Pick of the Week for May 21st, 2012 Alexander Calder is essential. A wonderful exhibition at L & M Arts in Venice handsomely makes the case for Calder’s continuing relevance, both historically and contemporaneously. Here then, a couple of reasons for Calder’s imminence and the urgency to witness, first hand at L & M, the [...]
Pick of the week for May 14th, 2012 Every so often you stumble upon something fresh which blows the cobwebs of pretension off your eyelids. Such was the effect seeing the colored pencil drawings of Kirk Demarais at Gallery 1988 in Venice. The artist has carved an amusing little paradigm for himself. From the treasure [...]
Pick of the Week for May 7th, 2012–Penises and Pussies, OH MY! The Carroll Dunham Drawing retrospective currently on exhibit at Blum and Poe is an uncommon pleasure. Just under 400 drawings, ranging in size from 3 x 4 inches to 16 x 20 inches, fill the second floor galleries with bravado, perspicacity and balls. To [...]
Pick of the Week for May 3rd, 2012 There are three weeks left to visit Newport Beach and bask in the multifarious light of Richard Diebenkorn. The Venue is the Orange County Museum of Art. The exhibition is a remarkable concentration of the artist’s Ocean Park series. The opportunity is not to be missed. There [...]
For some Elizabeth Peyton is an acquired taste. She has a remarkable skill set, an unapologetic desire for beauty and romance and a general retro sense of genre loyalty. These elements make her paintings and drawings a difficult proposition in a Fine Art landscape of “ism’s” and conceptual practice. The paintings are indeed lush. They [...]
In Wonderland at LACMA is the first exhibition dedicated to Surrealism as practiced by women artists. Featuring 47 artists from the U.S. and Mexico, the curators examine the relationship between Surrealism and the emergence of gender politics. Previous Surrealist surveys excluded or minimized the role of female artists. While I acknowledge the monumental significance of [...]
–Nancy Monk at Craig Krull Gallery– When visual intelligence is made manifest through equal measures of wit, invention and discovery it is a welcome event. Nancy Monk’s solo exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica is just such a salve. Intense patterns inhabit every work on exhibit. And for Monk’s particular [...]
–Charlotta Westergren at Patrick Painter– Charlotta Westergren displays a prodigious amount of talent and tenacity in her solo exhibition with Patrick Painter in Santa Monica. Westergren is a painter of remarkable touch and facility. Over the years her renderings of animals, flora, trees, oysters and fungi have coupled the precision of Dutch still life [...]
–Urs Fischer at Gagosian Beverly Hills– Is Bigger Better? In certain echelons of the art world scale is the index to importance. No one can argue with the Gee Whiz double takes that big ass art induces. It verges on entertainment or maybe sometimes a carnival sideshow. And it takes a particular brand of gallery [...]
–Ellsworth Kelly at Matthew Marks, LA and LACMA– Ellsworth Kelly’s stunning show at the newly minted Matthew Marks Gallery in Los Angeles is sublime. Flat color and form dance on the walls with natural light bathing the space like a Bonnard Nude. The Gallery facade itself is a work of art by Kelly proving art [...]
