Victor Landweber's 'American Cameras' Exhibition at Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, California

Victor Landweber, photographer

American Cameras

Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, CA

Article by Cathy Breslaw

Hopalong Cassidy   20" x 16"  Cibachrome print

Victor Landweber is a conceptual artist who uses the medium of photography to create his art.  American Cameras is an exhibition of fifteen 16” x 20” Cibachrome prints whose subject matter is vintage cameras of the 1940’s and 50’s. These color images are portraits, each work having a single frontal view of one camera that is centrally placed onto a black background.  Landweber has carefully traced a white outline around each camera, like a ‘glowing halo’, emphasizing its shape and elevating the unique qualities of each one.  This series highlights the distinctive designs and commercial viability of these retro cameras, showcasing them as objects of beauty.  Each camera had unique names including Imperial Debonair, Bear Photo Special, Hopalong Cassidy, Brownie Starlet and Lady Carefree. Their ability to create images takes a back-seat to their object-hood, transforming Landweber’s photographs into commercial photographic illustrations. On a deeper level, Landweber is guiding us to ask the question ‘what is art?’ and whether the context of his presentation of the cameras meets our definition.  This photographic series, created in the early 1980’s, documents the early years for the development and use of the camera and its relationship to making art.

Beacon Twenty-Two Five   16" x 20" Cibachrome

Bear Photo Special 20" x 16"   Cibachrome print

Astronaut Chris Cassidy Talked About Space Missions and New IMAX Movie "Hidden Universe" at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, San Diego

Astronaut Chris Cassidy

Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, San Diego

This past weekend I attended a preview event hosted by the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park, San Diego. I also had the privilege to meet and chat with astronaut Chris Cassidy who has been part of several space missions.  As a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and serving a ten year stint as a Navy Seal, Cassidy was drawn to the idea of being an astronaut. His comments to me and answers to audience questions greatly enhanced the experience of viewing the film depicting celestial events in outer space. To complement NASA’s multimedia exhibit “Destination Station”, the Fleet Center presented the new IMAX movie called “Hidden Universe”.  This film highlights our universe through amazing high resolution images captured by the world’s most powerful telescopes.  Two telescopes in the remote Atacama Desert of Chile shot most of the images seen in this film exploring the earliest galaxies, distant celestial objects including gas nebulas, stars being born in vivid clouds of gas and dust, precise images of the Mars landscape and excerpts of daily life for the scientists and crew studying and working at the telescopes in Chile. These telescopes, called The VLT(Very Large Telescope) located at Paranal Observatory, and the ALMA telescope(Atacama Large Millimeter Array) is actually 66 dishes connected to operate as one giant “eye on the sky”. ALMA sees into the darkest regions of space by capturing images with wavelengths outside visible light in space. “Hidden Universe” is a fantastic visual journey that anyone can enjoy.

Live Theater Sizzles at the Old Globe: Conversation with Michael G. Murphy, Managing Director

article by Cathy Breslaw

Michael G. Murphy, Managing Director of the Old Globe, shared his thoughts on the power of live theater. To illustrate his point, Murphy told of a woman who contacted him after seeing Dog and Pony, the Old Globe’s current production of a musical comedy.  After seeing the show, the woman told Murphy she went home and made a “major life-altering decision”. It is this kind of experience that Murphy says is why he loves his work. He explained that part of the mission of the Old Globe is to educate the community – He used examples of prior productions of The Scottsboro Boys, a musical that went on to Broadway, that was based on actual events and history of the Black experience in the United States, Allegiance, a play about the Japanese Internment Camps which deals with racial issues, and the classic Inherit the Wind, that discusses the universal ongoing debate of evolution vs. creationism. Murphy says the goal of the Old Globe is to bring great theater to San Diego and to bring in productions that are diverse in the types of playwrights, including both classic and contemporary plays, and ones that include racial, ethnic and gender differences. Murphy noted that decisions for what plays to bring in and cultivate are careful collaborations with Artistic Director, Barry Edelstein as well as those responsible for finance, professional training, production and fundraising. 

The exciting recent news widely publicized, is that a former Old Globe production of the musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder now on Broadway, won 4 Tony Awards last week in New York.  Darko Tresnjak, the former Co-Artistic Director at the Old Globe, who also directed the production in San Diego, went on to win a Tony for Best Director of a Musical. Other Tonys for the show were for Best Costume Design by Linda Cho, Best Musical, and Best Book of a Musical by Robert Freedman. The Old Globe is a regional theater has developed a strong national reputation for having the artistic staff, craft shops, and vision to create high-level theater drawing good actors and producers from all over the U.S. and beyond. Murphy also notes that the Old Globe brings in plays that are at all stages of development from second productions of shows, new works, as well as classics that are re-worked for a contemporary spin on universal themes. Murphy urges new theater-goers to go to the theater more than once – see all types of plays from musicals to serious drama, to dance. There are discounts for folks under 30 years of age as well as the Globe’s national participation in Blue Star, a program that offers discounts to members of the military.

