lived in California for many years. Where did you start experimenting with the environment?

VK: When I first began painting, I worked in the Plein Air style. I spent long hours painting on location. I never painted inside - it was always with brush and paper outside. When I began working in a more conceptual, abstract manner, I began with the Wind series. I tied strings to tree branches and, at the ends of the strings, I taped pens. The paper was weighted on the ground and, when the Santa Ana winds blew, it was the wind's force that moved the branches and then the strings that left traces of the wind's movement on paper. I would remain with the process in gale-force winds for up to 16 hours to record these wind events. All of this work was done in California; but, I believe it was my early exposure to the environment in upstate New York that was preparatory to my work here.

SL: You had two exhibits outside of the United States - in South Korea and in Paris. Was there a significant difference as to how people perceived your work over there?

VK: I think that perception of an artist's work can vary even in one location. It depends on who is doing the looking. I can tell you that the work sold-out in Europe. Since I was not in attendance at either venue that is the only thing I can go by.

SL: In Wind Diagrammatic III, we can see these fine lines and blurs of color. The image has a poetic quality, which reminds me of the work of Catalonian artist Jordi Alcaraz. In which way do you see yourself similar or rather different from him?

VK: Our work does appear to share some similarities and has some differences. What Jordi and I appear to have in common are interests in perception and process. In his work, he seems to want to play with our sense of perception and skew it as seen in his “Process to Reduce This Room into a Painting,” where there isn't one right angle in the room, thereby completely throwing one's physical and intellectual sense of perspective into a tizzy. My interest in perception, however, is one that focuses on those things that we don't easily perceive but that have true form. For example,

(clockwise from top left of page) detail of The Difference a Day Makes, 2005, watercolor on Washi scrolls 130, 11’x11”; detail of Path - Intersection, 2010, mixed process and mixed media on paper (monoprint, collograph, and oil on paper), 72”x26”; detail of Wind Diagrammatic III, 2003, ink on Washi paper, 72”x36”.

in the wind drawings, the form or pattern that is made is one not easily seen unless captured on something tangible. Jordi creates his environment and alters perception. I work with the existing natural environment to find it in its invisible form. Jordi and I are also engaged by process. Both of us, I believe, are interested not only in what we have done with an idea, but also, we both plan to leave room for the viewer to experience and come away with his or her own unique perceptions.

SL: In your last show at Ruth Bachofner Gallery, you were inspired by satellite images of the Earth's surface. What made this series unlike the previous ones?

VK: The land works are different from the earlier investigations in that they do not rely as much on a "fill-in-the-blank" system in which information by some other action, other than my own, dictated the outcome of the piece. So, in the wind drawings, I let the energy force of the wind create the marks. In the ocean drawings, I let the ocean waves and their size determine the day's recordings.

The same is true in "The Hunt," when I let the shoppers' actions determine where the lines would go. In the "Force-Fields,” "Formations,” "Path" and "Mud" series, there was more of a painterly process involved in their making and they have become more of a hybrid between representation and abstraction. The earlier works ACA were purely abstract.

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Ruth Pastine at Ernst & Young Plaza

by Roberta Carasso INTRODUCTION Ruth Pastine is known for her lusciously bold, fearlessly-applied, saturated, and colorful abstract paintings. She was the brilliant choice to create an installation of eight paintings for Ernst & Young Plaza’s architectural renovation in downtown Los Angeles.

The project was initiated in 2005, with Brookfield Properties’ acquisition of the site located at 725 South Figueroa Street. It began with interests to renovate the building’s two large lobbies, updating the exterior stonework, plate glass façades, and granite interiors. Desires to streamline and modernize the disparate elements of the original architecture required an inspired vision.

Brookfield Properties is the largest developer in America. Its executive Director of Design, Megan Brothers, made a sincere commitment to seek someone with creative insight who could endow the building’s renovation with the needed contemporary vision.

Brothers engaged Clara Igonda, Principal in Charge, of Perkins + Will Architectural Firm. However, the most significant transformation, the one that impacted the total design renovation, came from commissioning artist Ruth Pastine, whose luminous abstract oil paintings became the project’s crown jewels.

PASTINE TALKS ABOUT THE PROCESS OF CREATING THE INSTALLATION Pastine explains: “Inspired by distinct and contrasting color conditions that evoke psychological impact and emotional depth, my painting process is driven by working serially and invested in the perceptual experience of color, light, and temperature. The materialization of thirty years investigation is revealed in my paintings and the public installation Limitless, 2009, at Ernst & Young Plaza in Los Angeles. Limitless is sited in two adjoining lobbies and comprised of eight large format oil-on-canvas paintings. Each painting measures 8.5 feet high by 4.5 feet wide, and includes four works from the Blue Orange Series in the North lobby entrance and four from the Red Green Series in the South atrium lobby.

Each series of four paintings are installed as diptych pairs in dialogue with each other on adjacent walls.”

“My use of complementary color systems sets up a visceral contrast, and is symbolic of conveying an inherent tension, even

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though my painting process is focused on the convergence of opposition. The Limitless installation embraces the monumentality and symmetry of the architectural space with pairs of large vertical paintings on symmetrical adjacent walls, while acknowledging asymmetry, balance, rhythmic flow, and sensations of expansion and closure with the placement and interplay of bold and subtle color fades from canvas to canvas. The surfaces appear to dematerialize in context with one another, as I focus on transforming materiality through a disciplined work ethic into an optically immaterial experience.”

“The Limitless public commission has been deeply rewarding, as the paintings achieve ideals I strive for within my process and exceed limits beyond my expectations, in scale and visual experience.”

“As I work serially, on several paintings simultaneously, focused on the interaction between systems of color, structure, and perception, I address the defining parameters of site-specific installations as a unique venture. The exclusive architecture, materials of construction, light conditions, and psychological resonance, set the tone to engage intrinsic elements of the project.”

PASTINE’S EXHIBITIONS The installation was a new experience for Pastine. As an exhibiting artist, she creates specific series for temporary exhibition, within a circumscribed time frame at prestigious art galleries. These include; Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA; Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Los Angeles, CA; Scott White Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX; and Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA. Douglas Britt, writing for the Houston Chronicle about her latest exhibition states: “If there’s been a more soulful painting show in a Houston gallery this year, Ruth Pastine: Present Fugitive just erased it from my memory… A painter of breathtakingly subtly shifting fields of complementary colors… This work …{is} about painting – period. It evokes the kinds of primal responses only oil paint can, especially when it’s handled as only Pastine can.

Especially astounding is the way Pastine makes paintings using the same warm-cool color combinations achieve wildly different looks and evoke totally different emotions. Photos don’t begin to

hint at the works’ subtlety or beauty; you simple have to see them for yourself.”

THE ERNST & YOUNG CHALLENGE FOR PASTINE The Ernst & Young project posed new challenges, because it is architecturally site-specific, open to the public, and relatively permanent. For an artist, this is the best possible scenario, to create art that will be seen by massive people for an indefinite time. But Pastine brought more to the project than anyone anticipated. What was of utmost importance to Pastine was to address key elements of the architectural space as the framework to give prominence to essential abstract elements within her work. She determined what she sought to achieve, and how she needed to paint to achieve these goals. The process that suits her best is working in series of paintings, sensitively aware of the dialogue between the works and the interaction of one to another.

