June Wayne, founder, at Tamarind in the 1960s, photograph by Helen Miljakovich, courtesy June Wayne More on the exhilarating Pacific Standard Time art extravaganza in Los Angeles: The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena has assembled its PST exhibit around the intriguing story of printmaking in Los Angeles—Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California. At […]
Pacific Standard Time Sidebar: Theaster Gates at the Geffen
Civil Tapestries, by Theaster Gates, 2011. Decomissioned fire hoses and wood. Concomitant with Under the Big Black Sun at Geffen Contemporary (which I wrote about here) is an exhibit by Theaster Gates called An Epitaph for Civil Rights. Tethering this installation to events during the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s campaign in Birmingham in 1963 where […]
Pacific Standard Time: A Time Out of Joint, at the Geffen
More on the exhilarating Pacific Standard Time show (extravaganza?) in Los Angeles: Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA, has its main location downtown near Disney Hall (and, until they were expelled last weekend, OccupyLA.) The MOCA’s “we could play football in here”-sized spillover exhibit space, the Geffen Contemporary, is in Little Tokyo. A former […]
Pacific Standard Time: Light and Space
Untitled, by Douglas Wheeler, 1969. Acrylic on canvas with neon tubing ______ More on Pacific Standard Time, currently on view in Los Angeles: The Southern California artists who congregated together into a loosely defined group called Light and Space in the late 1960s have gone on to be some of my favorites. The list is […]
Pacific Standard Time: Begin the Rewrite
Ocean Park No. 67, 1973, Richard Diebenkorn. The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection courtesy of The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn Ocean Park No. 26, 1970, Richard Diebenkorn. Nerman Family Collection courtesy of The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn Pacific Standard Time, the sprawling art exposition that includes encampments at 60 different venues in the Los Angeles […]
The Other Coast, Reconsidered
Buster, by Billy Al Bengston (Courtesy of the artist) When I was coming of age as an artist in California in the late 60s and early 70s, the culture of contemporary art was centered unquestionably in New York City. Art Forum, Art in America et al gave small and occasional nods to what was happening […]
Timeless Resnickisms
David Reed recently published a piece in Art in America about his encounter with Milton Resnick as a teacher and mentor. I’ve been a long time fan of Resnick’s work but have never taken the time to learn more about his influence on other gifted artists. Reed’s piece has been on my mind for several […]
Still On His Own Terms (But Not Mine)
I have tried to be rational, objective and evenhanded in thinking about the Clyfford Still Museum that finally opened this week in Denver. But it isn’t easy to stay in that place and here’s why. The problem with Still is that many of us are holding a split deck on him and his work. On […]
Kahneman, in the Studio
Every once in a while a book comes along that is so provocative and powerful that it becomes the epicenter of a major change in thinking, both personally and in the world at large. I’m sure you have your list which may or may not overlap with my own, but here are three I have […]
Fresh Coat
Unfolding If there is no spirit unfolding itself in history, No gradual growth of consciousness Beneath the land grabs and forced migrations, The bought elections, the betrayal of trust By party faction in the name of progress— What about spirit in the personal realm Unfolding slowly inside us, so slowly That our best days seem […]