Fabrik Magazine - Issue 19

Page 1

ART. DESIGN. ARCHITECTURE.

ISSUE 19


3(7(5 )(77(50$1

ŠMarc Riboud, Painter of the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, 1953

% ( 5 * $ 0 2 7 6 7 $ 7 , 2 1 * $ / / ( 5 < $ 0 , & + , * $ 1 $ 9 ( 6 $ 1 7 $ 0 2 1 , & $ & $ 7 ) 3(7(5#3(7(5)(77(50$1 &20 ::: 3(7(5)(77(50$1 &20


*

$

/

/

(

5

<

ŠMarc Riboud, Varanasi, India, 1956

Marc Riboud The Eye of the Traveler December 15 - March 16, 2013

New award winning book

Into the Orient available in the gallery




LA ART SHOW 2013 HISTORIC | MODERN | CONTEMPORARY


the 22nd international los angeles photographic art exposition santa monica civic auditorium gala reception, thursday, january 17th IRU WKH EHQHĂ€W RI ,QQHU &LW\ $UWV

MDQXDU\ www.photola.com


CONTRIBUTORS MASTHEAD

JACKI APPLE is a Los Angeles-based visual, performance, and media artist, designer, writer, composer, and producer whose work has been presented internationally. Her writings have been featured in numerous publications including THE Magazine LA, The Drama Review, Art Journal, and High Performance. She is a professor at Art Center College of Design.

Publisher Chris Davies Associate Editor Peter Frank Managing Editor Aparna Bakhle-Ellis

APARNA BAKHLE-ELLIS is a writer enthralled by the consonance and dissonance of ‘being’ in Los Angeles. L'écriture féminine, outsider art, and altered states of consciousness rank high among her myriad interests. She is also Fabrik’s Managing Editor.

Creative Director Chris Davies Art Direction & Design Chris Davies & Paul Soady Contributing Writers Jacki Apple Aparna Bakhle-Ellis Nicholas Forrest Peter Frank Phil Tarley Dale Youngman 5790projects Account Executive Dale Youngman

EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING Editorial editorial@fabrik.la Advertising ads@fabrik.la Contact 269 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 1234 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 Tel 310 360 8333 • http://www.fabrik.la

INFORMATION Fabrik is published Quarterly by Fabrik Media Group, Inc., 269 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 1234, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Contents cannot be reproduced in part or in full without the written permission of the copyright holder. The opinions expressed are those of the artists and writers themselves and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Fabrik or Fabrik Media Group. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. PRINTED IN LOS ANGELES

ART. DESIGN. ARCHITECTURE.

ISSUE 19

ON THE COVER Origami Shark, 2012 Marc Fichou Unfolded archival pigment print Edition of 7 Slight 42 x 42 inches

NICHOLAS FORREST is a Sydney/London based art market analyst, art consultant and writer. He is the founder of the Art Market Blog (artmarketblog.com) which offers independent commentaries, research and analysis on the current art market. PETER FRANK is art critic for the Huffington Post and Associate Editor for Fabrik magazine. He is former critic for Angeleno magazine and the L.A. Weekly, served as Editor for THE magazine Los Angeles and Visions Art Quarterly, and contributes articles to publications around the world. Frank was born in 1950 in New York, where he was art critic for The Village Voice and The SoHo Weekly News, and moved to Los Angeles in 1988. Frank, who recently served as Senior Curator at the Riverside Art Museum, has organized numerous theme and survey shows for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, Documenta, and other venues. McPherson & Co. -Documentext published his Something Else Press: An Annotated Bibliography in 1983. A cycle of poems, The Travelogues, was issued by Sun & Moon Press in 1982. Abbeville Press released New, Used & Improved, an overview of the New York art scene co-written with Michael McKenzie, in 1987. PHIL TARLEY is a Fellow of The American Film Institute and an artist member of the Los Angeles Art Association. As an art and pop culture critic: he regularly posts stories on The WOW Report; he writes about art and photography for Fabrik Magazine; and he is a juror on the Lark International Art Competition. Tarley is currently working on a book of narrative non-fiction travel stories and on a variety of photographic art projects. He has recently been appointed to a City of West Hollywood task force on Public Art Installation. Phil Tarley now curates for Artist’s Corner, Hollywood’s newest fine art photography gallery. DALE YOUNGMAN is a freelance curator and writer who has been living in LA for 15 years. Her raison d’être is to reverse the paradigm of the starving artist, one at a time. 5790projects is a curatorial entity that produces quarterly popup exhibitions in Los Angeles, and was founded by Catlin Moore and Matthew Gardocki in 2011. Moore is the Director of Mark Moore Gallery (Culver City, CA), where Gardocki is also Assistant Director. Gardocki studied at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, and is one of the founding members of Igloo Tornado arts collective. Moore is completing her MA at California State University, Long Beach, and is a contributor to several art publications, including Daily Serving, Beautiful/Decay, and ArtLog.


CONTENTS

46

10 Iconoclast: Marc Riboud: The Eye of the Traveler 18 Spotlight: Ceci n’est pas (This is not) 32 Art Fairs: Fairs Present Past and Future Art 46 Fresh Faces in Art: Emergent Presence: Eight LA Artists You Should Know 66 Art Market: Why the L.A. Art Fair Season is the One to Watch 72 Profile: Eternal Recurrence: The Art of Claudia Kleefeld 78 Profile: When Poetry Takes Form: The Art of Inés Alonso Ares 84 Profile: The Fine Art of Machine Fabrication: How Mike Russek Uses New Technologies to Advance His Art Form 92 Review: Laurie Anderson’s “Dirtday!” 96 Coming Out, Going In: Lora Schlesinger Gallery: Coming Out: Richard Bruland, New Paintings, and Keira Kotler, “I Look For Light” Going In: Lawrence Gipe, “Salon” 98 Art About Town: Peter Frank’s Museum Views


MARC THE EYE OF

BEIJING, CHINA, 1965 © MARC RIBOUD


RIBOUD THE TRAVELER WORDS PHIL TARLEY // PHOTOS COURTESY THE PETER FETTERMAN GALLERY


ICONOCLAST

I N 19 2 3 , M ARC RI BO UD was born in Lyon. At the 1937 Great Exhibition of Paris, he took his first pictures with the small Vest-Pocket camera his father gave him. So began a life rich in black and white imagery. The Eye of the Traveler at the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Bergamot Station is an encyclopedic show of Riboud’s peripatetic works, of images recalling a life well shot. Riboud pioneered a photographic exploration that spanned much of Asia and the Indian subcontinent. After fighting in the French resistance at war’s end, the photographer moved to Paris where he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capra and Ernst Hass. These founders of Magnum Photos sported among its members the dominant documentary lensmen of the age and by 1953, Riboud was a member. His ability to capture life’s fleeting moments — moments that were powerfully yet elegantly composed — was a skill that kept him employed and published through more than three decades of ground breaking travel around the world. One of the show’s standout prints, Chinese 30, is an homage to the Riboud’s mentor, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Here, a shop window is used to frame and fragment little pastiches of Chinese street life. Riboud’s brackets function as visual quotation marks, bringing the inhabitants he has photographed into sharp relief so that we can better parse and ponder their mystique, their habitat and their humor.

Moscow 1960, a silvery snowscape, has a soft, impressionist feeling that transports the viewer — in a way that only the best photographs can - to a sweet zone of timelessness. The eighteenth century architecture and the lazy tracks of streetcars delight the eye and catch one up in a white cocoon of snowy sense-memories. Another timeless evocation of place, India Ganges is a wonderful horizontal image, squeezed thin like the screen at a Cinemascope movie. In the distance, elephants are washed in the Ganges’ mists and a languid long boat drifts by in the foreground. A boy steadies himself on pointed toe silhouetted against the shimmering river. On pointed toe is a form of human expression Riboud captured again in his delightful portrait of a man painting the Eiffel tower high above a Parisian cityscape. Riboud’s traveling eye also made it to the USA. Two of those indelible images are included in Fetterman’s show; an eerily beautiful portrait of a Los Angles freeway and a flower child confronting a phalanx of soldiers at a Vietnam protest, a Washington D.C. nadir. Last November, Marc Riboud received the 2012 Nadar Prize awarded by the National Library of France for the best photographic book Towards the Orient,

12

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


PAINTER OF THE EIFFEL TOWER, PARIS, FRANCE, 1953 © MARC RIBOUD


YOUNG GIRL WITH FLOWER IN A DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE WAR IN VIETNAM, WASHINGTON, USA, 1967 © MARC RIBOUD

MOSCOW, RUSSIA, 1960 © MARC RIBOUD


ICONOCLAST

GANGE, INDIA, 1956 © MARC RIBOUD

published by Xavier Barral. A five volume boxed set spectacularly printed and available for purchase from the gallery, Towards The Orient covers Riboud’s travels during the 1950s. It holds some of the most beautiful black and white photographs ever taken. Riboud’s visual narrative (the volumes also contain his written notes) chronicles his long, slow, purposeful journey. With a desire to discover ancient civilizations, he first stopped in Istanbul before continuing his expedition through the striking Anatolian landscapes. He crossed Persia to reach Afghanistan and its tribal zones. In 1956, he arrived in India, which he explored for nearly a year. It’s from there that Riboud became one of the first western photographers to enter Communist China. He ended his “grand tour” in Japan in 1958, which he found war-torn and under major reconstruction following its devastation and occupation by U.S. forces. Gallerist Peter Fetterman has plucked some of the most numinous images from the book for this most luminous show.

Marc Riboud – The Eye of the Traveler runs until March 16, 2013.

