Joan Robey at Lois Lambert (Bergamot through
It was brutal drive from San Diego to LA this cycle. So walking into Joan Robey’s exhibition offered me a chance to exhale and know that I “made it”. While fundamentally Robey’s work is landscape photography, her images get printed on Plexi with UV-ink and vinyl. The work is very abstract while still permitting the viewer to know they are witnessing the landscape.
Cig Harvey
The Flower Show at Peter Fetterman (Bergamot through Oct. 7).
Summertime is customarily a time for group exhibitions. Long-time dealer Peter Fetterman has a large catalog to draw from. This exhibition highlights 32 artists with work that focuses on flowers. This exhibition is warmly engaging and masterful in content.
Elliott Erwitt
Hideaki Kawashima at Richard Heller (Bergamot through Oct. 26).
Richard Heller is an iconoclast. He shows work that is not produced because of the “market”. Richard Heller finds talent. How he covers the territory he represents is an enigma for me. But obviously Mr. Heller loves art, loves looking at art, and seemingly is driven by a passion for idiosyncratic excellence. Excellence coupled with passion – unbeatable.
John Greenwood at Richard Heller (Bergamot through Oct. 26).
Greenwood’s exuberant and audacious paintings are a perfect fit for Richard Heller. To match up Kawashima with Greenwood is brilliant curation. This gallery is always on my “list.”
John Brinton-Hogan at Marshall (Bergamot through Oct. 28).
I am a big fan of work by John Brinton-Hogan and this exhibition does not disappoint. There are three genres of work presented with the dominant selection being from his Visual Aphasia series. John positions his work in the desert landscape. This landscape has been extensively re-worked. So while true to form, the desert background becomes interpreted as an abstracted reality, emotionally charged. The figures that populate this desert scape are apparitions. They are either coming into focus or are a record of what was just there. He calls this exhibition Invasive Spectators. His source imagery is drawn from photographs of his friends taken at their leisure in the desert. The “people” populating his constructed landscapes are anything but random. He knows who, when, and where his source photographs were taken. That imbues the work with personality even though the specifics, or tales of what was, is known only to John. Still the viewer, lacking the personal details to which John responds, gets a real sense of “presence”. What sort of image creates understanding of the “person”? Is it an exacting portrait or some measure of the soul expressed by an image of what was and what resonates spiritually.
Astrid Preston at Craig Krull (Bergamot through Oct. 14).
My first introduction to Astrid Preston’s work was at Joni Gordon’s Newspace in 1979. Since then Astrid has had too numerous to count exhibitions. I know the trajectory of her creation very well. Astrid is an indefatigable artist. She works in her studio most every day. Her work is constantly evolving – not by jump-shifts, rather by modification with the introduction of new vernacular. The importance of drawing is always present even if, as in this show, painting is her focus. I cannot write of my observations in this blurb. Reflecting my understanding of the work would necessitate a full multi-page article. Suffice it to say she is a powerhouse of creativity and one of LA’s huge talents.
Blue McRight at Craig Krull (Bergamot through Oct. 14).
I have admired Blue McRight’s sculptures for some years. An active beach-walker and scuba diver she collects beach flotsam like fishing nets, soda straws, plastic package-netting and everything else we carelessly throw aside. After cleaning these materials she fashions sculptures which take on a new “life” – that recapitulates the fantastic reality found in the ocean. Her intense focus and reverence for the natural world is beautifully manifest in her sculpture.
Alice Neel 1965
Portraitures at Blum & Poe (Culver City through Oct. 21).
‘Tis another summer group show loaded with significant content. From the famous to the obscure. For those (like me) who respond to portraits this exhibition is smart and very engaging.
Chidinma Nnoli 2023
Fairfield Porter 1957
Maria E. Pineres at Walter Maciel (Culver City through Oct. 29).
This is Maria Pineres’ 6th solo show with Walter Maciel (who opened his gallery in 2006). Pineres’ works are embroidery/needle point. They are exquisitely detailed down to the pupils in the represented subject’s eyes. Being in front of the work is an experience not reflected in photographs of it.