Now working in a permanent, business setting, Pastine brought her holistic mastery to the structural environment, infusing the installation of eight panels and the architecture with a continuous sense of reciprocity, a harmonious marriage of contemporary art and modern structure. The paintings are constructed with unique beveled stretcher bars Pastine designed, allowing the panels to float from the architecture, yet facilitate an intimate dialogue with the structural elements. Viewing the paintings, one immediately sees pristine surfaces that seem to pulsate and breathe with a life of their own. The visually arresting surfaces, with their dynamic vibrant tones draw us in to the paintings’ natural hand painted energy.

Inspired by the scale and symmetry of the architectural spaces, Pastine’s paintings acknowledge the dialogue between the two symmetrical adjacent walls in each lobby, and the exchange between the two linked entrance spaces.

This affords an exemplary scenario to engage a dialogue among all eight paintings, as Pastine carefully considered the relationship between paintings as a defined series.

The artist’s paintings not only epitomize the highest level of artistic achievement, but their significance to the renovation is that the formal integrity of her two-dimensional paintings reflect the conceptual essence of the three-dimensional architecture. Of greatest significance, is that Pastine’s innate talent allowed her to conceptually unite the formal, spatial, and structural architectural elements, creating an intersection between architecture and the visual arts.

Having an inner radar system, Pastine was naturally aware of all the elements at play. This includes inanimate materials, in this case -- paint, granite and glass – as they dialogue and interact with one another, as well as how the artistic elements within her art and the surrounding architecture communicate. When completed, the regal installation of paintings exemplifies the level of excellence the architects hoped to achieve in theory and actuality, and the caliber

of distinction Ernst & Young represents internationally. Thus, Pastine brought a comprehensive psychological and social attribute to the project that was not anticipated.

HISTORY OF THE ERNST & YOUNG BUILDING The Ernst & Young building was constructed in 1985. The 41 story tower is for business, a no nonsense structure originally designed

by Chicago architects Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. The building was opened during the last significant expansion of downtown commercial office space in Los Angeles. It was built for profit, and epitomizes the stone clad imagery favored by the corporate culture of the 1980’s. At that time, it was among the tallest skyscrapers in Los Angeles; now the 17th tallest building in Los Angeles – 534 feet tall. The completed Ernst and Young Plaza renovation, the centerpiece of the world’s foremost accounting firm, is now owned and managed by Brookfield Properties Visitors enter the building from 7th Street on the North through the perimeter column bays and glass doors into a tall lobby space.

This space is connected to a similar lobby on the South through the massive stone clad elevator core. These two entrance lobbies are virtually identical, except for their orientation and the quality of natural daylight. The interior of these two rooms is as tough as the exterior: three walls of full height glass and two focal walls of stone. The only note of humanity is the scaled openings into the elevator core, and the stone guard stations. The stone walls were quarried from slabs of light pink granite, with a darker stone wainscot that extends up and around the elevator portals, creating an almost but not quite neutral background. These rooms are architectural transitions spaces not meant to linger in.

CLARA IGONDA OF PERKINS+WILL Architect Clara Igonda of Perkins+Will was in charge of selecting the artist. Astutely, she considered the renovation, its many requirements and possible solutions. Working with the existing and unrelenting stonework, Igonda realized that, although the two sections of the building are austere, an exceptional contemporary artist, could bestow the cold and unforgiving atmosphere with greater humanity, as well as have the renovation commission be a tribute to Brookfield Properties’ genuine investment and commitment to contemporary culture in defining their ideals. Igonda’s experience also taught her that “Art makes the space come alive. Public spaces in buildings are not for collectors. Selection of art for a lobby is tricky, thousands of people work in a building, and every one has an opinion.”

Igonda’s concern was that opposing opinions inevitably lead to a compromise in the quality of art. Setting the bar higher than expected, Igonda kept her antenna up looking for just the right artist, as the art was a key element in Brookfield Properties’ visual transformation of the site. As a fairly new owner, Brookfield Properties

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took a giant leap of faith. Fortuitously, Igonda was introduced to Pastine through colleagues who collect Pastine’s art. Captivated by the purity of image and eloquence of execution, Igonda asked for a studio visit to introduce Pastine to the project.

PASTINE MEETS IGONDA When Pastine and Igonda met in Pastine’s Ojai studio, a rapport began immediately. The two conversed for five hours about art, painting, architecture, philosophy, and the nature of process. Igonda’s in-depth questions, enthusiasm, and frank response to Pastine’s art openly demonstrated how much Pastine’s art fit the project. Pastine, who is extremely articulate, especially in the presence of someone of like-mind, has a gift for engaging in stimulating conversation, turning abstract concepts into plausible possibilities, and spontaneously developing, in the course of conversation, new abstract thoughts, peppered with wit and good humor. Clearly, Igonda was struck by Pastine’s work, her ideas and explanations, and what Pastine sought to achieve. Having won her over, Igonda asked Pastine to visit the space and submit a proposal. When Pastine and Igonda met for the initial walk-through, Pastine was alit with considerations and calculations and recalls Igonda saying, “Go with your gut!” These words signaled Igonda’s complete endorsement of Pastine’s work and embracing of her ideals. Only later was Pastine informed that her proposal was submitted to the CEO of Brookfield Properties for final decision, and that she was up against stiff competition as several prominent artists were also vying for the prize. Pastine became, not only the winning artist, but her art and its presence became the focal point that stimulated Igonda and Perkins+Will to make additional renovations which included a new lighting system by virtue of the enhanced prominence Pastine brought to the property.

Igonda’s original concern was to seek an artist who could raise the bar higher than expected without compromising her high standards. Ultimately Igonda wanted to challenge the thousands of people who pass through the lobby to reach beyond the artistic level they thought they could handle. Once Pastine’s canvases were installed, the essence of her work -- transcending boundaries within an artistic mode – elicits transcendence, subliminally affecting the audience. Although the work contains more visual dialogue than most people could possibly anticipate, surprisingly, many intuit their meaning, Raising the limits of expectation, evidence shows, in a continuous stream of remarks by visitors and building employees, that while traversing the enormous lobbies, viewing the paintings, the art expects a higher level of understanding, challenging the audience to meet the invisible bar Igonda knew existed and Pastine created. Igonda adds: “I cannot be happier with the results of her art and personality. Her intense and passionate manner, with which she speaks about her work, is in opposition to what you might expect. From her intensity comes work that is calm and serene.”

AN ARCHITECT VIEW’S PASTINE’S INSTALLATION James Crawford, of Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP, explains how Pastine’s art affects so many people. “It would be easy to see how a piece of art would be overwhelmed in this environment, but Pastine’s work reinforces and makes an asset out of this bare architectural context. What draws your immediate attention

24 A|C|A December 2011

is the color. Bold, strong, and saturated; the color blows away the mottled pink granite wall and creates a dynamic sense of movement and space. More importantly, Pastine took full advantage of the differing orientations of the rooms in the placement of the red/ green and blue/orange palettes. The use of the red/green on the South, the warm day lit side; and the blue/orange on the North, the cool, shadowed side, creates a brilliant interplay with each room’s temperature that reinforces the experience of the color. It is also interesting to observe that the North lobby is the formal street entrance, and the cooler palate has perhaps a more corporate feel.