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

15




FURRIES • OIL ON CANVAS • 79 X 118 INCHES • 2012 PAINTER VIRGILE FRAISSE, FROM THE ECOLE NATIONALE DES BEAUX ARTS DE PARIS IS PARTICIPATING IN THE CECI N'EST PAS INITIATIVE AS AN EXCHANGE STUDENT AT OTIS COLLEGE.


Ceci n’est pas (This is not) — WORDS PHIL TARLEY


SPOTLIGHT

Los Angelenos who love champagne, experimental cinema, and art with pith and whimsy are in luck — the French are coming to L.A. and serving up a five month extravaganza of parties, exhibitions, screenings and fairs that kicked-off one night last November with a soirée fantastique at Barnsdall Art Park. Noteworthy was the attendance of François Delattre, Ambassador of France to the United States. The fete marked the opening of Ceci n’est pas’ (CNP) first major show, LOST (in L.A.). Delattre saluted the event and predicted that CNP “will be a time of creative dialogue between our two countries and our two cultures.” The ambassador said, “In the next five months, the Los Angeles art world will welcome many French artists and professionals. They will be able to share their passions and ideas while strengthening relationships, which is what Ceci n’est pas... is all about.” 20

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


SPOTLIGHT

The event distilled an intoxicating mix of artists, gallerists, writers and bon vivants, from both Paris and Los Angeles. As a handsome horde of young men and women servers poured flutes of chilled Roderer, the stylish assemblage of dignitaries and artophiles perused the show. LOST (in LA) curator Marc-Olivier Wahler spoke about the genesis of the Ceci n’est pas initiative. In 2006 the Centre Pompidou proposed an exhibition which it titled “Los Angeles 1955-1985: Birth of an Artistic Capital.” As the concept developed, it morphed dramatically to trace those through-lines to the present day and emphasize contemporary art. Thus, CNP programming includes the participation of 100 artists in 30 venues throughout the Southland. This five-month program is a bold celebration of the French fascination with Hollywood, la vie californienne and Los Angeles as a powerhouse center of Modern Art. Some have compared this grand survey to the all-over-L.A. Getty Pacific Standard Time program. But CNP is au courant and includes a meaningful exchange with Los Angeles artists exhibiting contemporary art and screening experimental film in Paris. I suppose as much as we amuse the French, Paris is a muse of sorts to many artists and filmmakers here in Los Angeles, myself included. CNP, in its latest incarnation, is a project initiated by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, in association with the Institut Français, with the support of the Alliance Française of Los Angeles, and the French Ministry of Culture. F.L.A.X. the French Los Angeles Exchange, which counts Southern California as having the second largest French community in the U.S., provides assistance, promotion and adds a chicly attired and well coiffed presense to the events this author has attended. Venues include Los Angeles Municipal Art Museum at Barnsdall Art Park, LACMA (Los Angles County Museum of Art), LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Cherry+Martin, and the Robert Berman Gallery, among many others. Le dénouement, or the grand finale, is the historic, firsttime L.A. appearance of Paris Photo, the world’s most important photo show which will stage its fair on the Paramount Studio lot in Hollywood at the end of April. Below are brief descriptions of some of the exhibitions available at press time. Programming is evolving, with new events being added constantly. Check the highly potent CNP website for updates at http://cnp-la.org.

So bring it on. Vive la France!

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

21


SPOTLIGHT

LOS ANGELES MUNICIPAL GALLERY AT BARNSDALL ART PARK December 1, 2012–January 27, 2013

PHILIPPE MAYAUX • NIGHT CITY, 2011-2012, TEMPERA ON CANVAS • 24 X 33 CM / 9 3/8 X 13 INCHES PRIVATE COLLECTION, PARIS. IMAGE COURTESY GALERIE LOEVENBRUCK, PARIS ©ADAGP, PARIS. PHOTO: F. GOUSSET

LOST (in LA), organized by the FLAX Foundation, continues the dialogue between LA and French artists. It reproduces the quintessential Los Angeles experience of being lost in the heart of this metropolis. Layers of time and space appear to be interlaced together atop a hill hidden in the middle of the city. The show features more than 60 works by established and emerging artists from France and Los Angeles. December 1, 2012 through January 27, 2013, at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park.

More information can be found at http://lostinla.com ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY The Robert Berman Gallery in Bergamot Station hosts two CNP shows, back to back. Both feature the photographic work of French conceptual artists now living in LA. 22

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


SPOTLIGHT

Marc Fichou’s Contenant Contenu (Containing, Contained…) January 12-February 16 2013

The artist’s fourth show at the gallery offers a brilliant and mind-boggling cross-medium exploration of a loop connecting two versions of the same object in space and time. Containing Contained perfectly epitomizes the central concept of This is Not. (To Be and Not to Be is a wonderful conundrum).

LAUREN MARSOLIER • LANDSCAPE WITH COVERED CAR, TRIPTYCH, 2012, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINTS IMAGE COURTESY OF LAUREN MARSOLIER AND THE ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY

Marsolier’s photographs are deceptively tranquil yet filled with allegorical allusions to modern living. This is the best kind of conceptual art— visually arresting in its perfect compositions, simultaneously provoking a rich conversation filled with subtextural anxieties that lurk beneath the surface of her photographs.

More information can be found at http://robertbermangallery.com CHERRY + MARTIN Bernard Piffaretti — Report: January 12–February 16, 2013

Cherry and Martin presents the first United States solo exhibition in ten years by one of the most important contemporary French painters, Bernard Piffaretti, as curated in conversation with Matt Connors. For more than 30 years, Piffaretti has expressed the virtues and contradictions of painting, pairing codes of modern abstraction with a strict conceptual methodology. By vertically dividing the canvas into two equal halves creating the right-side as the original and the left-side its copy, Piffaretti has shaped his oeuvre into a multi-perplexing paradox that runs the gamut of painting’s canon while forming the quintessential Duchampian question to the audience.

More information can be found at http://cherryandmartin.com Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

23


SPOTLIGHT

BERNARD PIFFARETTI • UNTITLED, 2012 • ACRYLIC ON CANVAS • 94.4 X 78.7 INCHES, 239.78 X 199.9 CM IMAGE COURTESY OF CHERRY AND MARTIN, LOS ANGELES

24

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


SPOTLIGHT

ART LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY The Barker Hangar: January 24–27, 2013

TALA MADANI • RED INTERROGATION • OIL ON LINEN, 2012 • 16 X 20.25 INCHES IMAGE COURTESY OF PILAR CORRIAS GALLERY, LONDON

Tim Fleming’s cutting edge Art Los Angeles Contemporary, now in its fourth year, will take part in CNP by hosting a special section of the fair dedicated to visiting French galleries and their exhibiting artists. The fair will also highlight the relationship between these two cultural hubs through extensive programming of talks, lectures, and screenings. ALAC features an exclusive roster of established and emerging galleries from across the globe. While continuing its tradition of highlighting galleries from Los Angeles, ALAC welcomes a greater number of international galleries to the cultural landscape of Los Angeles in January.

More information can be found at http://artlosangelesfair.com

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

25


SPOTLIGHT

LACE (LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS

SERGE BROMBERG & RUXANDRA MEDREA, STILL FROM L'ENFER D'HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT / ISABELLE CORNARO, STILL FROM DE L’ARGENT FILMÉ DE PROFIL ET DE TROIS QUARTS, 2010

LACE seems to have taken the Los Angeles/Paris CNP and harnessed it to its raison d’etre, contemporary multimedia art and video. LACE has numerous exhibitions, some in coordination with other institutions and venues, like LA Existancial. Check out their website for updates. If you see a lot of French names, it’s a good bet the event or show is part of CNP. Prominent LACE/CNP programming is The End of the Night, an avant cinematic series, curated by Martha Kirszenbaum, which runs from March 21-April 28, 2013.

The End of the Night, a double exhibition project developed in Los Angeles and Paris, is inspired by the work of two major experimental filmmakers: one Californian, Kenneth Anger, and one French, Henri-Georges Clouzot, This transversal double group-show, one part in L.A, Clouzot influenced, complements a second part in Paris, which is Kenneth Anger themed. Both are organized around notions of abstraction, kinetic art and optical illusions.

More information can be found at http://welcometolace.org PARIS PHOTO, LOS ANGELES Staging on The Paramount Pictures Studio Lot: April 25–28, 2013

In the unique creative environment of Los Angeles, where Hollywood and film inform contemporary art and culture, Paris Photo will launch its first ever Los Angeles show, with LACMA’S Britt Salvesen branding the event with a sterling curatorial presence. 26

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


SPOTLIGHT

Some of the venues within the fair include: New York Street Backlot, Solo Show Section

The New York Street Backlot is dedicated to the presentation of approximately 25 cutting edge solo shows. This replica of New York City offers amazing opportunities to present a specific body of work by one artist. Each selected gallery will be allocated one of the exclusive “sets” to create a solo exhibition. Moving Images

This section will take place in the heart of the Hollywood and expand the boundaries between photography and moving images, showcasing work by historical and contemporary artists working in video. Check the Paris Photo website for updates. There is so much going on within the Ceci n’est pas purview, some of the participants include: Participating Partners & Institutions to date include: (Please go to www.cnpla.org for the most current list.) 18th Street Art Center, Art Center College of Design, Art Los Angeles Contemporary Fair, Be-art, California Institute for the Arts, Castillo

