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| VISUAL ART SOURCE |
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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February 11, 2011
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Editor's Note
We are, as Jim Morrison intoned, riders on the storm. But for the many who participate in the parenting subculture the gift we lay on our kids is innocence. The grave uncertainties and inevitable pains that we grownups are accustomed to dealing with, while we are not busy trying to avoid them, are of no concern to those kids who are fortunate enough to take fun, toys and good food on the table for granted. To hell with the "spare the rod" philosophy - it's still very much out there - I say that if your childhood was a joyful time of playing, learning, hi-jinks and being insulated from the organic filth of mortal existence you are probably well suited to constructing a good life for yourself and passing sound principles along to the next generation.
And that brings me to light, which serendipitously shined its way into most of this week's exhibition picks. No one tells our contributors to go out looking for certain types of shows. None of our editors are ever asked to push a theme: the themes are always there to be found. Artists go about their business, and the exercise of creativity has always been more about breaking the back of given truths rather than buttressing them. Looking over the lines, colors and glows produced by banal flashlights in run down interior spaces (Adam Ekberg), florescent geometries that take me back to the blacklight posters of my rock 'n roll adolescence (Ted Laredo), and the marbelized star systems of Cork Marcheschi completely failed to deliver me to that Ur moment of L.A. Art, Light and Space. Even "Suprasensorial," a small group of light and color saturated installations by Latin American artists that are claimed to have anticipated the better known school that was to follow, places its chips on "captivating" us, as Diane Calder suggests. Rather than becoming absorbed in deep thoughts, instead I found myself back playing in my room, probably procrastinating away my homework for some later hour prior to bedtime.
What these artists invoke with light is not at all about the dematerialization of the art object. The activation of perception takes a back seat, in these cases, to enlivening the senses, a different sort of alertness. And if light has a long and honored history as a metaphor for spirituality and innocence, these particular artists are by no means gurus, Marcheschi's lengthy devotion to Zen Buddhism notwithstanding. But all invoke light as a catalyst of the imagination and a journey away from skepticism. If aesthetically they are sophisticated, visually they are naïve. Engaging these images and much of what our writers have to say about them took me to a place I remember well. I'm playing hooky from stuff that I know I'm supposed to be doing, I'm getting away with something. And, man, do I feel good about it.
- Bill Lasarow |
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Adam Ekberg, "Arrangement #1," 2010, archival inkjet print, 30 x 40", at Platform Gallery. THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATIONS. . . .
Continuing through February 12, 2011
Platform Gallery
Seattle, Washington
For photographer Adam Ekberg, light is both subject and object. He employs medium- and large-format film cameras to capture what look like casual domestic scenes, which are, in fact, carefully staged tableaux. A single glinting soap bubble is caught in the blades of a lush green lawn. A man's shadow is cast on a fence, and, just where his eye would be, another eye peeks through a knothole. (Unable to locate just such a knot hole-bearing fence near his Tampa, Florida home, Ekberg built the fence himself.) Colorful balloons hang suspended in a bare, furniture-less living room, like the partially deflated remains of a defunct party. Ekberg's work possesses a distinct melancholy, often depicting objects that can be found in that most transient and anonymous of places - the convenience store. He uses cigarette lighters, disco balls, and flashlights, both to illuminate the work itself and as objects that carry the narrative.
One of the strongest pieces, "Arrangement #1," depicts two flashlights shining at each other, creating a reflected double glow between them. Two arcs of light meet and overlap to form a pointy-edged oblong shaft across the floor on which are scattered leaves in a kitchen populated with old chairs and suffused with a warm glow. Reminiscent of Nan Goldin's photograph, "Valerie in the light, Bruno in the dark,"Ekberg's light similarly strikes and bounces in the dark room. It is as though we have been invited into a sacred secular space. In another quiet moment, we see reflected in a bathroom mirror a man's wet hand reaching toward its own reflection, calling to mind Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam." Here, though, we find an unremarkable shower curtain reflected in a mass-produced vanity and only the single hand captured twice. There is no god.
See complete article. . . .
- Adrianna Grant |
Jesus Rafael Soto, "Penetrable BBL bleu," 1969, re-fabricated 1999, 143 4/5 x 157 1/2 x 551 1/5", at MOCA, Geffen Contemporary.
Photo: Iwan Bean | |
Continuing through February 27, 2011
MOCA, Geffen Contemporary
Los Angeles, California
Predating the light and space movement in California by a decade or more, "Suprasensorial" is comprised of five large scale environments by Latin American artists designed to fully engage viewers in the sensual. These will shake you out of any winter doldrums. Gaze up at the oversized neon drawing in space by Lucio Fontana. Dance through Jesús Rafael Soto's penetrable hanging string installation. Rejoice in Julio Le Parc's sparkling, mirrored, low-tech environment. Allow color juxtapositions to merge in your mind as you move from room to room, acting as an agent in the completion of Carlos Cruz Diez's saturation orchestration. Bring your swimsuit, or rent one from the bookstore so you can immerse yourself in a heated pool modeled after Hélio Oiticica and Neville D'Almeida '70s original. It is ringed with shimmering lights and book-ended by wall projections of John Cage's music manuscripts topped with lines of cocaine. Who knew that light and space could be so captivating?