While the work grabs your attention from afar, it is equally successful up close, and provides an experience that was previously lacking in the space. If you stop to look, you will be rewarded with how the color seamlessly transitions in endless variations of subtlety, three dimensional depth and intensity. It gives life to flat walls, and is successful at the scale of the room and the scale of the individual.”

“As strong as the color is, the work would not be as successful in this context were it not for the complete integration of the proportion of the artworks with the orthogonal geometry of the wall and the room. The vertical orientation of the four canvases in each lobby creates a dynamic with the three elevator portals that enlivens the space. This dynamic between shape, solid, and void also brings life to a previously static surface.”

CONCLUSIONS The result of the project and the sincere efforts of all concerned is that the installation has been well received by the diverse community of Ernst & Young Plaza, Perkins + Will Architectural Firm, Brookfield Properties, and those in the arts and architecture in Los Angeles, proving that Pastine’s installation resonates the best of painting and architecture in one complex environment.

Installed in January 2010, the ethereal Red Green and Blue Orange paintings are a visible statement that affects the total structure. In the panels -- seen individually, or in sets of four in each lobby, and eight in total -- Pastine developed visual systems that embrace movement, expansion, closure, scale, monumentality, and light, employing systems of color, perception and space -- concepts particularly relevant to her art. Pastine’s paintings, albeit on canvas, on a wall, and situated within huge stone and glass structures, engage the very same ideals – of form, light, space, and monumentality -- sought by architects in general, and specifically those who would be involved in transforming the business establishment into an artistic achievement.

Donald Kuspit, international art critic, writes about Pastine’s Limitless series: “Pastine’s seemingly matter of fact, deceptively simple color field had acquired numinous presence, and with that a sort of impassioned complexity…. The work reveals that red and green symbolize the tension between passion and control that informs Pastine’s paintings, even as they ingeniously complement each other, that is, dialectally integrate to spiritual effect. Thus Pastine esthetically transcends and transforms her intense emotions. Her works are emotional as well as spiritual epiphanies, making them all the more paradoxical – certainly much more meaningful than pure color paradoxes.”

ACA

Roberta Carasso can be reached by email at: roberta.carasso@gmail.com

Art Travel Guide: Seoul & Shanghai

by Jae Yang Categories:

YES, ANSOLUTELY Maybe, if i have time Never IN MY LIFE

YES, ANSOLUTELY PLATOON KUNSTHALLE http://www.kunsthalle.com/about

Platoon Kunsthalle is the coolest alternative, multifunction creative space I have seen in Seoul. It’s literally built with fantastic, stacked cargo containers. In the middle of the hippest part of Seoul, Kangnam, this cargo entity sticks out like a sore thumb—in a really compelling way, of course. This space offers a creative ground for a full spectrum of free thinkers such as visual artists, performers, architects, musicians, scholars, filmmakers…you name it.

SEOUL IN SEPTEMBER

Maybe, if i have time

YES, ANSOLUTELY Art Flash Media & installation Art Fair @KIAF

http://kiaf.org/2011new/Eng/Module/ArtFlash/ArtFlash.html

Attending KIAF is more like a duty for a Korean who is in the art business—and so, of course, I went. They celebrated their 10th anniversary this year and I was happy to be part of it. KIAF is the largest fine art fair in Korea and where else, other then Seoul would it take place? The best part of the fair was the launch of a new fair within a fair called, Art Flash, dedicated to media and installation art. As my heart is in installation art, it was like being in a candy store. There were a decent number of single channel video installations this time and I hope that there will be a more expanded selection of site-specific installations next year.

26 A|C|A December 2011

Heyri Art Valley

http://www.heyri.net/blog/

Heyri is the perfect getaway for an otherwise frenetic Asian art adventure. If you want to breathe better after choking over cigarette smoke and smog in Seoul, go to Heyri Village and have a shot of green tea to cleanse your system. Remember Heyri is NOT a place to see art that will challenge you. The real allure of Heyri is the place itself—it’s beautiful and surrounded by gorgeous mountains, and in that way, it’s more suited for meditation than contemplation. Just drink tea and enjoy the clean air.

After scorching hot summer subsides in September, Shanghai and Seoul start their festive preparation for their biggest art fairs of the year. Although you can’t ever expect the weather to cooperate at this time of year, you can expect to see some things worth writing home about. The following are a few recommendations, based on my experiences, of things to throw onto your “absolutely,” “if I have time,” and “never” lists.

SHANGHAI IN SEPTEMBER

YES, ANSOLUTELY island6 Arts Center http://www.island6.org/

Island6 is one of many galleries at the art complex M50 | Moganshan Lu, and it is one of the rare non-profit art organizations in China. Whether it’s the differences in political or economic structures, I’m not certain, but the concept of non-profit organizations in China is not quite the same as in the United States. Island6 is a true artists’ space, a standout among the few non-profits I have encountered there. I had the pleasure of meeting with owner/director Thomas Charvériat, who was gracious to give me a tour of the space and facility. Island6 is a DIY lover’s dream—they have everything from workshop spaces to a shipping area where they build their own crates. And Island6 maintains a roster of artists while continuously scouting out new artists to join the family. What strikes me about the organization is that they operate under a single name to represent the artists—Liu Dao, which literally means, "island number 6.”

No identity of any artist is ever displayed. There is a true sense of communal collaboration among the artists of Island6 and it is also a unique gallery that makes art.

Maybe, if i have time M50 | 50 Moganshan Lu It is always fun to visit a city’s arts enclaves to get a temperature reading of the local galleries and artists. Moganshan Lu, now going by the hipper, arty moniker M5, is a large complex nestled in the middle of Shanghai. Located in a tourist heavy area, the complex is still worth a visit, even though the work on display can be very hit or miss.

Never IN MY LIFE Shanghai Art Fair

http://www.sartfair.com/2011/eweb/index.asp

This year, I missed the cooler, more cutting edge ShContemporary Fair in favor of going to Shanghai Art Fair. Despite its proud 15 years of existence, the Shanghai Art Fair was simply disappointing in terms of quality. Despite that, the fair must be doing something right—the number of attendees was unbelievable and I saw bus load after bus load of people visiting daily.

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00 100 ARTISTS OF WASHINGTON, DC

Award-winning artist and art critic F. Lennox Campello has authored the first ever art book focusing on artists from the greater Washington, DC area. With more than 700 images, this beautiful hardcover coffee table art book from Schiffer Press is available from your local bookstore, online or by calling 610-593-1777.