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

27


SPOTLIGHT

Corales, Cherry and Martin Gallery, CNAP (French National Centre for Contemporary Art), Ecole des Beaux Arts de Bordeaux, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Lyon, Ecole Supérieure d'Art de l'agglomération d'Annecy, Fabien Castanier Gallery, Favorite Goods, FLAX, FRAME (French Regional American Museum Exchange), Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Galerie Franck Elbaz, GDM_galerie de multiples, Galerie Hussenot, Galerie Joseph Tang, Galerie Loevenbruck, Galerie Torri, ltd los angeles, Here is Elsewhere, LACE, LA><ART, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Machine Project, Mains d’Oeuvres, MAK Center / Schindler House, New Galerie, Otis College of Art and Design, PARIS-LA Magazine, Paris Photo LA, Public Fiction, REDCAT, Robert Berman Gallery, Université Paris 8, University of California Los Angeles, and University of Southern California. Presenting Artists and Participants to date include: (Please go to www.cnpla.org for the most current list.) Ivan Argote, Bettina Attala, Fayçal Baghriche, John Baldessari, Stephan Balkenhol, Davide Balula, Pauline Bastard, Berdaguer/Pejus, Julien Berthier, Julien Bismuth, Dominique Blais, Michel Blazy, Sophie BonnetPourpret, Nicolas Boulard, Elsa Bourdot, Valentin Carron, Pierre-Laurent Cassiere, Edwin Chan, Matt Connors, Isabelle Cornaro, Marie de Brugerolle, Philippe Decrauzat, Daniel Dewar, Bertrand Dezoteux, Sheila Donovan, Sophie Dubosc, Brigitte Engler, Didier Faustino, Patricia Fernandez, Robert Filliou, Jean-Pascal Flavien, Andrea Fraser, Cyprien Gaillard, Vincent Ganivet, Dora Garcia, Miguel Garcia Vivancos, Clara Gensberger, Gregory Gicquel, Dominique Gilliot, Piero Golia, Jeff Guess, Peter Harkawik, Camille Henrot, Thomas Hirschhorn, Pierre Huyghe, Fabrice Hyber, Nathan Hylden, Armand Jalut, Jimpunk, JonOne, Martha Kirszenbaum, Robert Kinmont, Vincent Lamouroux, Thomas Lawson, Laurent Le Deunff, Julio Le Parc, Pierre Leguillon, Anton Lieberman, M/M Paris, Sylvia Maglioni, Tony Matelli, Philippe Mayaux, Rodney McMillan, Antonio Mendoza, Mathieu Mercier, Laurent Montaron, Claude Parent, Aude Pariset, François Perrin, Bernard Piffaretti, Julien Prévieux, Chloe Quenum, Florian & Michael Quistrebert, Jimmy Robert, Allan Ruppersberg, Mickael Salvi, Benjamin Seror, Jim Shaw, Alexandre Singh, Philippe Terrier-Hermann, Graeme Thomson, Tatiana Trouvé, Oscar Tuazon, Lucille Uhlrich, Xavier Veilhan, Jean-Luc Verna, and Marnie Weber.

More information can be found at http://losangeles.parisphoto.com

28

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


B

O

B

W W W. B O B F R A N C I S . C O M

F

R

A

N

BOB@BOBFRANCIS.COM

C

I

S

310 . 318 . 226 6

P l e a s e v i s i t t h e A r t C a p i t o l B o o t h S A - 10 2 a t p h o t o l a , J a n 17- 21 , 2013


Conversations

Available for commission projects: watercolor, oil, acrylic; mixed media, painting, sculpture and installations.

“Love Garden” 48x48; oil, acrylic on canvas

www.karrierossfineart.com 310-915-0920

©2012 Karrie Ross All rights reserved.


THE MARILYN MOTEL, TUCSON ARIZONA, 1983 • 30” X 40”

MICHAEL R. STOKLOS ASSIGNMENT, INDUSTRIAL, STOCK, PORTRAITS & GALLERY PRINTS TEL (520) 471-0005 EMAIL mstoklos@gmail.com WEB www.stoklosphotos.com


ART FAIRS

FAIRS PRESENT PAST AND FUTURE ART — WORDS APARNA BAKHLE-ELLIS

M

ore than ever, art fairs bring together not just artists and buyers but valuable insight into the trends, styles and talent being watched as they shape the future. It seems poetic justice that commodities as highly codified as art continue driving forward markets attended by increasing numbers of buyers. Many among the world’s powerful people collect contemporary art, which occupies an exceptionally strategic position culturally. However, driving conversations towards the forms being utilized to construct and reflect the constructions of meaning can still feel subversive in the right hands. After all, artists genuinely responding to the world around them through their work, directly and/or indirectly, allow for penetrating insight into the condition of being human. Aware the face time afforded by art fairs helps cultivate buyers and future collectors, galleries keep unbelievably busy hours preparing for and attending the ever-increasing art fair circuits as they widen around the world. Many will be in Los Angeles and Southern California during the month of January and February for our winter fair season participating in Photo LA, The

32

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART FAIRS

LA Art Show, Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC), the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair and the first edition of Paris Photo Los Angeles in April 2013. PHOTO LA

Since 1992, photo l.a. has been instrumental in transforming the art/photography landscape of Los Angeles into the force it has become. The 22nd International Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition (photo l.a.) takes place January 17-21, 2013 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Collectors, curators and artists converge within this premier platform that presents lectures, panels and collecting seminars for all those compelled to deepen their awareness of the vanguard in photographic arts. Some of photo l.a.’s outstanding programming for this year’s fair includes: Simultaneous upcoming exhibitions of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work at LACMA (Robert Mapplethorpe: XYZ) and the Getty (In Focus: Robert Mapplethorpe) bring together in discussion LACMA curator Britt Salvesen, Curator of Photographs at the Getty Research Institute, Frances Terpak and James Crump, Chief Curator Cleveland Museum of Art and Producer of the film “Black White + Gray, a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff + Robert Mapplethorpe.” Author and curator of “The Anxiety of Photography,” Mathew Thompson leads a round table discussion with a mix of younger Los Angeles artists who hybridize photography with another practice to further explore its materiality. Weston Naef, Curator Emeritus, Dept. of Photographs, The J. Paul Getty Museum, moderates Collecting: A Critical Perspective, with Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator of Photography, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Gloria Huyck, Collector, and Kevin Moore, Ph.D., art advisor and author, among others. Collector Manfred Heiting moderates The Photo Book with Taschen Book Editor Dian Hanson, Leadapron’s Jonathan Brown, Nicolas Fahey of Art Book Apps, and Lee Kaplan, Arcana Books on the Arts. Noted photojournalist Bill Eppridge expounds upon his experiences documenting the 1960s, specifically the Beatles first US tour and Robert F. Kennedy’s final campaign.

photo la

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

33


ART FAIRS

For a complete listing of photo l.a.’s programming and updates, please visit www.photola.com. In conjunction with photo l.a., the Emerging Focus Photo Expo aims to embody advancements within the photographic medium. Beginner, intermediate and advanced seminars on a diverse range of photography topics, panel discussions, vendor sessions from leading manufacturers and equipment specialists all happen next door at the Hilton Doubletree. Complete details can be found at: http://www.emergingfocusphoto.com/expo/ This year’s photo l.a. Preview Reception (Jan. 17th, from 6-9 pm) benefits Inner-City Arts, a learning oasis in the middle of L.A.’s Skid Row where professional artists teach students in a real studio environment and tickets can be purchased online at http://www.photola.com. THE LA ART SHOW

Taking place January 24-27, The LA Art Show kicks off its 18th year with a star-studded opening hosted by Ali Larter and Hayes MacArthur benefiting The Art of Elysium and the J. Paul Getty’s Educational Department at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The longest running platform for contemporary, modern, historical and traditional fine art in the country, The LA Art Show provides collectors with a uniquely comprehensive art experience encompassing contemporary, historic and print genres. Although the diversity of artworks and galleries is fairly expansive, meticulous efforts to curate and organize the offerings result in The Modern and Contemporary Section, The Historic and Traditional Contemporary Section, and The Los Angeles IFPDA Fine Print Fair. Honed with the collector

34

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART FAIRS

JULES ENGEL 1909-2003 PUNCH AND JUDY II COLOR LITHOGRAPH, 2001 ED 20 • JEL-25-01 18 X 16 1/4 INCHES COURTESY TOBEY C. MOSS GALLERY AND THE LA ART SHOW

MR. BRAINWASH MADONNA, 2011 SCREENPRINT AND ACRYLIC PAPER 22 X 22 INCHES COURTESY DENIS BLOCH FINE ART AND THE LA ART SHOW

THE HISTORIC AND TRADITIONAL CONTEMPORARY SECTION AT THE LA ART SHOW COURTESY THE LA ART SHOW

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

35


ART FAIRS

in mind, the aesthetics and unique atmospheres of these three distinct sections present collectors with immersive environments within which they can fully experience the artworks on display. From Picasso and Dali to Damien Hirst and David Bailey, The Modern and Contemporary Section showcases paintings, installations, sculpture and performance art by those visionaries and trendsetters who are most closely watched and scrutinized. Gallery highlights within this section include Paul Stolper Contemporary Art, Cernuda Arte, FL; Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art, CA; Latin American Masters; Denis Bloch Fine Arts, CA and Timothy Yarger Fine Arts, CA, among others. The Historic and Contemporary Section groups galleries focusing on historic works with their contemporary counterparts that embrace traditional techniques. Among the galleries on view, George Stern Fine Art, CA; Willow Gallery, UK; Galerie Michael, CA; Schiller and Bodo, NY; and China based Trustwin Gallery. The Los Angeles IFPDA Print Fair features a broad spectrum of works juxtaposing many periods and movements that include: Old Masters, German Expressionist, Antique and modern Japanese, 18th and 19th century European, 19th- century American, American Regionalist, Latin American and Modern Works to Contemporary Masterworks and new editions. The IFPDA, otherwise known as the International Fine Print Dealers Association, is an organization of expert dealers dedicated to promoting a greater understanding and appreciation of printmaking, a medium through which artists have been expressing themselves for over 500 years. Showcasing the world’s top print dealers, the Los Angeles IFPDA Fine Print Fair will include: The Verne Collection, OH; Roger Genser-The Prints and The Pauper, CA; Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA; and Joel R. Bergquist Fine Arts, CA; among others. Among the special exhibitions featured by The LA Art Show are: Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art; emerging artists Todd Carpenter, Marion Lane and Antonio Pelaya are the focus of Launch LA; China Fusion, a showcase of emerging artists from Mainland China who merge Eastern and Western culture through form and content, with