James Rosenquist 1988
Composition at Michael Kohn (Hollywood through 21).
Whatever the curator had in mind to refer to this collection of paintings as “Composition” I care not. There is plenty of wonderful work – evocative and engaging. Unusually this gallery presentation includes work spanning over the last 500 years.
Mark Ryden 2006
Amoako Boafo 2019
Florine Imo at Steve Turner (Hollywood through Oct. 14).
Florine Imo is Vienna-based. She most usually paints female figures – in this case, they are goddesses. These monumental works are arrestingly powerful, if not foreboding. How Steve Turner finds the eclectic artists he regularly presents is a marvel. The outside-of-LA painting world regularly is shown here.
Robert Pokorny at Steve Turner (Hollywood through Oct. 14).
Pokorny is LA based and his dominant metier is drawing. The drawings in this exhibition span the last seven years. The press release calls out his idiosyncratic humor and “conversation” with art history. Humm.
Vanessa Beecroft at Jeffrey Deitch (Hollywood through Oct. 21).
Jeffrey Deitch opened his first gallery in 1996 (in New York). That opening featured Vanessa Beecroft and he maintains significant loyalty to her since then. It is in honor of that long tenure that makes this exhibition fascinating to me.
Jeff Soto at KP Projects (La Brea through Sept. 30).
Jeff Soto is a perfect fit for the programming of KP Projects. The work is superbly executed and priced to “move”. Of late it is rare to see a forest of red dots accompanying an exhibition. There are few dealers who have remained true to genre like Merry Karnowski. Glad to see her and her artists rewarded for unwavering vision.
Daniel Crews-Chubb at Roberts Projects (South La Brea through Oct. 28).
I have known and frequented the various succession of galleries helmed by Bennett Roberts over several decades. He has moved (as of the first of this year) to a heroic space on South La Brea. A long time and dedicated dealer this latest gallery incarnation is like “Oh, Wow.”
Sara Hughes at Kordansky (lower La Brea through Oct. 21).
This trip to LA seemed to heavily feature figurative art. Sara Hughes’ landscapes offered respite from a couple days immersed in the figure.
Harmony Korine at Hauser and Wirth (DTLA through Jan. 14, 2024).
Harmony Korine is both a painter and filmmaker. The works on view here are very unsettling. To quote the press release: “the artist’s paintings blur boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ in ways that simultaneously attract and repel viewers with their hypnotic, otherworldly atmosphere.” The result is scary – sort of like living in today’s armed, combative society.
William Bradley at Lowell Ryan Projects (Adams through Oct. 7).
LA-based William Bradley presents large abstract paintings and small, intimate, construction paper collages. His large paintings reflect the sensibilities of his collages. Painted elements of the paintings project off the surface. The formal abstractions are playful and energetic. Despite their size there is an intimacy that results from their animation.
Edgar Ramirez at Chris Sharp (Adams through Oct. 7).
I am not moved by Edgar Ramirez work. But I am moved by Chris Sharp and his new, small gallery on West Washington in the Adams “art district”. Change in the LA art world is the only constant. Galleries have moved out of Culver City (the venues remaining there are Honor Frasier, George Billis, Walter Maciel, and Blum & Poe).
Constance Mallinson at Rory Devine (Adams through Oct. 28).
As a long admirer of Constance Mallinson’s painting, I have witnessed her evolution as a painter. Like Blue McRight, Constance collects the detritus she finds on her regular walks. These found objects are cast-offs and seemingly inconsequential leftovers of a consumer society. She assembles her “treasures” and then makes formal paintings of the complex amalgamations - melding both representation of realist assemblage with an abstract “eye”. The textures of her painting are deeply engaging. This contemporary body of work represents smaller, even more formal paintings than has been her usual. They are fully resolved and intimately engaging.
In addition she presents small wall sculptures that amalgamate her found “treasures” and probably are models for her formal paintings. In their own right they are beautiful sculptures.
I am reminded of an LA artist last seen decades ago at Cirrus – Michael Farber - now lost in obscurity.
Get out, look at art; have fun.
Doug Simay September 2023