Book Details ISBN: 9780764337789 224 pages, 8½x11�

Hard cover with 735+ images

HERBERT BAYER

“SELF-PORTRAIT” 1932 FROM THE BAYER FAMILY COLLECTION

EMIL NELSON GALLERY 2864 COLORADO AVE SANTA MONICA, CA 90404 310-266-9904

EXHIBITIONS

NEW YORK CITY Paul Wackers Morgan Lehman Chelsea [Dec 16 - Jan 28]

Paul Wackers, Variations, 2011, acrylic on panel, 48”x60”; (bot) A Leading Question, 2011, spray pain on panel, 40”x36”.

Paul Wackers creates paintings that are rooted in the modernist tradition while simultaneously subverting this same history. As a devotee of 20th century European avant-garde painting, Wackers has spent long hours deciphering and deconstructing the manner in which artists like Matisse, Braque and Picasso have committed three dimensional forms into paintings. Much of his output to this day can be viewed as an exercise in dynamic depiction. Wackers is inspired by objects in the everyday world and reconciles and reorganizes them into new and bold configurations. Wackers paintings are universal, yet clearly recognizable by his signature style which melds abstraction and figuration. As the artist states, “My work is first a response to the world and then a reaction to what it has to offer.” In his new body of work Wackers shifts his focus toward interiors, while maintaining the power and expansiveness seen in his exterior landscapes. In several paintings he takes on quiet still lifes - flower arrangements and objects d'art - and activates them through his use of bold color choices, unconventional and varied paint handling, and compositional abstraction. In his painting, “Primary Element”, Wackers depicts a structure whose movement, color and immensity are reined in by the simple grey platform on which the structure sits. Akin to the minimalists

Robert Greco Munch Lower East Side [through Dec 22]

Robert Greco: (left) 301.83, 2008, 36”x 48”; (right) Praha, 2009, 36”x 48”

30 A|C|A December 2011

and post-modernists before him, Wackers addresses the complexities of the viewing space by placing his primary element on a pedestal. It is this juxtaposition of the raw or earthly with the seeming rigidity of the institution that Wackers so brilliantly captures in this pivotal piece.

In the work, "A Leading Question", the viewer is presented with a dense scene of palm fronds and tangled pennant flag lines in a type of "post hurricane" vignette of a beachfront vacation landscape. Rising and curling in a twisting loop is a dark brown spray painted lasso that cuts through the lower center of the work. Viewers familiar with Wackers' paintings will recognize the use of the spray painted line as a recurring trope that signifies a break with naturalistic depiction. Essentially, with the spray painted loop Wackers is stating to the viewer that they have entered the artificial world of painting, where perception is purposely warped by the artist who controls space and time. In Wackers case we enjoy this artificial new world because it is at once familiar, and yet entirely original. Paul Wackers was born in 1978 in New Haven, Ct. He received a BFA in 2001 at Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington D.C. and an MFA in 2004 at San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA. He has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and D.C. “This Thing of Ours”, a selection of new paintings by artist Robert Greco. Robert works in a variety of media, and is strongly influenced and inspired by his consumption of counter-culture of all kinds. The exhibition consist of abstract paintings that are both poetic and expressive.

Greco works with layers, textures, and varying color palets to create dreamlike compositions that inspire introspection and demand interaction. Like the moment a thought becomes a whisper, then a whisper becomes a scream, Greco’s paintings at first glance may appear calm and stoic, but the passionate fervor of the artist’s process quickly shines though. The frenetic brush work and the expressive manipulation of paint on canvas serve as a counter balance to the otherwise peaceful compositions, and highlight the chaotic beauty that confronts us daily in the world. The work speaks on the ever-present dichotomy of existence by embodying the calming beauty of a storm, and the clamor of a blooming flower. The viewer is forced to accept the random nature of inspiration but challenged to find order in the chaos.

EXHIBITIONS Bianca Beck’s exhibition includes oil, ink, and charcoal paintings as well as small-scale oilpainted wood sculptures. Beck’s works explore the act of making as both violent and generative — giving rise to the artwork’s body while also establishing the expressive, corporeal agency of its creator. Going at her pieces percussively and aggressively, Beck engages in an idiosyncratic version of action painting that links her to performance artists and musicians such as Ana Mendieta and Patti Smith. Her ripped and torn canvases, imbued with what she calls “body colors” – such as red, brown, and black, as well as “spirit colors” – such as purple, gold, and silver bring Beck into a visual arts lineage with artists including Jean Fautrier and Mir-

iam Cahn. Beck’s tendency to tear, carve, and burn the wood and canvas on which she paints echoes the ephemeral quality of materials and of mortality itself. This is especially apparent when Beck opens up the two-dimensional picture plane to the realm of the sculptural, in which her creations stagger upright, balancing between creation and destruction. These paintings and sculptures form a body of work that is, first and foremost, a body, one that refuses fixed meaning or formal closure, preferring to stay wildly – even abjectly – alive. Bianca Beck’s work was recently featured in a solo show at New York’s White Columns, as well as in group shows at galleries throughout New York, where she lives and works.

From the earliest stages of his career, the genesis of Peter Liversidge’s creative process has been the conceptually-based practice of developing proposals for artworks across a wide range of mediums, including performance, drawing, photography, video and neon. Liversidge types his proposals on an old, manual typewriter; complete with typographical errors and handwritten annotations, the proposals for Where We Begin describe ideas from the practical to the purely hypothetical, which, when viewed in totality, create a unique narrative specifically related to the forthcoming exhibition and the beginning of his relationship with the gallery. While all of the proposals for Where We Begin will be displayed in the exhibition, the artist has chosen to realize only a select group.

In many cases, these realized proposals relate to found objects that Liversidge encountered on his recent visits to New York. Banal, everyday materials are repurposed for his use, in this case stripped of their original intent by being re-made in materials most often associated with fine art: a stack of old tractor tires found on the roadside in upstate New York will be shown as

a classical marble sculpture; small twigs from a tree that fell near the artist during a morning walk in Soho will be cast in aluminum; and a commercially-available help wanted sign — found at a local five and dime — will be enlarged to five times its normal size and screen printed on aluminum. Liversidge’s work often requires the presence of the viewer and their unique interpretation of the proposals to complete the aesthetic experience. The artist’s active engagement with each space and community for which he creates proposals is at the center of his varied and dynamic practice. In one such work for the exhibition, Liversidge has invited the gallery’s postal carrier to create an arrangement of found objects — rulers, t-squares and protractors, among others — that the artist has sent through the mail from London. The arrangement of these objects, displayed on a shelf in the exhibition, will be at the sole discretion of the mail carrier and can be rearranged by her during the course of the show as she sees fit.

Other proposed performative actions will take place throughout the duration of the exhibition, some involving gallery staff and visitors.

In one monumental 5x20 foot painting, one calamitous installation and a dozen incongruous photographic works, Liliana Porter's exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery explores with dark humor the nature of catastrophe and other frightening events. Drawing from a large and eccentric collection of figurines, knickknacks, toys, and souvenirs to create an ensemble cast, Porter arranges her characters in unexpected circumstances.

Kitsch objects are suddenly transformed into individuals with whom we instinctively empathize and identify, becoming actors that both elicit and exude emotion in mini dramas about life, death, love, longing, terror and loss. The

peculiar situations Porter invents invite political, philosophical and existential interpretation.