36

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART FAIRS

the core exhibition area highlighting 70s and 80s-era cutting-edge Chinese artists. ADC Contemporary presents Latin American artist Betsabee Romero’s acclaimed print series using automobile tires and Andrea Juan’s New Species and Sea Images, a video installation blending concerns for the environment with an urge to colorfully adorn the landscape ala Christo. Also, an exciting new series of seven curated lectures called Dialogs LA feature legendary gallerist Irving Blum, top collector Clifford Einstein, and author Don Thompson, among others. Since there is much more being presented than we could include here, please visit www.laartshow.com for a complete listing of programs, exhibitions and registration information. ART LOS ANGELES CONTEMPORARY

Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC), which takes place at The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, also happens January 24-27, 2013. Now in its fourth year in Santa Monica, ALAC places a strong focus on Los Angeles galleries among the 70 top international blue chip and emerging galleries that will fill 40,000 square feet of exhibition space. Presenting an “informed cross-section” of contemporary art making, the fair’s sophisticated and accessible environment engages collectors, curators and patrons of the arts. ALAC’s comprehensive programming series includes world class artist talks, museum curator led panel discussions, film screenings and a performance series including special events staged on site as well as throughout the city in satellite locations. The 2013 edition of ALAC is a unique partnership with Ceci n’est pas…Art Between France and Los Angeles. This five-month arts and cultures exchange program, which kicked off in November and continues through April, features over 30 French-American collaborations in contemporary art within the Los Angeles area. As a special section of the fair is dedicated to visiting French galleries and the artists they are exhibiting, ALAC will highlight the relationship between these two cultural hubs with the extensive programming series it has created with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

37


ART FAIRS

in collaboration with the Institut Français, the Alliance Française of Los Angeles, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication as well as the participation of many local institutions. Complete details can be found at: http://artlosangelesfair.com THE PALM SPRINGS FINE ART FAIR

After an exceptionally successful first year event, The Palm Springs Fine Art Fair (PSFAF) returns February 15-17, 2013 at the Palms Springs Convention Center. Featuring more than 50 top international art galleries exhibiting and selling more than 2,000 carefully-culled works of post-war and contemporary art in a wide range of media, the PSFAF also takes place during Palm Springs Modernism Week — a week of cultural events that draws many art, architecture and design enthusiasts to the area. Once the playground of movie stars, titans of industry and world leaders, Palm Springs’ now thriving art scene continues to expand as the serious patrons who call it home nurture and generously support visual arts and culture. Owned by The Hamptons Expo Group, the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair taking place over Presidents Day weekend is uniquely placed to draw starter collectors as well more seasoned investors. Art-related activities abound through a series of special events happening through the holiday weekend, including a Valentine’s Day Opening Preview Party Benefiting the Palm Springs Art Museum. The evening also celebrates presenting the Arts Patron of the Year Award to Helene Galen, a major presence in the Coachella philanthropic scene for 25 years. Along with a 50 year retrospective of the work of one of American Pop Art’s pioneers best known for his vibrant superhero paintings and suggestive overtly kitschy female nudes, Mel Ramos will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the fair. An elite group of distinguished artists selected to share the vision that informs the art works displayed by their dealers make in-booth presentations as part of Artist Spotlight throughout the fair, times vary. Symposia that provide in-depth insights into what’s currently hot in art complement hour-

38

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART FAIRS

ABOVE AND BELOW: PHOTOS FROM THE 2012 PALM SPRINGS FINE ART FAIR

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

39


ART FAIRS

long panel discussions and talks with leading curators, critics, collectors and artists from around the world. As an exciting addition to all that is on offer, the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair introduces the Museum Curators Weekend Retreat, where leading curators from Los Angeles, San Diego and across the Southwest reflect and share perspectives and opinions on the roles museums play in shaping as well as defining art. “Museums have lately been bellwethers for change in both art and society,” observes Peter Frank, “and we want to spotlight some of the reasons why. Art museums affect their communities and are affected by them, so we have brought together some of the region’s most prominent and most active curators to discuss everything from outreach to income. Now that people realize their beloved museums, where they take refuge, are also sites of political and economic struggle, they should know the nature of this struggle. We want to help people get behind the headlines, and no one can do that better than the folks who actually operate museums.” Elaborating on the program, President of the Hamptons Expo Group Rick Friedman says, “We included curators within a wide geographical area of the southwest region in efforts to get a larger and more diverse sample size. Perspectives and opinions from these museum curators reflect more of a national trend, rather than just one city, thereby eliminating any outlier effect.” Veteran L.A. based art critic and museum curator Peter Frank (also Fabrik Magazine’s Associate Editor) moderates panels that encompass how Curators in the Community (Saturday 2/16, 12-1 pm) educate, collaborate with and lead audiences as well as donors. Curators encounter a wide variety of challenges, and the solutions they discover among successes and disappointments will also be discussed. Collectors can get practical advice from tax experts, museum curators and seasoned collectors from How to Donate Art to Museums (Saturday 2/26, 1-2 pm), and learn how to ensure donations are appropriate, mutually advantageous and rewarding. Economic ups and downs affect individual and corporate giving to museums so Museums and Money (Sunday 2/17, 12-1 pm) focuses on how fluctuating states of the economy affect curators and exhibitions, the impact this has on communities as well as museums’ efforts to increase their relevance and expand audiences. For a more complete listing of panels as well as registration information, please visit www.palmspringsartfair.com

40

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART FAIRS

PARIS PHOTO, LOS ANGELES

April 25-28, one can experience the first Los Angeles edition of Paris Photo, Europe’s most celebrated art fair focusing on the photographic medium. Celebrating its 100th year anniversary, the historic Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood will host a selection of 80 international galleries that specialize in photography and represent artists working with photography as part of their practice. In its’ 16 years on the scene, Paris Photo has become a significant event attended by serious collectors of contemporary and modern art, photography professionals, artists and the wider general audience of art aficionados. In launching a Los Angeles edition, Paris Photo contextualizes how Hollywood and film inform contemporary art and culture and explores how the city’s specifically dynamic context emerges within photography and the moving image. Curated around Paramount Studios’ unique and historic venues, the fair’s three sectors comprise of a Solo Show section within the studio’s New York Street Backlot, Moving Images and Platform Paris Photo Los Angeles. The Platform for Paris Photo Los Angeles being organized by independent curator Douglas Fogle comprises of special screenings of contemporary moving image works, video and photo-based installations, as well as a series of dialogues with artists and thinkers continually expanding boundaries between still and moving images in contemporary and modern art. Visit http://losangeles.parisphoto.com/ for updates and more information as the programming continues to expand.

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

41


ESENHERZ

'LIVELIFE' • ACRYLIC ON CANVAS • 66 X 66 INCHES

2801 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405 310.452.1120 • www.AXIOMCONTEMPORARY.com PLEASE VISIT US AT THE LOS ANGELES ART SHOW AT BOOTH 844/945


MICHAEL HAYDEN

‘SPIRIT’ • ENCAUSTIC, MIXED MEDIA • 40 X 34 INCHES

2801 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405 310.452.1120 • www.AXIOMCONTEMPORARY.com PLEASE VISIT US AT THE LOS ANGELES ART SHOW AT BOOTH 844/945



FA C E M O U N T E D A R T W O R K

Clearscape is your source for facemounting. We are presentation specialists. With our unique approach, we can take your photographs to a new dimension. Our facemounting process seamlessly fuses your photograph to optically-pure acrylic, supported by archivalquality backing material. Finished with a traditional French cleat, your image easily hangs level on any surface. Clearscape crastsmen provide you with professional, on-time, budgetfriendly facemount acrylic options for all your photography projects. Call for a consultation and pricing today! CONTACT US AT (310) 936-4606 OR INFO@CLEARSCAPE.NET


FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

EMERGENT PRESENCE BY CATLIN MOORE AND MATTHEW GARDOCKI, CO-DIRECTORS OF 5790projects

1. LIZ CRAFT Liz Craft's work is commonly labeled as "psychedelic" or "surreal," but this is a faulty prescription. Sculpted bronze skeletons ride high atop their hogs, plaster princesses permanently slumber upon elaborately carved couches, and metallic women's legs gradually mutate into spindly tree branches. Chunky snippets of rainbow yarn strands, metal grates, and cast detritus are haphazardly assembled, forging clownish faces that seem alien and vulgar, yet also vaguely familiar. While these images appear like mystic hallucinations, they also recall purely commonplace associations, and eventually shift from the phantasmagorical to the domestic. Her images are derived from a place of authenticity, and the enchanting unpredictability of experience; the cast of characters found within life's great eccentric performance of simply being. Craft's adept use of her own experiences in Venice Beach and multi-cultural allusion fabricates a whimsical pastiche of ourselves – her subtle tweaking of reality merely lifting the curtain on our eternal macabre theater.