-Diane Calder
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Ted Laredo, "Orange Honeycomb Cell," acrylic on cotton twill tape, 32" x 28 1/4", at Box Gallery. | |
Continuing through March 5, 2011
Box Gallery
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Although Ted Laredo's works are all about dimensionality, they appear to be shockingly flat. When viewed from the gallery's balcony level and in the darkness provided on the opening night, these works that are made of phosphorescent acrylic paint on tape or panels, certainly come into their own. In the light, what Laredo calls his "mono-diptychs" are perversely flat. By contrast, they float and glow through space in the dark. His "necker cube," a monumentally scaled mural-like honeycomb cell constructed of cotton-twill tape brushed with phosphorescent paint is enlivened by the dark, bouncing optically upward, downward and back again infinitely.
In the gallery's press release, Laredo states, "The solidity of the monochrome gives way to an ethereal inner light." Here he is speaking of his single-hued paintings on wood panels lined with reflective-glass micro beads. Unspectacular in the daylight, these works achieve depth as their edges go optimistically day-glo bright at night. At first glance Laredo seems to have been contemplating Ellsworth Kelly's shaped, monochromatic paintings; further consideration by the viewer may reveal a willingness to prove that geometry is destiny - and, at least in terms of dimensionality and profundity, density.
- Kathryn M Davis
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Cork Marcheschi, "Constellation #1," 2009, aluminum, glass, wood & LEDs, 16 x 24", at Braunstein/Quay Gallery. | |
Continuing through February 26, 2011
Braunstein/Quay Gallery
San Francisco, California Inside the darkened gallery space is a calming, colorful array of work by Bay Area-based Cork Marcheschi, all aglow. This exhibition, "Cabinet of Curiosities," is a mini-retrospective for the artist, who has been working in the medium of light since 1968. Many of the works are recent or current (2009-2011); they are interspersed with pieces going back to 1969. Along the way, we see clear shifts in style and interest as Marcheschi investigated the breadth of his chosen medium.
None of the pieces flash or move - at least not without human interaction. The 1975 "Oasis" creates a sizzling electrical current when a pedal is pushed, and "Jujubees" (1970-1990) gently reacts to touch with increasing intensity of light. The overall effect is quiet and meditative; it comes as no surprise that the artist is a longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism, which he studied under Alan Watts.
See complete article. . . .
- Chérie Louise Turner
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Patrick Horsley, "Round T-Pot," 2010, glazed stoneware, at Armstrong's Gallery. | |
Continuing through March 5, 2011
Armstrong's Gallery
Pomona, California
Patrick Horsley's vivid electric blue stoneware plates are an apt introduction to "Radioactive and Bright." His marvelous "Round T-Pot" is straight out of the Arabian Nights with it bent handle and arabesque spout. This teapot is sheathed in a shimmering turquoise blue glaze, and its verticality and linear aspect emphasizes its graceful shape. That elegance is enhanced by the vibrant colors, even the surface decorations and textures are refined and spare but the lines pop out when he uses a fluorescent orange glaze or his signature blue. This is an exhibition that places the impact of color in the foreground.
Also included in this luminous group are brilliantly hued and more subtle ceramic and mixed media works by Shane Keena, Peter Kuentzel, Dee Marcellus Cole, Keith Schneider, and collaborators Emily Rossheim and Tom Marrinson. Together they build on the tradition of using jewel-like glazes and whimsical or elegant forms as pioneered by Ken Price, Elsa Rady and Ron Nagle.
See complete article. . . .
- Kathy Zimmerer
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Terence La Noue, "Banghazi Falls," 1996-2000, multimedia on wood, 21 1/4 x 25 1/2 x 1/2", at Bentley Gallery. | |
Continuing through February 26, 2011
Bentley Gallery
Scottsdale, Arizona
For Terence La Noue, it's not enough to fill a canvas with paint; the canvas has to be saturated with paint, put into molds, air-dried, cut into shards, scraped, drawn on, glued, layered with other media and finally puzzled back together again. One of the works here took eleven years to complete, as La Noue delved into his exercise of deconstruction and reconstruction. But the outcome when an artist takes his time and lets an abstract piece evolve is a pleasure, offering the viewer wildly different interpretations. The texture and dimensionality of this work veers from the thick and warped canvases that hang an inch away from the wall, to the sawed lines of multimedia works on plywood. Small elements pop out of the picture or alternatively sink into it.
An Arizona artist and a world traveler, La Noue often borrows from the landscapes he visits when titling his pieces. "Ancient and Lost Rivers: Magala" (executed from 1999 to 2010) features loose shapes in blue and lilac along with earthy colors. Strips of canvas form a fan shape reminiscent of a river delta. In this and related pieces, the top line of the canvas runs straight across, but the other three borders are ragged and uneven, as if they had been determined by the flow of water. Le Noue's newest piece is "Kronos" (94 x 84 inches), which invites thoughts of how time changes landscape. It mixes mosaics and amoeba-like shapes while letting magenta strips of canvas appear to dangle from a "wood" frame. The 108-inch-wide, semi-circular "Cappadochia: Highlands" is like the cross-section of a mountain, with an array of textures, colors and scraped lines, as well as a jagged ridge of white mountains skimming across the top. Viewers might get a little lost in their own travels through La Noue's work but, of course, it really is the journey and not the destination that matters.
- Deborah Ross
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