Art Buddies: Journey to LA and Back - Creating Art and Creating Life are One in the Same

Armory Center for the Arts, Floor Map/Sculpture Liz and Cathy added to.

Sometimes seeing good art involves long car rides, enduring traffic clogged highways, and summer heat  - but when you have a buddy along, it becomes non-stop conversation running the gamut between talking about family, friends, art world relationships, partners, and working out. Occasional deep and serious issues turn into often hilarious banter about the crazy absurdities of our lives. Such was my trip yesterday with Liz Goldner, an art writer for several publications in southern California. We visited Pasadena - the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena Museum of California Art and the Armory Center for the Arts. At the Norton Simon there was the "Beyond Brancusi: The Space of Sculpture" examining the work of 20th century great sculptors and how they were directly or indirectly influenced by Brancusi. Works by Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Barbara Hepworth, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, John McCracken and Robert Irwin in a variety of materials are on exhibition. It was tough to leave without also seeing the permanent collection of wonderful impressionist works by Degas, Picasso, Braque, Renoir, Van Gogh and others into post World War II  California artists Sam Francis, Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell and Richard Diebenkorn. We also visited the Pasadena Museum where we saw a large exhibition of Sam Francis's paintings on canvas and paper, known for their light and color,  covering several decades of the artist's life. From small watercolor and gouache works to large scale canvases, we saw the development of this California native's life as an artist. Also of note was the exhibition "Ignite!:The Art of Sustainability",  featuring 13 California artists using varied media focusing on the issues of our environment and the natural and human forces shaping the current landscape. Lastly we visited the Armory Center for the Arts which is featuring a show called "The Armory Show and Tell" which invited current and former Armory teaching artists to do presentations about their practice and then leave behind remnants of their events.  There is also an interactive component which invites viewers to participate in dialogues with others and/or creating art. Liz and I participated in creating 'sculptures' out of egg boxes, plastic CD cases, fabrics, yarns and tape and then
placed them within a floor map landscape depicting the geography of the LA area. We had lots of fun, and the show is engaging - a reminder that making art is as much or more about creating experiences as it is about making an object. Creating art and creating life are one in the same.

Liz Goldner, next to Kim Abeles Installation "Waiting Watching",Pasadena Museum

Robert Irwin at Whitney Museum - "Scrim Veil - Black Rectangle - Natural Light"

Robert Irwin's current exhibition at the Whitney Museum in NYC is described by him on this short two and a half minute video (see link below):

http://bcove.me/c5t34x8x

The exhibition runs from June 27 - September 1st at the Whitney Museum. a large-scale installation that uniquely engages the Whitney’s Breuer building and the natural light coming from the large window in the fourth floor gallery space. Part of the Whitney’s collection, the work was made specifically for the Museum’s fourth floor. It has not been exhibited since its 1977 debut, a pivotal moment that would set the course for Irwin’s subsequent artistic practice. It is interesting to note that this exhibition is simultaneously occurring during James Turrell's exhibition at the Guggenheim in NY and the long term relationship and collaborations that both Turrell and Irwin have done together - both dealing with the 
concept of light and perception but following their explorations in different ways.

"Scrim Veil - Black Rectangle - Natural Light", Whitney Museum

James Turrell Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles,CA

James Turrell’s ‘A Retrospective Exhibition’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art covers his over 50 year study of the concepts of light and perception. His observation of a beam of light from a slide projector when a student at Pomona College in the 1960’s inspired his investigations. While the theme of ‘light’ has captured artists’ attentions for centuries, Turrell draws upon the sensory experience of light, and uses it as his medium - inviting viewers to contemplate the delicate and illusive nature of light itself, how we comprehend it and how it functions within our perception of space. 