Through manipulation of scale and context, she distills life into its basic elements with masterful simplicity. Liliana Porter was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1941. In 1961 she moved to New York, where she has lived and worked ever since. In 1965 she founded the New York Graphic Workshop with Luis Camnitzer and Jose Guillermo Castillo. Porter has shown extensively internationally, including most recently a two-person exhibition with Marcel Broodthaers at The New Museum, New York. Her work is in numerous public and private collections.

Liliana Porter Rachel Uffner Lower East Side [through Dec 23]

Bianca Beck, Untitled, 2011, oil on canvas, 20”x16”.

Peter Liversidge Sean Kelly Chelsea [through Jan 28]

Peter Liversidge, Tire Monument, 2011, found tires cast in marble dust resin, 35.5”x15” diameter, ed of 3 with 1 AP (#1/3).

Liliana Porter Hosfelt Hell’s Kitchen [through Jan 21]

Liliana Porter, The Intruder, 2011, duraflex, 28”x41”, Ed. of 5

Exhibitions

31

EXHIBITIONS Mark Gonzales Franklin Parrasch Midtown [through Jan 7]

Mark Gonzales, Untitled, 2011, spray paint on acrylic mounted on wood, 80” x 30” x 1.75”.

KAORUKU Mike Weiss Chelsea [through Jan 7]

KAOROKU Aromako: (top) Aroma Exersize, 2010, acrylic, screen printing and sumi on canvas, 85” x122”; (bot) Aroma Moon, 2011, acrylic, silk screen, and sumi on canvas, 60”x112”.

David Gilbert Klaus von Nichtssagend Lower East Side [through Jan 22]

David Gilbert, Cave Skeleton, 2011, archival pigment print, 60”x 80”.

Made in both New York and Paris over the course of the past year, the works on view mark a synthesis between Mark Gonzales' trademark linguistic and image-based modes of expression. Gonzales' poetry, simultaneously impulsive and profound, is energetically rendered in spray paint on the slick surfaces of colored and mirrored acrylic. The episodic exploration of various themes using “automatic spelling” and oft-invented syntax as seen in Gonzales' countless self-published zines is revisited in these works. Though it is Gonzales' dynamicallyexecuted verse that elicits pause and demands closer study, the corporeal qualities of the poem works quickly seduce. In a colloquial nod to "skate culture", Gonzales' use of spray paint suggests reclamation of the raw graffiti-style text that is so often associated with skating. The

small-scale acrylic on linen paintings offer the viewer an alternate perspective. Presented on an intimate scale in the artist's trademark style are explorations of themes related to love, death, and the spiritual. While the ten paintings in this exhibition range from sensitive to fierce, the imagery is a nod to the more intimate work found in his zines, where text and image associate freely. As the viewer passes through the gallery, he is allowed (forced, perhaps) to physically occupy the space around the art and the art object itself, thereby merging the acts of creation and experience – and conflating the roles of artist and patron. To experience this selection of work is to physically enter into one of Gonzales' zines.

Mark Gonzales has always been a prolific artmaker and writer, and first began showing his work in the early 1990s.

For this solo exhibition, Aromako, Japanese artist KAORUKO uses a play on words combining the her name and visual theme of the work, explores the complexity of the modern Japanese woman in terms of her relationship with herself and tradition. Using acrylic paint, traditional sumi calligraphy techniques and silk screened kimono patterns, KAORUKO creates largescale paintings which depict women in their private domestic spaces. Drawing upon both the rich cultural history of her homeland as well as her experiences as a former Japanese pop star, KAORUKO’s female figures are set against highly codified motifs sourced from traditional woodblock prints and Japanese textiles. The luscious hues, and flattened planes of KAORUKO’s paintings are frequently inspired by the Ukiyoe ‘floating world’ prints of the Edo period, and her inclusion of wave and ocean designs, which denote ‘happiness’ and ‘mystery’, speak to her overarching themes of transcendence and universal love. While KAORUKO’s women are pre-

sented in various stages of undress, the artist insists this is not an eroticized state but rather a rare, intimate glimpse into their private lives and the friendship between them. In this series, the women inhale one another’s bodily odors, a gesture of familiarity that is a decidedly feminist stance against the significance placed by Japanese culture on pristine modesty. The very acknowledgment of these odors goes against the idealized fantasy of the yamato nadeshiko (a literal translation of this is ‘Japanese dianthus flowers’ meaning ‘women with traditional Japanese beauty’) and the social construct of kawaii, which values the feminine in terms of ‘adorability’ and ‘cuteness.’ In revealing their skin, as well as the truth about their bodies that lie concealed behind a mask of yamato nadeshiko perfection, KAORUKO illustrates the dichotomy of the contemporary Japanese women. She has cleverly learned to balance traditional expectations — signified by the inclusion of time-honored motifs — with her modern lifestyle.

The first New York solo show by David Gilbert, a Los Angeles-based artist, Titled Angels, includes photographs and sculptures. David Gilbert's installations of photography and sculpture are an effort to pin down ephemeral forms, creating a dialogue between image and actuality. Gilbert’s studio practice begins by working with humble materials such as fabric, clothing, paper, cardboard, paint, and yarn. The resulting messy, fragile, and often whimsical assemblages are arranged within the studio environment as still-life compositions or theatrical vignettes.

Gilbert often photographs these arrangements with a 4x5 camera under chiaroscuro lighting conditions and presents the resulting images

as large-scale prints. Through this re-representation, Gilbert exposes the photographic medium’s transformative potential, elevating and dignifying the scrappy sculptures into the realm of portraiture. With a nod to painters such as Ingres and Vermeer, and photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar, these “portraits” generate a conceptual fetishization of their subjects. The work operates between abstraction and vérité, where the viewer recognizes the materials from which the sculptures are made, but the resulting forms are ambiguous, ghostly or crude figurations. David Gilbert lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include The Tierney Fellowship (NYU) and Workspace (LA).

32 A|C|A December 2011

the 21st annual international los angeles photographic art exposition

speakers, panels & roundtables

january 12 - 16, 2012

• Ken Gonzalez-Day

santa monica civic auditorium preview gala benefitting the wallis annenberg photography department los angeles countymuseum of art

• Hunter Drohojowska-Philip • Manfred Heiting • Lee Kaplan • Weston Naef • Chris Pitchler • Jeffrey Henson Scales • Franklin Sirmans • Collecting Photographs: Public & Private Collections • Vivian Maier, Street Photographer: A Conversation • photoBOOK review • The Photography Book Roundtable • Photographers of the Pacific Standard Time period installations • Emerging Focus Finalists • Golden Age of Physique Photography 1945 - 1970

© Anthony Friedkin, Woman by the Pool, 1975

• Soho Cameraworks 1970-1979

www.photola.com

EXHIBITIONS

LOS ANGELES Sue Williams Regen Projects Los Angeles [through Dec 22]

Sue Williams: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, 2011, oil on canvas, 52”x62”; Unmanned Drones, 2011, oil on canvas, 60”x60”. Images courtesy Regen Projects, L.A. © Sue Williams