46

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld



FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

2. NATALIE LABRIOLA Like a foolish Hammurabi's Code, columns of emoticons are carefully etched atop clay and concrete tablets. With a series of makeshift winky, smiley, and angry faces in place of substantive hieroglyphics, one has to wonder if these are the cultural contributions modern society will be remembered for. Cynically aware of this, Natalie Labriola creates satirical monuments to our technologically driven demise. As if salvaged from futuristic tombs and ruins, her sculptures delineate a civilization felled by e-dependency. Oversize cracked iPhone screens, plaster slabs, dilapidated satellite dishes, and crumbling plaques echo the remains of cathedral-esque stained glass windows or embellished headstones, all of which simulate the rubble of societal downfall. Posing her pseudo antiquities as artifacts from a latter-day mausoleum, Labriola lampoons the value assigned to our most treasured consumer commodities, as well as the consequences of their prescribed necessity. www.natalielabriola.biz

48

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld



FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

3. ANNIE LAPIN Like a study in phenomenology, Annie Lapin's work details the impressionistic nature of recollection. Ghostly figuration, illusory composition, and the gentle destruction of an ordinary landscape tell a tale colored by emotional muscle memory, and evoke the enrapturing tenor of a spiritual episode. Through her feathery abstraction, she portrays the unencumbered cognitive process of summoning a bygone moment. At times, her paintings and sculpture kindle warm romanticism, while others elicit tense hostility – a dexterity that illustrates Lapin's concern with the trustworthiness of human perception. Her compositions echo the posturing of familial, amorous, religious, and historical constitutions – relying on the viewer's subjective intuition to activate their visceral prowess. Sublime to some and eerie to others, her distorted mise en scenes characterize the dramatic struggle between logic and emotion, and unravel the influence of latent association on individual psychology. www.honorfraser.com

50

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld



FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

4. ANNELIE MCKENZIE The fashioning of one's identity is a clumsy series of trial and error. Pushing through childhood, adolescence, token "awkward phase," and subsequent adulthood, we contextualize ourselves by referencing alternatives – engaging in a lifetime comparison between self and other. Annelie McKenzie's gloppy, candid, and purposefully unpolished assemblages and paintings typify the awkward plight of selfhood. Haphazard rhinestones are embedded in stylized reproductions of Fragonard, Vermeer, and O'Keefe works, the details of which are obscured by McKenzie's abstract-impressionistic dabs, blobs, and smears. In another dialect of the same language, she explores the arbitrary emblems associated with gender constructs through diptych installations of original and simulacrum works. Rainbows, unicorns, bows, and clouds are assembled on the wall, then meticulously imitated in a sister painting – as if demonstrating the diligent mimicry exercised in creating the projected ego. While riddled with intentional imperfections and inelegance, McKenzie's paintings bespeak the innocence of a shared desire for acceptance or self-fulfillment, and the cultural motifs that shape its incarnations. blobmanifesto.com

52

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


(ABOVE) RHINESTONE FRAGONARD, 2012 OIL AND RHINESTONES ON PANEL • 10 X 7 INCHES (LEFT) I PAINT WHAT HE PAINTED, PLUS HER RAINBOW, 2012 OIL ON CANVAS, RHINESTONES, THREAD, CARDBOARD, AND INKET PRINT • 70 X 90 INCHES


FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

5. DYLAN PALMER Glasswork has suffered an unfair reputation in contemporary art. Glass' full potential has largely been disenfranchised under the pretense of "decorative" or "craft" practices, but in Dylan Palmer's hands, it becomes the confounding methodology for his absurdist theatricality. Trompe l'oeil in its most convincing incarnation, Dylan's delicate sculptures illustrate a minimalist's application of surrealism. Sealed-air shipping packets, tire tread strips, red Solo cups, and bubbles truly deceive the eye as authentic, oftentimes presented in precarious or humorously impossible configurations. Objects like convincingly plastic cutlery afford insight to Palmer's pun-riddled commentary on the fragile nature of consumption, as the perception of reality can easily be shattered by means of subjectivity, ideology, and taste. Through Palmer's painstaking imitations and farcical staging, the vulnerable framework of belief becomes strikingly manifest. www.dylanpalmer.com

54

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld



FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

6. APRIL STREET The concept of family is inherently contradictory. Though the product of intimacy, it can be estranging. Shaped by attachments as much as broken ties, its subsequent memories can be quixotically embellished as easily as they are doggedly sullied. Through her harlequin stained fabrics, April Street weaves an allegorical ancestry rife with these intricacies – a genealogy tinged with the tousled complexities of love, memory, vexation, and binding innate to inherited relationships. Her canvases are reminiscent of both the draped florals of mother's dresses, and discarded drop sheets of a theatrical production – a dramatic tension that Street plays out through her own performative process and purposefully imperfect presentation. Sections of dyed hosiery are tautly braided, gathered, or drooped, creating an equilibrium that is both restrained and liberated by its own materiality. An analogy for the behavioral idiosyncrasies encoded within our DNA and education, Street's work assiduously destroys and rebuilds a composite portrait of kinship. www.carterandcitizen.com

56

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld



FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

7. PETER WU In his recent 2012 solo show - "Shed No Tears for Broken Nails" - at Greene Exhibitions, Peter Wu appears an excavator of memory. Unearthing remnants, relics, fragments, and trinkets that feel strangely familiar, Wu presents familial tchotchkes as enshrined offerings – addressing our compulsive ritual of recollection and archive. Like bleached altarpieces, his wall-mounted shelves are arranged with statuettes, frames, branches, and curio miscellany, referencing our venerable fixation on ancestral tribute and remembrance. While some works feature easily identifiable trifles, others are elegantly abstracted shadowboxes, their ashen plaster contents emulating artifacts waiting to be sifted to the surface. While Wu's ornaments are inspired by those found in his family's Chinese restaurant, Canadian upbringing, and American peregrination, they bear a metaphysical quality in their anonymity – bridging the histories between the personal, global, enduring, and extinct. www.drpeterwu.com

58

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld



FRESH FACES IN ART: EIGHT LA ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

8. ERIC YAHNKER In addition to being a consummate draftsman in the most technical sense, Eric Yahnker should also be considered an incisive satirist. Initially, his colored pencil and graphite drawings – as well as his found object sculptures and installations – incite the reaction of a well-crafted joke; but function as more than mere visual one-liners. Ensconced in Yahnker's faithful (but comically warped) reproductions of historical and pop cultural icons, products, and symbols is a bitter pill just beneath a deliciously farcical surface. While the artist pulls us in with his shrewd wit and remarkable execution, he furtively grapples with the sociopolitical unpleasantries of prejudice, hero worship, objectification, and cultural egocentrism; begging the question: why are we laughing? Manipulating these semiotics to reveal the ridiculous nature of our skewed hierarchy of values, Yahnker mischievously manipulates the prescribed icons of history and pop culture to better acquaint us with our less respectable selves. www.ericyahnker.com

60

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


(ABOVE) CHILI FRIES WITHOUT A FACE COLORED PENCIL ON PAPER • 72 X 72 INCHES • 2011 (LEFT) VIRGIN BIRTH N’ TURF INSTALLATION PHOTO • THE HOLE, NYC • 2012


ARTIST’S CORNER GALLERY AND BOOKMAKING

MEI XIAN QIU Photograph on plexiglass substrate 42�x49�

photo

la 2013

SANTA MONICA CIVIC AUDITORIUM JANUAR: t #005) 4 6585 Santa Monica Blvd. Hollywood, CA. 90038 323-464-3900


ARTIST’S CORNER GALLERY AND BOOKMAKING

KAREN BYSTEDT Archival pigment prints Box set of 10 24”x24”

Artists: Elizabeth Beristain Karen Bystedt Joel & Irwin Danto Linda Kunik Lori Pond Mei Xian Qiu Mike Spitz Curated by Phil Tarley www.bookblocks.us/ArtistsCornerGallery.html




ART MARKET

WHY THE L.A. ART FAIR SEASON IS THE ONE TO WATCH — WORDS NICHOLAS FORREST

A

s the art world recovers from the frenetic fine-art marketplace that is Art Basel Miami Beach, all eyes will now turn to Los Angeles for the January L.A. art fair season which kicks off with Photo L.A. from the

17th to the 21st followed by the L.A. Art Show, January 23-27; Art Los Angeles Contemporary, January 24-27; the Palm Springs Art Fair, February 15-17; and Paris Photo Los Angeles, April 24 to 28. Although strong sales in Miami across a wide spectrum of artists, movements and mediums are a good sign for L.A., the rapid development of the L.A. art scene is not a good sign for Miami. Behind the scenes of the Miami glitz, glamour and grandeur, a mini L.A.-bound exodus has been taking place that has seen a number of artists leave Miami. Jen Stark and Sam Borkson of artist collective FriendsWithYou are two of the highest profile artists to swap Miami for L.A.. The move was announced in May 2012 and completed a few months later. According to a statement on their website, “The art community is vibrant and it feels great to be surrounded by so many incredibly talented people. We feel a special and powerful energy in this city.” 66

