Los Angeles

A gorgeous Caspar David Friedrich at the Getty, West Los Angeles

One of my favorites from the Getty villa in Malibu in years past: Winterhalter

Gerome!

Some sumptuous brushwork - lost by the iPhone - David

Jacques Louis David, The Bonaparte sisters 1821

Fleshy and brassy diagonals in David

Jacques Louis David, Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis, oil on canvas, 34.5 x 40.5 inches

Sunset looking south toward Hollywood

Exene Cervenka and John Doe from X in the film at Geffen Contemporary

Los Angeles, in time to see Pacific Standard Time at the Getty (LA history, circa 1945-81) and Geffen Contemporary (1974-1980). At the Getty: gorgeous David Hockneys, Ronald Davis, Ed Ruschas, Helen Lundberg. Was not allowed to photograph them, but the permanent collection yielded world-class examples as above. The Geffen Contemporary (linked to header), showed work that constitutes my first artistic influences at UCSD and UCLA: William T. Wiley, Judy Baca's mural drawings, Linda Montano, Gronk, Paul McCarthy, and new artists such as Patrick Hogan and Theaster Gates. En route to the Geffen, reminisced about clubs past and present, including the Whiskey, Roxy, and remembering afresh the Cathay de Grand, Lhasa Club, Club Lingerie and Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco.

Transformation

"'Antiquity' is but a tool of knowledge; 'transformation' involves recognizing it as but a tool while refraining from using it in this way. For I have never seen anyone achieve transformation by using antiquity as a tool. Often I lament those who are mired in antiquity, unable to transform themselves because their knowledge has trapped them. It traps them in stylistic imitation so that their vision is narrowed. For this reason, the superior man just uses antiquities to expand the potentials of the present."

..."I am myself because 'I' naturally exists. The whiskers and eyebrows of the ancients cannot grow on my face, nor can my body contain their entrails. I express my own entrails and display my own whiskers and eyebrows. Even when there may be some point of contact with some msater, it is he who comes close to me, not I who am trying to become like him. Nature has endowed me thus. As for antiquity, how could I have learned from it without transforming it?"

Shih-T'ao, Enlightening Remarks on Painting, 1700. Translated by Richard E. Strassberg, Pacific Asia Museum Monographs, No. 1, 1989

Frank Bowling, Sarah Walker, Fabian Marccaccio and Rebecca Morales at Seven

Frank Bowling - a new discovery. Both paintings approx. 95 x 69 inches

Ah Susan Whoosh, 1981 @ Hales Gallery - http://www.halesgallery.com

Bowling - detail

Another beauty by Bowling

Sarah Walker at Pierogi at Seven Art Fair-http://www.pierogi2000.com/artists/sarah-walker/

Sarah Walker, Having Built Here BEfore, 2010, acrylic on panel, 20 x 22 inches
These paintings get weirder and weirder, in the best way--complex rhythms and structures but also look fun to make.

Fabian Marcaccio - http://www.bravinlee.com/

Marcaccio, Detail - he's baaaaack!

Rebecca Morales @BravinLee Programs - http://www.bravinlee.com/ - new discovery

Light and Space East Coast style at imPulse and ABMB

Brookhart Jonquil at Dorsch Gallery, ImPulse. For more on Jonquil, click link above.

Florescent orange paint at the end of each wood strip and metal attachments contributed a snowflake or jewel-like feeling.

I think by Aaron Curry at Michael Werner, but now cannot be sure. Loved these.

Aaron Curry again.

Robert Miller's booth, ABMB: Paul Jenkins
Phenomena high alter wall, 1977, Acrylic on canvas, 75 x 150 inches, 190.5 x 381 cm

© 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich

An unusual monochrome by Jenkins.

Steven Parrino--at Skarsdedt?

Rico Gatson at Seven, Miami

Rico Gatson - "Angela"

More Gatson-washed out image that conveys materiality of surface.

Black and white fire.

So glad to see these at Seven having missed Gatson's Exit Art retrospective.  Love the reductive elegance of his work. Its content is firmly embedded within material: a visual experience that conjures historical events without literalness. Click link above to read more on the artist and see more of his work.

Figuration at Seven and Pulse

Sarah Peters at Winkleman, Seven Art Fair
To visit her gallery page at Winkleman, clink link above

Sarah Peters, quartet of portraits.
To visit her website, go to: http://sarahpetersart.com/

Robin Williams, Golden Nugget, oil on linen, 62 x 80 inches, PPOW at Seven Art Fair

Detail, Williams

Julie Heffernan, PPOW at Seven Art Fair

Heffernan at Mark Moore, Pulse

Heffernan, detail

Allison Schulnik at Mark Moore, Pulse

Katie Miller at Conner Contemporary, Pulse

Erik Thor Sandberg at Conner Contemporary, Pulse

Daniel Weinberg Gallery at Pulse

A gem from Alexander Ross - the dealer's private collection

Thomas Nozskowski

Steve di Beneditto, high on the wall -- another gorgeous and unexpected example of an artist's work from this gallery

Patricia Piccini: Prone, 2011, Conner Contemporary at Pulse, Miami

Patricia Piccini's Prone, 2011 - moving, delicate, beautiful, horrifying, human.

The work engages our empathy, integrity and commitment
in a freighted encounter.

Below, excerpt from an interview with the artist.

The Naturally Artificial World
Laura Fernandez Orgaz and Patricia Piccinini
(Click link above to visit artist's website and find full article).

"My interest in medical science began when I was a teenager. My mother was sick for many years before she died. During that time I hoped and prayed that science - medicine - could help our family. In the end there was no help but I still feel that I am waiting for science to help; to help me, to help my family and to help the world I live in. However, I also know that science is not perfect , no matter how clever it seems to be. Science did not help my mother. I understand that it cannot always deliver its promises. I understand that disappointment.

However - and this will sound very strange - it is not really science itself that I am interested in, as much as how it impacts on people. I think my creatures are actually more mythological than scientific. They are chimeras that I construct in order to tell stories that explain the world that I live in but cannot totally understand or control. Like most myths they are often cautionary tales, but they are also often celebrations of these extraordinary beasts. You need to remember that the gods of the ancient myths had great power but also very human motivations. They followed their own interests, with very little feeling for the effects they might have on normal people."