Magritte at LACMA

DAMN LACMA. I had plans to go see the Magritte show at LACMA tonight. That is before I realized after an extensive search on the website that tickets cost $22 per adult. Now I am an art lover but $22? Is it really twice the entertainment and intellectual exercise of a good film whose tickets are going for about $11. Museums wonder why people don’t go to see art. It is because the big name shows cost $22. It turns people away and then they are less likely to see the less big name shows that are part of the regular admission. There should be free nights and if there is an additional cost for the show it should be obviously noted on the exhibitions webpage not buried with the subpages for ordering tickets.

2006 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art 11/24

Feeling a little like I had visited the Oprah set with the big “O” sticker used for admission, I took on the California Biennial that is now, a few weeks later, at the end of its run. It is always a big trek to head down to Orange County and I generally do so with a great amount of trepidation, knowing that if the show that I have gone to see is unsuccessful, then I feel as if I have wasted my day. The Biennial made for a satisfying day out. Packed wall to wall and in the lobby area as well, the work within the show seem to put forth a level of inquiry, formal structure and positivity. It was as if OCMA had taken all the best gallery shows of a year and crammed them into a museum setting.
I do not know what qualifies (or disqualifies) one for this particular show, but there were definitely no artists over the age of 40. Perhaps this is in part what caused the enthusiasm that seemed to be the undercurrent for the work, the energy manifest in the layers and intricate detail in painting and sculpture and the performance in the new media work. Or perhaps that is just the current thing for visual media. Either way, I walked away feeling good about art.
Of particular note out of the large list of artists were Christopher Ballantyne’s paintings of virtually uninhabited landscapes that border on a film set anticipating action to come. These scenes are painted upon wood panels that are never disguised. The wood grain always seeps through and brings back the materiality of the surface. On the video front Marie Jager’s oblique narrative of a societal disaster made with cutouts created a must watch Lynchian quality not often seen in the gallery setting and Goody-B Wiseman’s reflections on the implied fictions of 70’s album covers was such a guilty pleasure I stayed and watched the entirety of all 3 parts within the series.
These artists are just a small sampling of the work on the display, and many other names could be mentioned just as easily. I look forward to trying to track these artists as they progress further in their careers and see if the maintain the quality and enthusiasm displayed at OCMA.

New Media at OCCCA 11/24

I had not run across the OCCCA gallery before and was very hopeful when I saw the title “New Media” with the promise of many interesting video works. I found myself disappointed, however, by what I didn’t see. What I didn’t see were many things turned on correctly, or even at all, and other pieces in a various state of working. Putting on a new media show is a good noble cause, but I would rather not have work up than it not working. The art community would not allow paintings to be displayed in an “almost finished” form nor would a sculpture under construction be acceptable either. However, always in shows with media it there are works either not working at fault of the artist or the fault of the gallery staff. In this day and age it is not acceptable. The only thing of note was a video by Deva Eveland, part of a sub curated online exhibition by Humberto Ramirez. The video is a real time endurance work where tiny little flags are painstakingly forced into the crevices of the mouth of the featured performer. You can’t look away, but you cant stop as the symbol for the USA becomes a literal source of pain. Unfortunately, the artists who are part of the online part of the exhibition are not indicated in the publicity for the show. I hope that the OCCCA continues to have new media shows but, in the future, holds up there part of the art bargain, by working harder at having art that is really truly “there” instead of a place holder for what the artist would intended.

ALAVs 2.0 at Art Center 12/14

Though it seemed to be a one night and one night only exhibition, it was a fun outing over at the South Campus of the Pasadena Art Center. There were a few works displayed: interactive plastic geese that seemed to be a hit with the small kids, funny little bunny sculptures that lit up when walked by, but the big draw for the evening were the Autonomous Light Air Vessels (ALAVs) 2.0 by Jed Berk. The text for the work makes all kinds of claims for smart interactions between people and the transparent, microchip carrying 3ft blimps that circulated in the space. Now, I am not sure how much of what was said was true, but there did seem to be some interaction, real or imagined between the folks at the opening and those crazy little mobile creatures. My husband called one of the blimps on the provided phone number for blimp interaction, promptly found his blimp, responded to the phone questions, made the blimp mad and caused it to fly away. Other blimps seemed to respond to a “feeder” device and others still seemed to follow you around a little like a dog. Everyone seemed to be having a good time trying to figure out the proper method of relating to the art objects (if only people did this with all the art they see). Besides being objects to interact with, they were also very lovely, interesting, sculptural objects. The whole scene reminded me of a Warhol work with slver ballons that were floated back and forth by large fans and created a great joy for the audience. It definitely seemed like a prototype for something more large scale, but charming enough that I would definitely like to see the results when it all gets figured out.

La Fabrique - Tania Mouraud 11/24/06

Recent Artist in Residence, Paris native Tania Mouraud, has created an interesting large-scale multic-hannel video installation at the Grand Central Art Gallery, part of the CSUF campus. The work documents the Indian cloth workers at their independent weaving stations. With 18 channels of video (14 monitors and 4 projections) the room is transformed into a factory of workers amongst noise and simple mechanization. La Fabrique challenges us not to look away, as the workers often stare directly into the lens while doing the labor that is so repetitive that it needs no specific attention. The work provides no contextual background of conditions, or place in Indian society for the workers (though some context is given in the wall write up). This forces the viewers to take it upon themselves to make their own decision about what their Western gaze on a room full of Indian workers means to them. The scale of the image of the workers within the monitors takes on a very realistic size, providing a real sense of the occupation of the space. However, the four large-scale projections of workers spinning act a bit of a distraction with no explanation of why the spinners would deserve such a greater scale than rest of the weavers. Also the low luminosity of the projected image leaves a feeling of removed otherness that the richness of the CRT monitors does not imply. Though the projections are not as richly realized as the multi-channel monitors, they do not diminish the piece, they just do not bring additional richness to the work that they could have provided. The strength of the work is in the multiple monitors transforming the space, when you enter the darkened room you leave your world and enter a constructed space of labor and life. It is definitely worth the trip to see the installation live, as documentation will just not provide the real information of what La Fabrique has to say.

MOCA –Skin and Bones 11/25/06

The opening of the Skin and Bones exhibit was a crowded but interesting affair, as I wish more art scenes in Los Angeles were. Of course crowds mean many people are seeing art, but definitely not at optimum viewing conditions, so I will hold of on a more in depth description of the show until I have more time to actually view the work on display. But from a first walk through, the show is smart and definitely a smart layout and comparison of work that you might be familiar with a lot that you are not. Innovative displays of architecture and fashion make you ask, “Why does my home, my work, my recreation, my fashion look like everything else?” And in my opinion it is always good to leave with more questions than when you arrived.