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


F & D CARTIER, VENI ETIAM 1431 IMAGE COURTESY HOUS PROJECTS


ART MARKET

In a recent article featured in Miami’s the New Times, it was revealed that the FriendsWithYou move is only the tip of the iceberg. Other artists that have also made the transition along with Jen Stark include Bert Rodriguez, Kiki Valdes, Alvaro Ilizarbe, Pres Rodriguez and Raul Sanchez. Freegums, the art and design studio of Alvaro Ilizarbe, was also moved from Miami to L.A. in 2012. Perhaps one of the most talked-about Miami to L.A. pilgrimages was that of contemporary powerhouse gallery OHWOW. Three years after launching their gallery space in Miami’s Wynwood art district, OHWOW (Our House West of Wynwood) decided that L.A. offered more opportunities for growth and development. The directors of OHWOW have repeatedly stated that the reason they moved was because Miami doesn’t offer the supportive environment that they need, while L.A. has been extremely receptive to the artists they represent and their exhibition initiatives. Since relocating their Miami gallery space to L.A. in 2011, OHWOW have entrenched themselves in the Los Angeles art scene and gone from strength to strength. In another bitter blow for the Miami art scene, 2012 marked the final year of OHWOW’s “It Ain’t Fair” exhibition which has been held over the last five years to coincide with Art Basel Miami. Having now severed one of their most significant ties to their former home, the Miami-born institution can focus on their L.A. gallery space and exhibition schedule. The development of more internationally relevant art fair events in Los Angeles over the last year has resulted in a more favourable international perception of the L.A. art scene. A case in point is the 2012 edition of Art Platform L.A. which was a much more global affair thanks to the absence of the restraints imposed by the 2011 Pacific Standard Time initiative. For the 2013 edition of Art Los Angeles Contemporary, the international art fair of the West Coast will partner with “Ceci n'est pas… Art Between France and Los Angeles,” a five-month arts and culture exchange program between France and Los Angeles. With the second largest French community in the US located in Southern California, the partnership is an important milestone for the region. A Franco-Angeleno cultural dialogue couldn’t have come at a better time with the French art market experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Recent French art market milestones include Larry Gagosian opening an expansive new gallery near Le Bourget airport in

68

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


STEVE KAHN, THE HOLLYWOOD SUITES, 1974-1976 IMAGE COURTESY JOSEPH BELLOWS GALLERY

ART PLATFORM 2012 IMAGE COURTESY ART PLATFORM


SEUNG HOON PARK, TEXTUS 071 IMAGE COURTESY OF SUSAN SPIRITUS GALLERY


ART MARKET

Paris, Gallery, Thaddeus Ropac launching a new space in Paris, and French dealers dominating Design Miami 2012. According to the curators of the Ceci n'est pas project, the intersections between the cultures of France and Los Angeles are numerous, from the influence of artists like Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint-Phalle or Yves Klein on Californian artists to the ties forged between the professionals themselves: in museums, in galleries, in universities. “There is also a desire of French artists to come to Los Angeles to work with Angeleno artists and the city’s institutions,” the Ceci n’est pas website says. Another French art market event will make its mark on the L.A. art scene in 2013 in the form of Paris Photo Los Angeles, the first American edition of the fair, which will be held from the 24th to the 28th of April 2013. Paris Photo Los Angeles will bring together a selection of 80 international galleries at the heart of the iconic site of the Paramount Pictures Studios. Commenting on the status of Los Angeles in the context of the global art market, the directors of Paris Photo state that: “Los Angeles is now considered as an international art capital and definitely the most iconic city of image. It is home to major international cultural institutions and considered today as a hub for the entire art scene, artists, galleries and collectors. In this unique creative environment, Los Angeles offers a real extremely promising context to affirm the fair's unique position internationally.” Over the last couple of years, art fair organizers, gallerists, and curators have become more aware of the benefit of being in an environment that is conducive to the development of an artist’s career. The fact that many private collectors such as David Geffen, Eli Broad, Michael Ovitz, and Steve Martin have the means and desire to support L.A. artists is a major drawcard for the city. Two other vital elements of the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles are the proliferation of artist collectives and the value placed on artist residency programs. The future outlook for the Los Angeles art scene is positive and will remain so as long as the region continues to focus on the development of a culture characterized by patronage and long-term support structures that give artists, gallerists, and curators a reason to call L.A. home.

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

71


PROFILE

ETERNAL RECURRENCE: THE ART OF CLAUDIA KLEEFELD — WORDS APARNA BAKHLE-ELLIS IMAGES COURTESY THE ARTIST

SOME YEARS AGO, California and New Mexico-based painter/photographer and performance artist Claudia Kleefeld began an all-encompassing investigation of the spiral and its ubiquitous presence in nature. Delving into science, mathematics, indigenous cultures and hermeticism, Kleefeld’s organic discoveries of the universality of the spiral’s form urge our own reconnection to source. Her aim of “causing a collective remembering of sacred and recurring forms” is steeped in the necessity of her own process around realizing how the spiral continually emerges within our universe. The history of the spiral and the ways in which the form affects our lives manifest in the paintings, drawings, book installation and found nature objects that comprise Patterns of Nature: The Spiral and Interconnectedness, her recent exhibition at the LA Artcore Brewery Annex. Our own recession from this point that is called the center could benefit deeply from Kleefeld’s illuminating observations. After all, the universe, albeit mysterious, contains what some designate proof within axioms like “as above, so below.” Kleefeld incorporates this and other text within her works foregrounding how the abstraction of language also functions as enigma, a conceptual variant of the spiral form. A figurative painter employing Old Masters’ techniques for 30 years, Kleefeld arrived at the spiral as the most potent symbol for investigating the meaning of existence. Primarily concerned now with “unfolding energy,” Kleefeld mines nature’s patterns to understand her own meticulous process of embodying and representing the spiral. You can view images from the exhibition Patterns of Nature: The Spiral and Interconnectedness on the following pages. 72

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


SPIRAL MOTION UNIVERSE OIL ON LINEN • 16 1/4 X 10 INCHES • 2011 • © KLEEFELD 2012


DIARY OF DEAD BONES 1. WORD SPIRAL WRITTEN IN REVERSE CONTE ON PAPER • 22 1/2 X 30 INCHES • 2010 • © KLEEFELD 2012

ROPING TORNADO OIL ON LINEN • 10 X 16 1/4 INCHES • 2011 • © KLEEFELD 2012


RING OIL ON LINEN • 34 X 22 INCHES • 2012 • © KLEEFELD 2012


WATERWAYS TO FLOODING SKY OIL ON LINEN • 21 3/4 X 21 3/4 INCHES • 2012 • © KLEEFELD 2012

SUNFLOWER (DOUBLE) SPIRAL OIL ON LINEN • 16 3/4 X 21 3/4 INCHES • 2011 • © KLEEFELD 2012


BOOK SPIRAL BOOKS, FLOOR TO CEILING • 127 1/2 INCHES • 2012 • © KLEEFELD 2012


PROFILE

WHEN POETRY TAKES FORM: THE ART OF INÉS ALONSO ARES — WORDS DALE YOUNGMAN IMAGES COURTESY INÉS ALONSO ARES & ART MEETS ARCHITECTURE

I

nés Alonso Ares is a sculptor, photographer, poet, performer, and teacher from Argentina. Her work brings together all of these elements in a unique and transfixing way to transport you to her serene world of nature, harmony and beauty. A multi-media artist, her poetry, photography, and sculpture combine in inspired presentations that offer the viewer a glimpse into her native land. The works of this sensitive and intuitive woman begin in various ways, sometimes with the touch of a piece of wood, or the flash of a feeling she gets while communing with nature. Often, she says, words are forced to spring forth “as if from an inner fountain.” Ares writes her thoughts, not as a story, but like that flash – a photograph of a momentary inspiration. The resultant poetry attests to her affinity for capturing the essence of her subject matter. Her time in nature, which expands her process, is often portrayed though a poetry reading and performance, sometimes alongside a photograph she has taken. This interweaving of emotion and language may later culminate in a wood, bronze, or stone sculpture, organic in shape and feeling. The emotive quality of her multi-media work has been exemplified through performances by the contemporary dancers of the Maria Fux Atelier, one of the most recognized in her country. Her intense love of nature began as a child, when she played in the large backyard garden of her grandparent’s home. Playing alone, she began making small sculptures from apples, finding her calling and joy in the creative process. This is part of what she teaches, filling her young students with the same love and respect for Mother Earth. 78

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


WHO ARE YOU? INÉS ALONSO ARES COURTESY THE ARTIST & ART MEETS ARCHITECTURE


TREE-CUSTODIAN II, FROM “AMAZONIA” SERIES INÉS ALONSO ARES COURTESY THE ARTIST & ART MEETS ARCHITECTURE


TREE-CUSTODIAN VII, FROM “AMAZONIA” SERIES • INÉS ALONSO ARES COURTESY THE ARTIST & ART MEETS ARCHITECTURE


PROFILE

Having found her muse, her greatest pleasure now as she travels throughout Europe, Mexico, Peru, and the USA is walking in the woods. Drawn to old trees, she finds inspiration amongst the forests of Amazonia, the Patagonian Forest in Argentina, Chile, and Yosemite, and will often transport wood back to her studio for future projects. Working in all scales, from small (to travel abroad in a suitcase!) to very large pieces destined for public parks, Ares has been teaching and creating art in Argentina for many years. Solo shows in Lyon, France, Argentina, San Francisco, and now Los Angeles have brought her unique multi-media work critical acclaim. Some recent examples of her profound and moving work can be seen in January and February 2013 at the private art salon Art meets Architecture, directed by Lisa Ames in downtown Los Angeles. For an invitation to meet the artist at the opening of her local show in January and hear about her extraordinary process, please contact her local agent Lisa Ames (lisa@artmeetsarchitecture.com).

