What does a Frank Gehry inspired silver gas station and a circus-themed western have in common?
If you are thinking the answer is the back lot of Paramount studios, you're "half" correct! The "half" that I am talking about is LA. This blog is about an action-packed, visually-stimulating, art trip to LA, the art capitol of this wonderful US of A (sorry NYC)!
I started our "art runs" back in 2003, when I realized the art scene here in S.D. was beginning to fade and I desperately needed some visual stimulation to inspire me to paint! So, I called on a couple of friends and asked them what they thought about day trips to LA to visit galleries and art museums. The vote was unanimous! And so, about every couple of months, we planned our trips according to the LA weekly art calendar. This most recent art run happened to be on Cinco de Mayo (so who needs mariachis and tacos anyways)!Unfortunately, I was so excited, as usual, to get the hell out of my house, that I forgot to bring my camera. So instead, I will list the gallery websites so you can see some of the shows that we (meaning Richard Gleaves and myself) saw.
First stop was Bergamot station ( no, we didn't get there by train!). We usually select just a few of the many galleries in this massive art gallery drive-in. I saw to really amazing shows. The first, was at Patrick Painter www.patrickpainter.com. The artist was Marnie Weber and her show was titled "Sing Me A Western Song". I loved her large-scale color photos of the artist herself juxtaposed with scenes of western images. She looked sort of scary with her face powdered a pale white, spooky-looking eyes and an ultra-long dark wig. In the large center area of the gallery were superbly crafted circus animals and ghost-like clowns draped in white cotton sitting atop bales of hay. A few galleries away was yet another photographic show at Robert Berman www.robertbermangallery.com. New photographs by artist Alex Prager, show titled, "Polyester". This was one of my favorite shows of the art run. To quote Robert Berman,"Prager's cinematic approach is reminiscent of the mid 20th century angst and naivety that Hitchcock, John Waters, and David Lynch portrayed. Wish I could have afforded one entitled "Alexandra". Enough said.
Next stop was GR2 gallery ("G" for Giant "R" for Robot--www.gr2.net). This cute little gallery/goodies from Japan store had artist Deth P. Sun ( from Oakland) with his great installation called "Crowd Of Drifters". I saw his previous shows and ,with the exception of a handful of "new" works on board, they looked very similar to works in his previous shows. I was hoping to see something a little different. So although I like his work, I was a lttle dissapointed. To fuel ourselves for the rest of the art day, we stopped next door and had a quick japanese-ish lunch at GR Eats--yummy, and really cool funky decor.
On our way over to the Culver City galleries, we decided to take the surface street of Olympic Boulevard. Our eyes literally popped out of our heads at 2 far-out sights--one was a silver gas station that looked very Gehry/Walt Disney Hall inspired, and the other was a disguised oil well covered in a floral pattern canvas looking material--could that have been a Christo wrap??? Stopping quickly at Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery (a transplant from SF-www.lizabetholiveria.com) we saw the wonderful and talented wizardry of bay area artist Clare E. Rojas ( Is there another artist with the same name--hence the middle initial, I wonder?) transforming images that are reminiscent of Americana needlepoint patterns and Amish Hex signs into scenes filled with weasel-looking animals, asian/eskimo looking people and yes, walking penises! A very large installation, indeed.
Moving on over to West HOLLLLLLYWOOOOOOOOOOD , we stopped at Merry Karnowsky gallery, www.mkgallery.com to catch the Richard Colman show. A former New York artist who now makes LA his home, had a very inspiring show of paintings and drawings ( I am fortunate to own one of his earlier drawings) that mixed renaissance-style images, illuminated manuscript-like gold leafing, rainbows, people, animals in very detailed scenes. It was a great end to the art gallery part of our art run. It didn't take much to twist Richard's arm into catching the LA Modernism Show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. What luck that the show happened to fall on the same weekend. We had loads of fun walking through dealers of very cool mid-century furniture and art. And, we made it home by 8:30 PM. to boot!
Another successful art run in the city of art angels.
Can't wait to go into my studio tomorrow and PAINT!!