Included in this exhibition are projections, sensory environments, works on paper and photographs. The development of Turrell’s work is well documented.  Beginning with his Projection Pieces, the 1966 piece “Afrum”, the viewer sees a luminous cube floating on one corner of the room, yet with a shift in position, the viewer’s visual of the cube disappears and the light is flat against the wall. His early light projections were studied during the years of 1966- 1974 when his studio was

located at the Mendota Hotel in Santa Monica. There he sealed off spaces with no external lighting, letting in light little by little to study light, shadow, and movement. He then began to create spaces to hold light, sometimes filling entire rooms with intensely colored light. In his latest indoor works, Turrell incorporates technological advances. Yukaloo (2011) from the Wide Glass series, is made of solid glass panels illuminated by neon and LEDs so they appear as distinct floating fields of light and

his Holograms series, displays multidimensional fragments of light,  made from misexposures of holographic film.

Turrell’s exploration of light as perception began in the late 60s’ when he collaborated with fellow artist Robert Irwin and NASA scientist Ed Wortz at the Garrett Corporation.  They developed a series of art and science based investigations into the mechanics of perception and sensory deprivation. These led to Turrell’s later work where he created immersive installations and environments that explored the effects of meditative states on perception and the physical aspects of seeing. Another series called Dark Spaces stresses the complete absence of light, leading the viewer through an unlit corridor and into  a sealed and  darkened room. After being in the space for several minutes the viewer’s eyes adjust, and a faint glow of light appears. Then his Ganzfeld series allows viewers into a completely homogeneous field of immersive light. The viewer loses the sense of what is ‘up’ and what is ‘down’, with no frame of reference to a horizon line.

As part of his practice, Turrell has developed outdoor architectural spaces which are documented in the retrospective but none are included in this exhibition. They are mostly found in museum environments and other locations around the world.  I have been fortunate enough to see “Space That Sees”(1992) in the Art Garden at the Jerusalem Art Museum and Three Gems, (2005)at the Sculpture Garden at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.  These outdoor spaces evoked for me  the sense of a meditative and spiritual experience - as they frame the sky while you sit on the constructed concrete benches in areas of these indoor/outdoor spaces.

The ‘Roden Crater’ is an ongoing project for Turrell which is documented in the exhibition.  It is located in an inactive volcano set on the edge of the Painted Desert in northern Arizona. Turrell’s development of this place into a series of chambers, pathways, tunnels and openings to the sky has been going on since the early 1970’s.  It is currently closed to the public because it is unfinished but appears to unite the concepts of light and space, in a way that honors the wonder of our universe and our place in it.

There are two additional concurrent exhibitions showing James Turrell's work: The Guggenheim in NY, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Raemar Pink White,1969 (top photo)
Breathing Light, 2013 (bottom photo)

Afrum(White), 1966(left)     Bridget's Bardo, 2009(right)

Less than 1 minute video of Turrell Installation Projections:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pFDkpIvHDkc

Orange County Museum of Art, Pacific Triennial Exhibition Review

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, artist  

This week I visited the Orange County Museum of Art and the California-Pacific Triennial exhibition.  Devoted to contemporary art from around the Pacific Rim, the exhibition includes the work of thirty-two artists from Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Chile, Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia and the United States. The works are focused on interrelationships between the complex cultural, political, and economic issues in California and the Pacific Rim. The works represent the full range of artistic media from traditional painting, sculpture, ceramics, fiber art and drawing, to photography, video, film, performance, installation and conceptual art. The show includes over 100 pieces – my favorite is from Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook whose video called Two Planets: Millet's The Gleaners and Thai Farmers (2008) records the humorous, thoughtful reactions of Thai villagers looking at and discussing the famous social-realism painting by Jean Francois Millet from 1857. Tiffany Chung's embroidered maps of political hot spots contrasts sharply with their individual violent history, while her gigantic pom-pom bullhorn (From Morning Merci Exercise to Techno Beat Promotion Dance, 2008) and stuffed plush loudspeakers (Morning Glory, Glorious Mornings, 2008) suggest that tools of communication can become oppressive toys. Shaun Gladwell’s video “Broken Dance”, depicts human beatboxes as they play on one wall as hip-hop dancers move to vocalizations on the opposite wall. Then there is the small room sized installation by Adriana Salazar called “Moving Plant” #30 which depicts dried dead cemetery flowers as they rotate on tiny motors turning slowly. In her video Thread Routes— Chapter 1 (2010) artist Kim Sooja creates a visually riveting exploration of traditional weaving techniques
 from the Machu Picchu region of Peru, where methods of separating out and winding fibers and threads traces back hundreds of years. By observing closely the movements and muscle memory in this traditional medium, the artist gently steers our attention away from the finished product that is the object of all this labor and toward the visual poetry of the process. These works and more are featured in this complex exhibition that could easily benefit from more than one visit to OCMA. (runs through November 17th)

