Olafur Eliasson at Tanya Bonakdar (Hollywood through April 2).
There is no end to the fascination I experience standing within an
Eliasson installation. They are ambitious and leverage perceptual wonder. The circular works in this exhibition investigate the components of color perception. This body of works left me wondering whether the artist’s audience gains any insights viewing his experimental process. Not this viewer.
Kazuhito Kawai at Steve Turner (Hollywood through March 12).
Kawai’s ceramic sculptures are whimsical and fastidious in their construction. Collectively his work creates an exuberant sense of joy.
Rodrigo Valenzuela at Luis de Jesus (DTLA closing).
Chilean artist, Valenzuela, fashions a dystopic, machine ruled world. Documentary photographs constitute this exhibition. He constructs odd amalgamations of industrial materials that come close to being self-animated. When placed as groupings within claustrophobic confines, the lack of humanity is sinister. Customarily, I like art with an “edge”. These works are very effective in concept and execution. In the time of COVID and the Ukraine, Valenzuela’s work amplifies the depersonalization and estrangement that we all live with. There is no salve here answering the threats of today.
Michael Kindred Knight at Luis de Jesus (DTLA closing).
The small, square format, abstract paintings constituting this exhibition are clean, uncluttered, and intimate. I appreciate abstraction that is not fussy.
Ross Bleckner at Vielmetter (DTLA through Feb. 26).
This is Bleckner’s first exhibition with Suzanne Vielmetter and his first exhibition in Los Angeles in over 25 years. I do not expect artists to constantly reinvent themselves and to “evolve”. But contemporary Bleckner’s look like every Bleckner I have ever seen over the decades. This makes an exhibition such as this deja vue. The long horizontal work seen above offers promise. The rest of the exhibition merely represents reprise.
Raffi Kalenderian at Vielmetter (DTLA through March 5).
I like Kalenderian’s effusive paintings where his subjects and the background in which they stand explode in riotous color.
Ed Templeton at Roberts Projects (Culver City through March 5).
Templeton was born in 1972 and is true-blue SoCal skate-board royalty. Over the years and eight exhibitions with Bennett Roberts I have come to appreciate Templeton’s quirky and legitimate views of life in Southern California. The artist states: “I was eager to escape this provincial region, but through twists of fate ended up staying here and planting roots among the endless blocks of tract housing.” I think of Templeton as every person’s Ed Ruscha.
Eddie Martinez at Blum & Poe (Culver City through Feb. 26).
On this trip to LA there was more than the usual amount of abstract painting. Most of the abstract art did little to distinguish itself. Martinez’ paintings are energetic – fusing “speed, impulse, and automatism” in abstractly rendering realism. Excellent work.
Sara Ludy
Digital Combines at Honor Fraser (Culver City through April 2).
Ah ha.! This exhibition presents the future now. Formal, physical paintings are paired with their uniquely signatured digital record. One can buy a “Combine” which is the physical work paired with its NFT document. The sale and ownership are validated in the crypto world and cannot be separated one from the other. Buy them as a paired unit, sell them as a paired unit, live with them knowing that money has been spent anticipating the “future.”
Hung Liu at Walter Maciel (Culver City through March 5).
Hung Liu died in August 2021 of pancreatic cancer (the same cause of death as her mother). Reflecting on this loss of both the artist and her mother Walter Maciel and the artist’s husband, Jeff Kelley curated this memorial exhibition. It is a fitting recollection and tribute to this bicultural figurative dynamo. “Hung Liu was born in Changchun, China in 1948, growing up under the Maoist regime. Initially trained in the Socialist Realist style, Liu studied mural painting as a graduate student at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, before immigrating to the US in 1984 to attend the University of California, San Diego, where she studied under Allan Kaprow, the American originator of Happenings.”
Tomory Dodge at Philip Martin (Culver City through April 2).
While I was underwhelmed by the viewing options on this LA trip, there are two exhibitions that I consider myself lucky to have seen. I believe that Tomory Dodge is one of LA’s top three abstract painters. This exhibition is superb. His paintings now sell for north of $50,000. Look but don’t touch.
Jonas Wood at Kordansky (lower La Brea through March 5).
The second exhibition I was lucky to see is Jonas Wood. In my book, he is one of LA’s top three figurative painters (a New American Pictorialist). I would have driven roundtrip to LA just to see the Wood and Dodge exhibitions.
Lucy Dodd at Spruth Magers (mid Wilshire through March 12).
Humm. In the broad spectrum of abstract painting exhibitions currently on view, this exhibition is worth a look – but not worth a focus.
Heather Hutchison at Louis Stern (West Hollywood through March 5).
These three dimensional paintings formed by a birch-ply box, Plexiglas, and acrylic medium trap, modify, and amplify ambient light. On the wall, they perceptually “play” like standing in nature.
Jeff Wall at Gagosian (Beverly Hills through March 26).
Why go see a Jeff Wall exhibition? Because “it is there”. Large format photographs offer vignettes of reality as frozen moments. Over the decades, I have seen Wall’s work presented in various venues, worldwide. Frequently, “why” has no answer.
Ruud Van Empel at Danziger (Bergamot inaugural show).
Bergamot Station continues evolving. For a while it appeared to be in a “death spiral” as long time gallerists closed up shop here. But new energy and focus has taken hold and there is a future worth attending. Now there are dealers concentrating on photography and Bergamot is a terrific place to indulge in the photographic arts. A short list: Craig Krull, Galerie XII, Marshall Gallery, Peter Fetterman, Rose Gallery, Danziger.
Hilary Brace at Craig Krull (Bergamot closing).
Hilary Brace maintains her fastidious rendering of “atmospheric water”. Hers are not photographs – rather they are superb drawings. The consummate skill in her reductive technique of erasing charcoal to render dark into light is phenomenal. Additionally (as seen below) there is a Jacquard tapestry woven of opaque and luminescent thread that enlivens as the viewer changes their position relative to the tapestry and its light source.
Get out, look at art; have fun.
Doug Simay February 2022