82

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


2nd Annual

February 15-17, 2013 February ruary 14 - V Valen alentine’s Day Opening Preview Party benefits the Palm Springs Art Museum

Palm Springs Convention Center 55 prominent art galleries – 10,000+ art lovers Presidents Day W Weekend eekend + Palm Springs Sp Modernism Week Week

Featuring Lifetime me Achieve A Awar ward to Artist Mel Ramos + Public Retrospective Arts Patron of the Y Year ear A Awar ward to Helene Galen The Art of Shooting Stars Panel and Party hosted by the Palm Springs International Film Festival Meet the Artists and Curators Reception | Museum Curator W Weekend eekend Retreat Meet the Cool School: Hot as Ever | Hollywood Legend Guest Speaker

For tickets tic cke www.palmspringsfineartfair.com www.palmspringsfineartfa .palmspring gsfin irr.com or call 800-211-0640 800 0-21 Media Partner


PROFILE

THE FINE ART OF MACHINE FABRICATION: HOW MIKE RUSSEK USES NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO ADVANCE HIS ART FORM — WORDS DALE YOUNGMAN IMAGES COURTESY MIKE RUSSEK

F

irst and foremost an artist, Mike Russek is also a fabricator, a facilitator, and a visionary. 1028 Designs, his cutting-edge machine shop, is dedicated to producing art and artful architectural projects for himself as well as other artists, interior designers, apparel companies, music companies, entertainment industry icons, and famous DJs. He often describes himself as a “cocktail napkin translator," because of his ability to translate rough sketches, ideas, or computer files into actual products. His collaborations with artists and designers on everything from fine art to product design, marketing tools to projection-mapped structures have made him a much sought-after expert in a relatively new field. Growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut as the gifted son of a Wall Street businessman, Mike’s artistic training started early. When his father changed his life to “follow his bliss” and moved the family to Virginia Beach to open a machine shop, Mike’s direction became clear. He began studying art in earnest, taking advanced art and technical college classes while still in high school, and later studied sculpture and painting at Virginia Commonwealth University. He developed his signature style while in grad school at the 84

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


MIKE RUSSEK IN THE 1028 DESIGN SHOP PHOTO BY JIMMY HICKY

CUSTOM MIDI CONTROLLER PHOTO BY HENRY STRANGE


THE “ORGANIZED CHAOS” EXHIBIT BY CYRCLE PHOTO COURTESY THEONEPOINTEIGHT



PROFILE

Maryland Institute College of Art. Describing his aesthetic as a relentless pursuit towards perfection of material and form, his work (and his company’s extensive capabilities) can be viewed at www.mikerussek.com. As an artist whose work combines various materials, multiple techniques and advanced technologies, Russek’s complex art is not inexpensive to produce or sell. He actually stopped making art from 2004-2007, because he couldn’t achieve the perfection he desired in his work. It needed the precision only achievable through laser–cutting, which he discovered in 2006, when it was very expensive and difficult to find. With the help of a patron a year later, he purchased a laser cutter as his first piece of equipment. When he began posting images of experimental projects to create business, his fabrication shop was born. Now 5 years later, he requests creative control on many of the projects his clients bring to him. This collaboration in the process allows him to advance the work to a whole new level, through his knowledge of the technology and the capabilities of his 4 laser cutters, his CNC machine, and his highly skilled crew. A recent project that epitomized his state–of-the-art ability was the art installation “Organized Chaos” by artist collective CYRCLE, which he co-produced with Black Dog Films and RSA. This successful art exhibit utilized every aspect of Russek’s production company, as well as his creative vision, resulting in sculpture and interactive art for a most memorable and exciting gallery show. The large-scale dimensional artwork combined woodworking, precision craftsmanship, laser–cutting, and CNC milling, producing one of the most innovative and jaw-dropping art exhibits I’ve seen in LA. Watch out in 2013 for this artist on the rise, guiding a company with a meteoric future.

88

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


FROM THE “ORGANIZED CHAOS” EXHIBIT BY CYRCLE PHOTO COURTESY THEONEPOINTEIGHT

DETAIL OF "MEGA CHIP" WALL SCULPTURE BY MIKE RUSSEK PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST



Make Your Make r Next Ne xt Even Event t Unforgettable U Unforgetta table b You’ll get into this art – literally!

facebook.com/altervision3d www.altervision3d.com info@altervision3d.com 310.948.0902

Fully-customizable immersive environments for festivals, parties and VIP/corporate events, hand-painted by renowned artist, Debi Cable


REVIEW

LAURIE ANDERSON’S “DIRTDAY!” — WORDS JACKI APPLE IMAGES COURTESY CENTER FOR THE ART OF PERFORMANCE AT UCLA

I

n a culture dominated by mindless spectacle and sensory bombardment entertainment posing as “art,” it is both reassuring and exhilarating to once again encounter a genuine artwork. Such is the case with Laurie Anderson’s most recent performance work “Dirtday!” which does what art is supposed to do when it succeeds — open our eyes to seeing things in a different light, and send us away with something to think about long afterwards. Trimmed down to the bare essentials, alone on stage with her violin and keyboards, Anderson gets to the heart of the matter in an intimately personal voice that at the same time manages to be a witness observer of our times and our culture. In her exploration of the “stories” we tell our selves and each other, she reveals the ways in which we have constructed our realities, and then asks the question “what if….” What if, for example, the Earth was named ‘Dirt’ instead of earth? Would that be a more accurate description? What if…. “the Earth is trying to shake us off like a fungus…. a bacteria…. and return to its origins… a spinning rock…”? If you change the words we use to describe things, how does that change how we see them, think about them? How do we know what is real versus merely a trick of our perception. Anderson walks us along that uncertain border between what is, what might be, and what we believe to be, illuminating unexpected possibilities that at the same time make perfect sense. When musing on dreams and fantasy, she seamlessly slips from the abstractions of names and places into the language of the market place, of buying 92

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


REVIEW

and selling, a sly critique, or reminder if you prefer, of the way the media operates on our consciousness. Anderson easily taps into the dilemma of memory and desire as in how “perfumes get bought and sold... “Paris in autumn at dusk. Golden light, stylish people,” she croons longingly.” And then ironically, “You’ve never been to Paris…but you miss it anyway.” She informs us that we spend one third of our life sleeping and that we have no idea why we dream. “What have I been doing all that time?” she queries, “…21 years of dreams to look back on!” And that shifting terrain between states of being is made even more palpable by the way her voice switches into an electronically manipulated male baritone and back again. Her disembodied figure seems to hover in the darkness above a floor covered in tiny flickering lights. Depending on how you are looking at it, it is either like looking down at the city from above, or gazing into a starlit universe. Although the staging of her performances in recent years has basically been a return to her roots, it also provides a consistent platform for the power of her language unimpeded by technical glitz. Thus we are exposed to how Anderson has matured as an artist. Now in her mid-sixties, in “Dirtday!” she looks into mortality, aging, memory, regret, loss and death with her characteristic combination of quirky humor and unsentimental pathos. She has a way of seeing things simultaneously from both inside and outside that leaves us all exposed and implicated in our shared vulnerability. “Dirtday!” begins with Anderson’s slender androgynous figure on a nearly bare stage in a shaft of light. Leading with her electric violin, she fills the space with music. The soundscape is a blend of richly layered variations — electronic, symphonic, minimalist, at times dissonant, with crescendos that open into dark spaces. The phrasing of her vocal delivery is as precise as a singer, her timing like that of a great comic. The voice is melodic and seductive. The pauses, the spaces between words, shape the nuances of meaning, drive home a subtle punch line. Anderson’s storytelling technique is like a description of scenes from different films captured through associative memories, one triggering the next, all held together by an underlying soundtrack. And thus she nimbly skates across historical and geologic time, pirouetting the present moment into its imagined

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

93


REVIEW

94

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


REVIEW

alternative with ease. Words are her vehicle. Evolution via Darwin’s horror of extravagant showy peacock tails becomes a meditation on gender selection resulting in “females making all the decisions.” But Darwin, she points out, “was a mousy dresser.” The word “battleground” makes its way from Paul Revere’s warning of “the British are coming” to the current political and cultural divide. En route, her narrator ponders this paradox — “but we are all British. So who is coming?” The answer being then as now, “We are the enemy.” What gives Anderson’s work in the past decade its special resonance is her power of observation and her probing into the very strangeness of the human condition. Sometimes she is almost like a visiting anthropologist from another world taking notes on our foibles, us “dirt” people. Her reactions are at once bemused by the weirdness of it all, and at the same time pained. And then she comes in close, self-reflectively revealing her own strangeness and sadness, and awareness of mortality. In “Dirtday!” this plays out in the contrast between her story about visiting a tent community in the woods inhabited by people who lost their homes in the financial meltdown, and her personal account of her relationship with her dog, wondering what it would be like to “see what a dog sees” and the impossibility of truly “knowing.” She is at her best when she delves into those ambiguous spaces that elude definition, the gap between “a moment expiring and one arising.” What does it mean to “feel sad without being sad?” Or in the face of the loss of a beloved dog, the message in the words of a Buddhist monk — “The purpose of death is to release love.” In a diagonal shaft of light, she seems small and far away. “What if everything just stopped,” Anderson posits, coming full circle back to the beginning. “Close your eyes…what do you see…nothing,” she whispers. And the violin sweeps into the closing music. — Laurie Anderson, “Dirtday!” Royce Hall, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA October 26, 2012

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

95


COMING OUT, GOING IN

LORA SCHLESINGER GALLERY Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave. #T3, Santa Monica, CA 90404 WORDS PETER FRANK

COMING OUT: Richard Bruland, New Paintings, and Keira Kotler, “I Look For Light” (November 3-December 29)

RICHARD BRULAND • LONGRONDO, 2012 • ACRYLIC ON PANEL • 24 X 60 INCHES

Reproduction does little favor to most painting, but Richard Bruland’s are especially ill-served, losing all the magic of their detail, their luster, their exquisite color transitions, and their scale when not seen in person. Photographs of his canvases suggest atmospheric hue-clouds, and that is indeed an effect available in Bruland’s recent paintings (at least from a certain distance). But what Bruland truly paints are vast, detailed networks of little lines, their color vibrating in contrast to the color on which they lay, the combination buzzing into delicious, often incredible harmony – and then transiting across the canvas from light to dark, blue to red, infinite to superficial and back again without losing that resonance. The color shifts constantly threaten to throw off the harmonic stability Bruland has clearly worked so hard to achieve; but that’s the magician’s trick, seeming to sabotage himself only to get the element of danger to enhance the sense of suspension and the ultimate sense of accomplishment. Keira Kotler achieves similar magic, albeit in a more modest and familiar way. Kotler builds up layer upon layer of urethane and varnish on smallish square acrylic supports, resulting in translucent plaques whose monochrome presents itself at first as a solid color, then starts evading the eye’s — well, the mind’s — need to pin down that color, to define it as a particular kind of green or violet. Kotler’s panels are no particular green or violet or whatever other hue your eye might be trying to register. Your mind’s effort at labeling is futile, and is better turned to examining – and luxuriating in — the nuances that have built up inside the paintings. In terms of both procedure and effect Kotler is very much a light-and-space artist; but, like other painters who seek to capture – or, more accurately, embody — the ephemerality of ambient light, she knows that the pursuit is fraught with ambiguity and slippage, and the art lies in that very imprecision.