Alan Michael David Kordansky Culver City [Dec 17 - Feb 4]

Alan Michael, Streetwear in Drapers II, 2011, oil on canvas, 29.92”x23.23”. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Alan Gimmick

A retrospective of Sue Williams' paintings, drawings, and collages from 1990 to the present day, this exhibition illustrate the formal and thematic courses she has historically drawn upon and subverted in her work. Sue Williams' early work echoed and argued with post-feminist dialogues on gender politics and the discourse of the body. Employing a cartoon-like style, her paintings employed humor and satire in their depiction of gruesome acts of sexual violence to address issues of sexual objectification, sadomasochism, feminity, violation, and abasement. This was followed by a period where sexual attributes (orifices and genitalia) were concealed amongst brushstokes of alleged abstraction. Her work then moved to total abstraction — elegant linear passages of graceful arabesques in space. The brushed and poured lines became the subject occupying an empty

background. Figuration slowly returned to Williams' compositions in fragmented abstractions of the human form. These lyrical baroques catch different anatomical details and organic forms in their fluid and elegant web. Williams utilized the traditionally patriarchal domain of painting to simultaneously parody male dominated painterly archetypes while breaking through the medium's formal barriers. Sue Williams' paintings merge the distinct and seemingly disparate styles of figurative representation and lyrical abstraction, combining and slipping between the two while avoiding the limitations of the genres.

The line in her work is constantly in flux and is neither compelled toward depiction nor limited from it. Form, color and the resulting spaces of presence and absence prevail to create humorous, ironic, witty, and sublime explorations of the process of abstract painting.

Res Gestae, an exhibition of new work by Alan Michael, is concerned with a densely cross-referential network of reflection, repetition, and subtly conflicting stylistic choices. Michael's practice represents an investigative, even experimental, approach to the contemporary fascination with reference material and the narratives that accompany images and objects of all kinds.

The exhibition will consist of oil paintings and oil and silkscreen works on canvas. Michael's attention to detail, and his deep understanding of the history of the medium, bring the work into conversation with a surprising lineage of photorealist, pop, and appropriation-based forbears. Res Gestae, the show's title, is commonly understood as Latin for 'things done,' and was part of the Roman emperor Augustus's funerary inscription, itself regarded as an early, mortuary-inspired version of a CV. In legal terminology, the phrase is also used to describe facts incidental to a case but nonetheless admissible as part of deliberation. Michael seems to refer to both uses throughout the works made for the exhibition, in which the juxtaposition of images both directly and tangentially related to fashion poses questions about the formulation of artistic personae. Long interested in how branding reflects both the cultural landscape and the vertiginous carousel of subjectivity and self-identification, Michael takes an oblique look at the development of individual style. Of particular interest are the places and moments when general cultural ambience is on the verge of giving way to differentiations of celebrity or commer-

cial success. The exhibition itself functions as a kind of inwardly turned hall of mirrors. Images are repeated on several canvases, their color tones altered from one to the next; paintings of well-known figures like the designer Kenzo Takada or the stylist Terry Jones alternate with imagery that has been appropriated from fashion industry wholesale magazines or decontextualized advertising; and text-based works using images of a book about the cult midcentury designer J.M. Frank are seen alongside paintings of retro student fashion designs from the 1980s. The amateur, the subcultural, and the rarefied are treated with the same apparent objectivity, resulting in an evenness of tone that is all the more startling for its seeming detachment. Even the technical elaboration of these works establishes a sense of disorientation, as Michael's essentially conceptual practice draws from strategies that can be read as antithetical to his concerns. This can be seen clearly in his willingness to incorporate repetition, and therefore reference to photographic reproduction, in the kind of technically accomplished photorealist painting style historically used to mimic photography, not enact its procedures from within. Though highly labor-intensive, these paintings do not prevent Michael from engaging altogether contemporary issues of seriality and authorship — to the contrary, they allow him to take on such issues from an uncannily embodied position. The question of how an artist incorporates reference material is addressed in terms of influence as well as subject matter.

34 A|C|A December 2011

EXHIBITIONS Refraction presents eight composite photographs that questions the aura and subject of the image. Recalibrating photographs taken by the artist at the onset of his career, George Legrady shifts them into a contemporary context using an innovative printing technology that creates the illusion of transition simply by the spectator's changing the angle from which the image is viewed. The resulting ambiguity opens the potential for movement to investigate and expand our understanding of cinematic experience.

Drawing upon the visual aesthetics of French New Wave Cinema and the fundamental film making technique of montage, Legrady creates an altogether new experimental situation with the viewer. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog featuring an essay by noted critic and art historian, Abigail Solomon-Godeau. She de-

scribes the photographs "as an ensemble of images, [where] meanings are produced between among and beyond the formal groupings of each composition and the three photographs; thus, the viewer may conjure other stories that seem to arise mirage-like from within and across groupings." Legrady was born in 1950 in Budapest and raised in French Montreal.

His contribution to the photography and digital media field since the early stages of its formation into a discipline in the early 1990's has been in intersecting cultural content using various processes as a means of creating new forms of aesthetic representations and socio-cultural narrative experiences. His work has been exhibited widely including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou and most recently at SOMArts Center in San Francisco.

Angel City Eats is a multi-media installation created as a collaboration between father and daughter Jackson and Sienna De Govia. The exhibition explores two of Los Angeles's most notorious obsessions—celebrity and food — and does so through dueling yet complimentary visions of Los Angeles as it has been represented in the popular lexicon: that of the 1950's television show Dragnet, and that of contemporary Kardashian-dominated Reality TV. The exhibition features larger-than-life painted characters on cutout wood flats by Jackson, and Baroquestyled food sculptures by Sienna made from materials including glass, clay, metal, fabric, edible candy and cake. The sculptures and character paintings are combined to create tableaux that viewers are invited to move through and around as they navigate the exhibition space, as well as large wall-mounted pieces, including overlapping headshot portraits by Jackson and a rotating mechanical sculpture of diminutive kicking boots by Sienna. The gallery will hold a reception for the artists on September 10th, from 5-8pm, during which guests will be encouraged to consume several edible sculptures.

In Angel City Eats, we see two artists who have spent their careers constructing fantasies for public consumption utilize the tools of their trade to deconstruct and re-examine those fantasies. Jackson De Govia, production designer for iconic films such as Roxanne and the Die Hard trilogy, and Sienna De Govia, food stylist for print and television including reality shows like Grill It with Bobby Flay, take their personal perceptions and observations of our culture of consumption and turn them back on us, inviting us into a participatory experience of the City of Angels in two of its most memorable moments of simulation. The exhibition space is divided into two rooms, each of which will

be devoted to one of the two time periods. The main room of the gallery will be dominated by figure groups representing the caffeinated and nicotined 1950’s Los Angeles of Dragnet’s Joe Friday, and the smaller gallery room will be transformed into Kim Kardashian’s 21st century super-celebrity society. In the Dragnet room, we stand next to Joe Friday and his partner Ben Alexander in front of a locker overflowing with cascading fabric doughnuts, while in the room next door Kim Kardashian’s entourage, here called the Celebritards, sport Byzantine halos of candy delicacies and worship the glorified Kim — bursting naked from a crumpled wedding dress. The sensory experience of Angel City Eats is purposefully overwhelming and hyper-saturated, meant to evoke an emotional response. Jackson’s prettily constructed figures instill a reaction in the viewer similar to that of a theme park — fantasy at its populace-numbing and entertaining best — and when combined with the ornate detail and candied excess of Sienna’s food sculptures, the effect is disorienting and revealingly saccharine. By inviting us into these scenes of crime, punishment and excess, the De Govia's remind us both of the consistency of our desire for dramatic simulation, and our complicity in the fantasies we consume. Jackson De Govia is an Emmy award winning production designer, with over four decades of experience in film, television, and theater.