Dario Escobar, artist     Escultura Transparente

Tiffany Chung, artist    Kaesong Armistice Conference Site

Shana Nys Dambrot, Art Critic, Writer, Editor,Essayist, An Interview with Cathy Breslaw

Shana Nys Dambrot has been writing all her life. Self described as ‘creative writing’ early on, Nys

Dambrot developed an interest in expository writing and explained that she wants her essays and other writing to be “as engaging as fiction”. When we met at Figaro, a downtown LA eatery and café, Nys Dambrot handed me a catalog that included her recent essay where, in describing Fatemah Burnes’ photographs, she writes:

“They contain ambiguous but accessible bodies in inhabitable spaces; but amid the hot riot of linear crispness, mingled layers, and saturated color, these presences are not always easy to spot straight away, as individuals are both celebrated and subsumed.”

Wording that could easily be part of a fictional story, her writing conjures up visual imagery that explains the work without seeing the photographs she describes.

When she completed her BA in Art History from Vassar College in New York, not knowing what kind of work might be available for someone with a background in art history, Nys Dambrot asked herself “Is there a job where I can see and think about art and also write about it?” It all began as a child growing up in Connecticut and NY, when she visited many museums. A pivotal moment came  when she visited the Museum of Modern Art  where one painting grabbed her attention. It was by Kazimir Malevich called  “White on White” painted in 1919. Nys Dambrot also talked about a favorite - the Peabody Museum at Yale College, not far from her home where she often visited a collection of small bird paintings painted by J. William Gould, coincidentally an ancestor of hers.

When she was a teenager, she saw the Picasso retrospective which she described as “weird” in that in the show’s totality, she hadn’t seen such a large collection of cubist work before that time. These childhood experiences all led her to choose art history as a major course of study in college. Nys Dambrot described Vassar as the best art history program in the U.S. where she was mentored by several professors who also brought in many well known scholars to speak to the students.

Upon graduation from Vassar, Nys Dambrot got a job at the Guggenheim in N.Y. in their Childrens Education Program. There she helped write grants for a program that brought professional artists in to teach children. After a few years in N.Y. C., she visited a friend in Venice California - another defining moment, that convinced her to move to LA where she quickly got a job as Gallery Assistant at the Patricia Correia Gallery. That position led her to meet many art world folks and she began writing  for Juxtapoz, was contributing editor at Artweek Magazine and wrote for others, and also worked for a collections advisor.  Then in 2002, Nys Dambrot was hired as Managing Editor for Flavorpill, Los Angleles. Nys Dambrot noted that it was great working for a magazine that "took art seriously" as an important part of American culture along with cultural events , politics, books and social issues. She was involved in the creation of 400 issues of Flavorpill when she left in 2010.

In more recent years, Nys Dambrot has written a multitude of catalog essays, been involved in internet TV shows, curating, being on panel discussions, and has written for a large array of magazines including Flavorwire, Modern Painters, Art News, Artkrush, Art Ltd.,Art Review, Whitehot, Coagula, Tema Celeste, VS Magazine, Scene Magazine and others. In discussing the nuts and bolts of her philosophy about art writing,  Nys Dambrot said “ I consider my audience to be smart people without degrees.” and that she wants to “inject visual culture into mainstream discourse”.  She commented that she enjoys writing for general culture magazines because she is achieving her aim of art being included, accessible and easy for the general public to read and understand. She believes the term “art critic” is misleading and that she sees herself more as an “art analyst” but admits there is really no good way to describe what she does in her writing about art.

It is remarkable to hear about the sheer number of art reviews, editing, writing and other projects she is engaged in – perhaps the biggest clue to her amazing amount of energy is the “bowl sized” cappuccino coffee she consumed during our meeting. As we were leaving she told me she was off to write another 1,500 word essay.