96

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


COMING OUT, GOING IN

GOING IN: Lawrence Gipe, “Salon,” through February 23 Lawrence Gipe has long mused on the nature of cultural and political history, specifically its relationship to personal recollection and social construction. His images, normally drawn from sources and contexts both readily identifiable — LIFE Magazine, prewar billboards — and vaguely familiar — Cold War propaganda (from both sides), newsreel shots of obscure wars — fairly reek of nostalgia. But it’s not the pictures themselves that conjure memories — memories we only think we have — so much as it is Gipe’s velvet treatment of them spurring a condition of poignant recollection. We find ourselves gazing at his paintings, certain we had seen the original documents they draw on when we were kids, or in some used bookstore or theme restaurant or at the very least posted for grins on someone’s Facebook timeline after they’d mined some free-access Website for 20th-century arcana. As Gipe’s crowded, relentless collection of small paintings here demonstrates, history is most dangerous when it escapes its own record and becomes a tool of manipulation. What carries over from the socialist realism, world’s-fair posters and calendar illustrations he draws upon is not the fatuousness of their content — although their banality does become at once grinding and hilarious — but upon their layer of fabrication and how that layer penetrates our post-modern skepticism. We fancy ourselves resistant to the blandishments of current commercialism and political harangue (even if we have to resort to TiVO to bolster our immunity); but the “old stuff” moves us because it haunts our reclamations of childhood and pretends to be something else than consumerist or communist harangue. In Gipe’s hands it isn’t really, but it is at the same time, frozen as it is in a painterly ambergris, a slight fuzziness that optically manifests the passage of time and the — supposed — degeneration of pictorial potency.

LAWRENCE GIPE • PANEL NO. 11 FROM SALON (1940), 2012 • OIL ON PANEL • 18 X 24 INCHES

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

97


ART ABOUT TOWN WITH PETER FRANK

Peter Frank’s

MUSEUM VIEWS A+D MUSEUM Eero Saarinen: A Reputation for Innovation THROUGH FEBRUARY 28 Eero Saarinen was the Santiago Calatrava of his time: a dedicated modernist powered by a romantic sense of space and shape. Like Calatrava, Saarinen thought heroically but practically at the same time, and was able not just to enhance but to revolutionize functional thinking with expansive — perhaps sculptural, perhaps theatrical – vision. The difference is, Calatrava is a neo-modernist, a brave and brilliant revivalist. Saarinen was a modernist, born to the mission. Saarinen’s father, Eliel, was Finland’s great modernist, but Saarinen himself had one foot in the Finnish forest and the other in the flatlands of suburban America. The family moved to Detroit when the younger Saarinen was a teen, and at Cranbrook Academy, where his father taught, he befriended other American architects associated with mid-century modernism, forging a lifelong alliance with Charles Eames. Saarinen thus took his cues more from Frank Lloyd Wright than from the Bauhaus – but the strength of his work was his access to both modernist mindsets, Wright’s Prairie toughness and Gropius’ urban elegance. We remember Saarinen now for the drop-dead simplicity and logic of his Gateway Arch and for the exhilarating celebration of light and curve in his terminal designs for Dulles and Kennedy (then Idyllwild) Airports, designs that radically and permanently changed international airport architecture. He designed other successful structures, including a Case Study House (with Eames), a pavilion at MIT by Boston, and his own offices in Detroit, but the terminals and the Arch – and those equally iconic, o-so-mid-century chairs he designed for Knoll (with Eames and Florence Schust) — are his monuments. Doubtless he would have produced others, had he not died two weeks after his 51st birthday. The exhibition at A+D does a spare and appropriately refined job of limning Saarinen’s life and legacy. To do so, it proffers a lot of reading material and shortchanges Saarinen’s “also-ran” designs, but it convincingly highlights his precociousness and spotlights several intriguing controversies (over the Arch, for instance, and a never-built Smithsonian Museum of Modern Art for the Washington, D. C., Mall). The show provides a great introduction – or, for those of

98

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART ABOUT TOWN WITH PETER FRANK

FURNITURE: DESIGN RESEARCH & KNOLL • ON VIEW AT A+D MUSEUM

us who flew TWA back when or visited D. C. or St. Louis even last month, re-introduction – to America’s great Mid-Century style architect, the Eames’ counterpart in space. For more information, please visit http://aplusd.org

LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART Caravaggio and His Legacy THROUGH FEBRUARY 10 Like Saarinen, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a master of both invention and synthesis who defined the aesthetic of his era and whose prodigy was prevented by his early death from reaching its full prodigiousness. In fact, Caravaggio is considered the single most influential painter of the early 17th century, leaving behind him a style that cut a huge swath through Baroque artistic practice. That influence is what “Caravaggio and His Legacy” is all about. In other words, no matter what you’ve heard or been told, the show is not a Caravaggio show, it’s a show of “Caravaggisti.” As such, it’s even better than a show of Caravaggio alone. Given how few identified Caravaggio paintings exist – and how many fewer can travel – this is a far bigger exhibition than a Caravaggio-only one could be. It’s more interesting – more varied, more full of surprises, more full of

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

99


ART ABOUT TOWN WITH PETER FRANK

GERRIT VAN HONTHORST • THE MOCKING OF CHRIST, CIRCA 1617-1620 • OIL ON CANVAS • 57 1/2 X 81 1/2 INCHES (146.05 X 207.01 CM) • LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART, GIFT OF THE AHMANSON FOUNDATION (AC1999.92.1) • PHOTO © 2012 MUSEUM ASSOCIATES/LACMA • ON VIEW AT LACMA

artists and pictures you’ve never heard of, and arguably more full of themes and variations. And Caravaggio’s followers were no slouches, not when you include the likes of Velázquez, Zurburán, Orazio Gentileschi, Luca Giordano, Gerrit van Honthorst, Simon Vouet, and Georges de la Tour – just to mention those names you’re most likely to have heard of. Caravaggio and the 30 legatees of his included here provide an impressive range of personal variation, in everything from application of paint to manipulation of light and shadow and formatting of composition. This show is an object lesson in ideas and skill sets as manifested all over post-Renaissance western Europe. “Caravaggio and His Legacy” could have limned more deeply the political and social background of Caravaggism. Here and there, the wall notes speak of the Catholic Church’s preference for a more immediate, humanistic (or at least humanlooking) treatment of the Gospel, but they barely hint at the propagandistic purpose this approach served the ideology of the counter-Reformation. No matter; the labels do help us with the pictures’ own iconography, introducing many (doubtless most) of us to the Denial of St. Peter, the allegorical resonance of Mary

100

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld


ART ABOUT TOWN WITH PETER FRANK

Magdalene, and several martyrdoms, among other themes. The notes also alert us to the strengths, and sometimes weaknesses, of various painters, or at least various paintings. For all the fascination it provides with its plethora of Biblical and other – mythological and contemporary – subjects, the show stresses style in terms of chronology and, especially, geography, identifying the various Caravaggisti by their nationalities and locations. All roads led to Rome, of course, whether you were painting in Madrid or Utrecht, but not everyone got there; de la Tour, for instance, always cited as Caravaggio’s ultimate inheritor, probably never visited Italy. So, in the end, the show is about a legacy that transcended borders, a manner of picture-making that went viral. If the on-the-street reasons for such popularity are obscured here, the in-the-studio reasons are as clear and powerful today as they were in Velazquez and Honthorst’s time: the theatrical frisson provided by the Caravaggesque approach demanded a virtuosity and a breadth of perception, pictorial and physical, that anticipated cinema. For more information, please visit http://www.lacma.org

MICHELANGELO MERISI DA CARAVAGGIO • MARTHA AND MARY MAGDALEN, CIRCA 1595-1596 • OIL AND TEMPERA ON CANVAS • 39 3/8 X 53 INCHES (100 X 134.5 CM) • DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS, GIFT OF THE KRESGE FOUNDATION AND MRS. EDSEL B. FORD • PHOTO © 2012 DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED • ON VIEW AT LACMA

Web fabrik.la

Social facebook.com/fabrikworld

twitter.com/fabrikworld

101





Limited Edition Fine Art @ www.ArtCapitol.com

© JEROME BRUNET

© BOB FRANCIS

© MALLORY MORRISON



Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.