Sienna De Govia received a BFA in sculpture from the California College of Arts in Oakland, and works as a food stylist for print, television and film. This is their first professional artistic collaboration.

George Legrady Edward Cella Los Angeles [through Dec 31]

George Legrady: At the Bar, 2011 1/15, Lenticular photographic print, 8”x10”; Movement, 2011 2/5, Photography/lenticular, 32”x47”; Retelling, 2011 1/3, Dynamically generated animations.

Jackson & Sienna De Govia Gallery KM Venice [through Dec 22]

Exhibitions

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EXHIBITIONS SUPERFLEX 1301PE West Hollywood [opens Jan 18]

The Danish collective SUPERFLEX has gained worldwide recognition for their diverse and complex projects. SUPERFLEX was formed in 1993 by Rasmus Nielsen, Jakob Fenger and Bjornstjerne Christiansen. The focus of this SUPERFLEX exhibition, Modern Times, Forever, is the fictional belief in our own invincibility. Included are three major works, Modern Times Forever, Blackout and Experience Climate Change As An Animal will be presented for the first time in the United States. Modern Times Forever is a 240-hour film depicting the demise of architect Alvar Aalto’s Stora Enso monumental headquarters building in Helsinki. Being the longest film ever made, time has a dual effect of speed and slowness as it covers 5,000 years.

"The building is also cast to play this role because there is something about these modernist icons that they’re not supposed to get old; their

supposed to always look young. And when they start to look old you feel that there’s something fundamentally wrong,” says SUPERFLEX. First exhibited in 2009 at Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense, Holland, Blackout is a collaboration between SUPERFLEX and British artist, Simon Starling. Derived from a modern lamp design

by Poul Henningsen for Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen during World War II, Blackout refers to the hope of living a normal safe life under the threat of harm. SUPERFLEX powerfully continues this theme in Experience Climate Change As An Animal. Here a series of unique poster size works propose a future event that features hypnosis sessions where humans are to see themselves as animals threatened by extinction.

The three bodies of work that comprise this exhibition question basic themes in our modern times.

SUPERFLEX, Modern Times Forever, 2011, HD, 3D photo realistic animation, duration: 240 hours (10 days), format: 16:9; (with Simon Starling) Blackout, 2009. pressed aluminum shades, dimensions variable

This is Mary Anna Pomonis’ first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. The exhibition focuses on diamonds and historic gemstones as talismans of power and beauty. In Brio features paintings inspired by Elizabeth Taylor and the painter Billy Al Bengston. Pomonis’ work fuses these two seemingly opposite impulses for both feminine and masculine power as typified by the diamond in culture. Fittingly, her work utilizes an industrial airgun and an airbrush, used to paint cars and fingernails respectively. The major chevron images correspond to historic diamond subjects. For example, The Spotlight From Within, after Christopher Knight on Billy Al Bengston corresponds in size with Some People Call Me The Modern Day Liz Taylor, after Jennifer Lopez. It also utilizes the same colors as the portrait of Jennifer Lo-

pez’ famous “Bennifer” diamond engagement ring. The pink emerald cut stone hovers on a dense black field inviting the viewer into a universe of hard edge painting and iconography. Encapsulated in each painting are prismatic spectrums of faded color that mimic the optical effect of diamonds and aureoles.

Pomonis’ process strategically mixes the language of masculine and feminine power, making reference to both the Flying Wing and the Krupp Diamond. Elizabeth Taylor once noted that the Krupp (which she owned) was attractive to her precisely because of the damage the Krupp family had done to the world via manufacturing munitions. She felt it her duty as a Jewish woman to possess the stone and bring it to the world on her finger, recontextualizing its meaning one viewer at a time.

Hans Burkhardt’s (1904–1994) expansive career and influence in L.A. are the focus of a survey exhibition of paintings and drawings titled Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream. The exhibition, as part of the Getty’s initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980. Arriving in L.A. in 1937, following his association with Arshile Gorky, whose studio he shared in New York from 1928-37, Burkhardt represented L.A.’s earliest and most critical link to the New York School. The exhibition juxtaposes Burkhardt’s work with contemporaneous reviews and rare archival documentation spanning more than six decades. Included are important paintings shown in his first solo exhibition at the Stendahl Gallery, and his first museum exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1945, which the L.A. Times called

an exhibition of “…dynamic power…a striking transfer of feeling into form.Following that museum exhibition, Burkhardt was both critically celebrated and “censored,” as his works proved controversial in the years leading up to the McCarthy Era, when modern artists in L.A. were seen as Communist threats. Particularly controversial were his anti-war paintings and Hollywood studio strike paintings, including his “indictment” of then, Screen Actor Guild head, Ronald Reagan. “Less incendiary” subjects also proved controversial, such as his Crucifixion Series — condemned for his use of red color and abstract style, regarded as subversive; examples of which are included in Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream. Also shown in the Rutberg exhibition are Burkhardt’s profound anti-war paintings of the 1960s and 70s.

Mary Anna Pomonis Annie Wharton Los Angeles [through Jan 6]

Mary Ann Pomonis, Untitled White Princess, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 20"x20".

Hans Burkhardt Jack Rutberg Los Angeles [through Dec 22]

Hans Burkhardt, Liberation of Paris, 1944 oil on canvas, 38”x47”

36 A|C|A December 2011

EXHIBITIONS

CHICAGO / SAN FRANCISCO An American, born in the Philippines and raised in India, London and Paris, Jackie Tileston’s new series of paintings, Parastrata, continue to incorporate the diverse elements from both eastern and western aesthetics, creating a visual metaphor for her multi-cultural upbringing. Through the use of oil, dry pigment, enamel, collage and transfer items, Tileston’s paintings are rich combinations of texture, tone, gesture and control. Tileston states, “There’s a wonderful Sanskrit phrase “Sandhya-bhasha,” meaning Twilight Language — language that deliberately exists in the liminal spaces of dusk and the edge of actualization; that which is half expressed and half concealed. Painting too, is just such a language, able to mediate between the non-demonstrable and the real. Painting becomes interlingual, translating from one level of experience to another. These paintings float upon a base of Western traditions; the atmospheric scumblings of Turner, the late fields of Monet, the desires of early and mid 20th century abstraction, and finally the liberations made

available by postmodernism, when the distinctions between pictorial languages dissolved, scrambled, and blurred. Into this territory swirl flying apsaras from China, Taoist landscapes, floating worlds, the colors of India and tantric raptures, the infinite webs and one-world theories of contemporary science, and the mediated images from the world around me. The swishing of celestial forms intersects with thick chunks of paint, enacting what Jerry Saltz called paintings crucial weapon — “the mystical ability to embed thought in viscous substance”. The paintings range from slow and contemplative, to ecstatic sensory overload. I intend them to function as integrative systems; polysemous images shudder between assertion and dissolution, probing the possibilities of how imagery and worlds are arrived at. I use recombinant strategies, gathering together unattainable presences and sticky realities — wondering, through what technologies and practices, does contemporary culture envision and conjure the unseen? ”