"Secrets and Lies", Exhibition Explores Disguise, Ruse and Revelation at Museum of Contemporary Art, Downtown, San Diego

Ellen De Meutter    Secrets and Lies   oil on canvas  

Museum of  Contemporary Art, San Diego

“Secrets and Lies” : exhibition drawn from the museum’s collection

Review by Cathy Breslaw

Secrets and Lies  is an exhibition drawn from the museum’s collection, including several new acquisitions. Centered around concepts of disguise, ruse and revelations, the show includes painting, photography, sculpture and installation. The show’s title is taken from Belgian painter Ellen De Meutter’s painting of the same name.  Her painting of two gossiping figures, hints at the questions of what is public or private, and what is fact or fiction.  Yasumasa Morimura’s “An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo”(2001), is one of a series that took the artist ten years to create.  A self portrait that is digitally manipulated, the photo appears like a painting. Morimura reconstructs Kahlo’s image with costumes and props, and questions gender, cultural and racial conventions. Al Wei Wei’s “Marble Chair”(2010), is a sculptural installation carved from a single piece of striated white marble. It is sculpted into the design of two traditional yoke-backed Ming and Qing Dynasty chairs. Wei Wei examines China’s loss of culture as it attempts to modernize itself.  Cindy Sherman’s photograph, “Untitled”(2000), transforms her own image into a southern California typecast young woman who is tanned, blond, in sporty clothing,  wearing a jeweled tiara referencing the “impossible ideal” found in airbrushed figures in magazines. Kim Dingle’s painting “Untitled(Prisspaper with Blue Hair”(1998), is an oil on wallpaper on wood, depicting toddlers running amok in the nursery, examining stereotypes of childhood and innocence. Tina Barney’s “Jill and Polly in the Bathroom”(1987), an Ektacolor Plus print, recalls Dutch genre painting while it is depicting the domestic habits of upper middle class women, questioning whether they are posing or acting. Larry Sultan’s Chronogenic print “Tasha’s Third Film”(2002), is part of a series Sultan did related to the culture surrounding the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley revealing a ‘porn’ star in an ordinary pose sitting around in curlers, hanging out in the living room waiting to perform.  The ‘white cube’ in the center of the gallery features works by Allan Sekula, photographer, filmmaker and critic whose work focused on social and political realities of labor, protest movements, and global trade. Sekula’s “Untitled Slide Sequence”(1972) reveal 25  photographs of workers leaving the General Dynamics Convair Division Aerospace Factory in San Diego at the end of a day. His photographs incorporate  a sense of the culture and historical moment of the military-industrial complex.   These and many other artists’ works comprise this thought provoking and complex exhibition.

Abstracted Jewel-Toned Landscapes Become Metaphors for California's Immigration Issues: Works by Eva Struble

Lemon Drop   acrylic,paper,screen print on wood panel  2013

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

Produce: Paintings by Eva Struble

Article written by Cathy Breslaw

Eva Struble’s paintings are chock full of jewel-toned colors, shapes and patterns, all sitting within and upon the familiar structure of the landscape.  The title of the exhibition “Produce” hints at Struble’s focus - the abundance of food yielded from the farming areas of southern California highlighting the folks who work to sustain its’ agricultural industry.  Each painting presents a stylized version of both urban and natural environments held together with a broad range of vibrant acrylic paint, paper collage, silkscreen printing, and a host of painting techniques.  These abstracted landscapes often contain traditional artisan textile patterns within the shapes of hills, rocks and other organic material. There is an accompanying short video of an interview with Struble which further explains the socio-political and environmental issues she is grappling with alongside the creation of her paintings.  In preparation for this series of works, Struble delved into historical photo archives, visited farms in San Diego County and interviewed migrant workers who came from Oaxaca, Mexico to obtain temporary labor.  She wishes to address the intersection between labor, immigration and the burgeoning agricultural industry in California. Struble’s acrylic, paper and screen prints on wood panels present some disquieting, clashing and discordant imagery and color that belie our notions of the bucolic California landscape.  Perhaps  that is Struble’s point – to re-imagine and bring awareness to the contradictions of the beauty that surrounds us.

Minimalist Steel Sculptures and Ink Drawings Spanning Four Decades - Works by San Diego artist Kenneth Capps

Dichotomy

Kenneth Capps

Oceanside Museum of Art

Oceanside, CA - Exhibition runs through July 6th

Review by Cathy Breslaw

Crosswalk Two     free-standing steel sculpture     2012

Standing among the free-standing sculptures, ink on paper and steel drawings, and wall sculpture works by Kenneth Capps, we are reminded of artists Brancusi, Donald Judd and Robert Morris whose works fed the engine of minimalism during the mid to later twentieth century. Capps continues that line in his homage to this movement in his highly focused art practice of the past four decades.  Known for his wood and steel public art, in this exhibition Capps highlights steel and chrome, and ink on paper as his primary materials while the sphere, triangle, and square become his primary shapes.  Therein he explores the opposites of forms: rectilinear/curvilinear, convex/concave, positive/negative, and open/closed spaces. “Line” is the common denominator in all the works shown, whether they are painted, drawn or cut into steel or chrome. His lines travel in many directions, often bursts of short lines of varying thicknesses cut into steel that move in and out of three dimensional space within surfaces. While the works are limited in their color palette to mostly black, and dark steel, there is an array of surface variations of polished and shiny chrome, dull, and subtle modeled areas.  There is also an investigation of space in both the works on paper and sculpture.  Capps’s works on paper appear to be more of a way of exploring line and symbols in preparation for creating sculpture than stand alone pieces.  There are three drawings on paper that stand apart from the others which are “Cast”, “Study for D Side” and “Study for the Distortion of the Square”, all created in 1975.  These ink drawings reveal the ‘hand of the artist’ as they are roughly drawn, possess variations in color tones and exhibit mark-making

rather than the straightforward filled in lines of his other drawings.  Simplicity and economy of design best describe Kenneth Capp’s work in this exhibition.

Oceanside Museum of Art - Installation Shot   wall ink drawings and free-standing steel sculpture