This exhibition of new paintings, sculptures and video by Bay-Area based artist Leslie Shows continues Shows’ investigation of the connectivity of philosophies of matter and ontology, geology and the materiality of painting. Using sheets of plexiglass, inks, mylar, crushed glass, metal dust and engraving, Shows has reconstructed images of two pyrite rocks — more commonly known as fool’s gold — on thin, reflective aluminum panels. For Shows, the luminous reflectivity and multifaceted appearance of pyrite gives visual representation to her conceptual concern with the various lenses through which we understand objecthood. The resulting paintings appear abstract, yet are photorealistically constructed. Shows’ large sulfur sculpture refers to the elemental composition of pyrite (iron disulfide, FeS2). While pyrite is a valueless material in industry, sulfur production is a strong indicator of a modern civilization’s economic viability. Shows casts commonplace objects and pieces of pyrite itself in vivid yellow sulfur, utilizing an industrially ubiquitous material to create a sculpture that resists notions of function and value. Leslie Shows’ work has been exhibited at the Orange County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum

of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Oakland Museum of California. She has been the recipient of an Artadia Award (2009), SFMOMA SECA Award (2006) and Tournesol Award (2006) from the Headlands Center for the Arts. Shows was recently included in the 8th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil and just completed a residency at the Bemis Center for the Arts in Omaha, NE. She will be included in upcoming exhibitions at the Salina Art Center, SFMOMA and Nelson Gallery at UC-Davis.

Sue Williams Zg Chicago [through Dec 31]

Jackie Tileston: Liminal Bloom, 2011, 60"x 72"; detail of Office of Sustainable Bliss, 2011, 72”h. x 60”w. Both images: oil, enamel, dry pigment, mixed media on linen. Courtesy of Zg Gallery.

Leslie Shows Haines San Francisco [through Dec 24]

Leslie Shows: (above) Face K, 2011, ink, acrylic, mylar, sand, canvas, plastic and engraving on aluminum, 82”x48”; (left) Face E, 2011, ink, acrylic, mylar, plexiglass, metal filings and engraving on aluminum, 40”x48”.

Exhibitions

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“A Feather In His Cap” 6’ 8” in height

“Rising Cumulus” 8 feet in height

“Whimsical Dances” Stainless Steel 10 feet in height

“Playing Ball” 16 feet in height

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EXHIBITIONS ARTISTS

Emily Van Horn

THE NON-ARTIST’S ARTIST

by Nicole Serrat I don’t always have the best perception of artists. Egotistical snobs who believe their art is religion and their paint brush Zeus’s bolt of lightning. I can only imagine whomever this woman is I am about to meet. Will she strike me down with her palette knife and burn me with the fires of her pretention?

Enter: Emily Van Horn. She is a sweet, thin frame sitting in the corner of a quiet Indian restaurant, beaming me a smile. We start to chitchat and the waiter politely interrupts to pour me a glass of water. She let’s me know, “They’re really sweet here.” So is Van Horn.

For 20 years, she has lived her life as a professional energy healer. A native of California, she grew up in Long Beach and attended college in San Diego, studying psychology. She eventually found herself in masseuse school after 10 years of waiting tables and traveling the world.

“After traveling, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to get my master’s degree in Women’s Studies and change the world.’ And…that didn’t…” as she trails off we both start to chuckle, the fullness of her laugher bursting through the room.

Never would she have thought she would become an artist. Describing herself as a previous “closet artist” her delay into the art world was due to lack of confidence. Van Horn can even pinpoint it to a memory of junior high. “I remember that I didn’t get picked for Honors Art. And I didn’t do anything until I was in my 30s.”

Her official introduction to art was while traveling in Italy at 19 years old. The year after, she returned to Europe. “My friends would get mad at me because I wanted to go to all the galleries and the museums and they wanted to go to the beach.” Still, no art had come from her travels.

In her 30s, things began to stir.

She had started collage classes at SMC and eventually attended the Esalen Institute in Big Sur on a painting work-study program, focusing on expression rather than technique. “I painted everyday for a month.” But that wasn’t enough.“

I had been hearing about this woman Ilana Bloch.” Van Horn took it upon herself to find Ilana. She was nervous. “Oh my God, is she gonna accept me? I know nothing.” The two met and Van

Horn started taking classes with her, and now credits Bloch as a friend. “I just lucked out with a good teacher.”

On seeing her work, Van Horn’s art is bright and beautiful: a mix of collage and paint, pinks and blues, drawing and words. But what I can see most is how refreshing her lack of technique and formality is. “True abstract art you’re actually looking at something and then you’re abstracting that thing. That’s not really what I do. And in the beginning I felt like I was cheating, because that’s what the ‘real’ artists are supposed to do.” Emily takes her organic impulses and goes with it. “It’s so much about making decisions.”

Van Horn does believe her work with energy healing is a big part of her work as an artist. “I believe everything’s energy, whatever you’re vibrating, is going to come through in whatever you’re doing, whether you’re making dinner or painting a painting.”

The entertainment industry has even taken notice and rented her pieces for television and film. Her resume includes top-notch shows like “Mad Men”, “House”, “Brothers & Sisters”, and Tom Ford’s 2009 Oscar contender, “A Single Man” although it didn’t make the final cut.

Ten of her pieces are now located at Bru Coffee on Vermont Avenue. A good friend of hers saw the previously shutdown coffee spot Psychobabble had been revamped with white walls and high ceilings, perfect for a display. After contacting Sharleen Mokhtarzadeh, owner of Bru Coffee, Van Horn has her artwork on display (and for sale) until the end of the year.

Her art is, most importantly, selfless. “My hope is that someone will get a healing from the art. That something will resonate from it that will shift their energy or shift their state. And some people have told me that comes through…makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

By the end of this meal, I am a believer in what I refer to as: the non-artist’s artist. An artist who can look past the rules and just create, who can fight inhibitions and be a victor. “I want everybody to be able to do what they love to do. It seems like that’s how it should ACA be.” Lucky for us, Van Horn is doing just that.

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COLLEEN SANDLAND

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Ugo Nonis Scott Sterling Marie-Pierre Philippe-Lohezic Walt Jones Ute Hillenbrand

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William Reynolds Green Maureen J Haldeman Ivan Searcy Natalie Gray Berko

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