Jill Greenberg at Katherine Cone to February 4

The opening of Katherine Cone’s new gallery in Culver City has arrived with a bang with its exhibit of Jill Greenberg’s photographic series, “Commentary and Dissent,”; a bold beginning.

Katherine Cone

Greenberg is well known for past photo controversies such as her 2006 “End Times” series of toddlers crying after their lollypops were taken from them, and her 2008 manipulated satirical photos of John McCain posted on the web after she did the cover portrait of him for The Atlantic Magazine.

What stands out in her photography is the establishment of a middle zone where what appears to be a photograph one moment can look like a painting at another moment; a technique pretty much pioneered by Greenberg and seen in the photography of such artists as Suzanne Opton, Jeff Banks, Marc Dennis, Pierre Gonnord, Erwin Olaf, and Paolo Ventura.

Greenberg’s photos are totally confrontational and filled with scatological wonders to challenge conservative politics and Christian Fundamentalist notions of morality. The gallery walls hang with a veritable menagerie of outrageous and energetic scenes: fighting females, a blood-smeared lamb chin, raw animal carcasses, a chimp taking a dump, an attacking bear, male penis antics, food-smeared children, and much more.

The dynamic Ms. Cone agreed to have her photo taken and chose Jill Greenberg’s photograph of two large animal testicles as the backdrop, lest people fail to realize that her new space has real balls.

Amos Mac at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles to January 22

Right next to Katherine Cone’s Gallery sits Luis De Jesus Los Angeles’ new Culver City space. On display is a collaboration between performance and video artist/photographer  Zackary Drucker, a sort of Anne Heche look-alike – blond, pale skin, with small breasts  and photographer/publisher Amos Mac.

Amos Mac with Zackary Drucker

By the time one reaches the end of the gallery, Zackary  has been extensively experienced. That is, you think you know the meanings of her semi-nude erotic poses on stair banisters, living room couches, on or under furniture, on a dinning room table, or standing in the snow with or without furs in the middle of a high school football field and a cemetery.

Well, I for one admit to having made a slight misjudgment, Zackary Drucker is a male-to-female transgender and Amos Mac, her photographer, is a female-to-male transgender, originator of the magazine “Original Plumbing.”

Zackary Drucker with mother

Don’t make the mistake of dismissing this exhibit as a one-note attention grabber; you will realize that it actually revolves around a significant dialectic between evangelical, rural conservatives and the growing secular, urban progressives. Taking note of the lives of society’s transgenders is like watching canaries in the mine: it’s a measure of society’s tolerance level.

Also available at the gallery is Amos Mac’s limited first edition table top art magazine “Translady Fanzine” featuring, you guessed it, all the poses of Zackary Drucker.

Tad Wiley at George Lawson to February 11

It’s always reassuring to Los Angeles-based artists when successful San Francisco galleries, such as the George Lawson Gallery, relocate to our own backyard.  Lawson’s new gallery in Culver City brings an exhibit of Tad Wiley’s latest paintings — a bit of Piet Mondrian mixed with a bit of Richard Diebenkorn in strong yet understated geometric  patterns.

Tad Wiley "Verso: No. 12 (Fifty Velums)"

Wiley, who has previously shown at George Lawson, also exhibited at Lora Schlesinger and Ace.  Known for his oil-based enamel paintings on wood panels, the artist here transfers his style to alkyd on vellum.  He thus creates new visual surface changes that draw the viewer in close for further exploration. And the closer one gets, the more the viewer senses a wondrous sort of translucence, the play between the media on the surface of the vellum and that which seeps to its back, as the statement says, “…in a way reminiscent of the application of tusche (a grease like liquid used in lithography as a medium receptive to lithographic ink) on a lithography stone.”

Wiley’s paintings are representative of the type of art shown in the gallery’s stable of artists; abstract stately works of either twisting or hard-edge repeated patterns. You’ll find George Lawson, an artist himself, a charming host to any gallery visitor. He has also managed to produce an elegant catalog of Tad Wiley’s paintings which includes two interviews of the artist, one by Charlotte Mouquin and the other by Glenn Goldberg.

Bianca Kolonusz-Partee at Offramp until February 12

Bianca Kolonusz-Partee "Outward Inward 2"

Fascinated with the impact of international commerce and its effect on our lives and environment, the artist Bianca Kolonusz-Partee creates panoramic industrial landscapes of ship container ports using recycled product packaging.  The results are architectural tessera tapestry like creations that simultaneously appear strong/big alongside delicate/small; that’s a large part of the fun when looking at such assemblage-like works.  What must have surprised the artist is that her port landscapes transubstantiate into the natural landscapes she so loves. Can man create vistas as enticing to the eye as original unspoiled stretches of nature? Why not?  I’ve always seen great beauty in our fabricated industrial complexes.

Roland Reiss

A number of years ago, Roland Reiss gave me advice at one of my photography exhibits that I continue to use to this day. Sweeping his arm before my photographs, this former leader of Claremont University’s graduate art department said, “Rene, consider this whole thing as a big pizza; what you did is toss every known ingredient on it.” And I had! Now that doesn’t have to translate into a disaster unless, of course, you forget to organize all the disparate elements into a cohesive whole. I like to think those days are long gone for me.

Now it was my turn to gaze at some of Reiss’s past works entitled “Personal Politics: Sculpture from the 1970’s and 1980’s” (currently exhibited at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) through January 8). And what do I see? Lots of sculptural diorama pizzas, seemingly cluttered with everything on them. Fortunately for Reiss, his “clutter” is extraordinarily organized both in form and in meaning; in other words, it worked brilliantly. I found myself much taken with this exhibit and couldn’t wait to meet up with my old friend to pose all sorts of questions about what I had seen. Here I share it with you:

Rene de Loffre – Look Roland, I walk into PMCA’s main exhibit space and the first thing I see is your life-size, monochromatic living room mock-up, much like I might see in a department store.  The whole set up should have struck me as one big gimmick, yet it didn’t, I actually liked it a lot. Please tell me why I liked it?

Roland Reiss - The Castle of Perseverance 1978

Roland Reiss – First of all, Rene, you wouldn’t really see it in a department store or anywhere else.  It is a life size model and as such it is an abstraction.  You were walking around in a set of surrogate objects signifying our values and the way we live our lives.  It is a language of objects describing middle class American life in the 70’s.  I presume you liked it because you felt a certain familiarity, perhaps now somewhat nostalgic, for who we are and who we were for better and for worse.  Hopefully, you enjoyed seeing and understanding our world and your place in it with some new insight.

RdL – I read that all of the various diorama series started as a reaction to a Colorado University campus murder?

RR – The dioramas began as a radical reaction to the progressivist, reductionist abstraction I was practicing in painting in the 60’s.  I decided to fill my work with the content of my life and experience.  I believe, with Wittgenstein, that artists produce the art society compels them to produce.  In my case, I felt the need to bring an expressive viewpoint to the experience I shared with others.  My art is for adults who have lived some and not primarily for young people or children.  Many issues are very serious and the Dr. Strangelove type humor is meant to relieve the intensity.  I thought a lot about Fellini, Bergman, Shakespeare and authors like Robbe-Grillet as a guide to dealing with levels of complexity and non-narrative approaches to ideas.  My drawings about that murder in Colorado lead me to the idea of clues as a way of structuring the pieces providing a basis for spectator interaction.  Later, clues became cues, and then after I discovered Umberto Ecco, signifiers.

RdL – I understand that you made a shift from figurative to abstract art and since I’ve known you, I’ve watched you make two distinctly different stylistic changes in your artwork.  I admire your willingness to explore, but it can be rather risky to one’s artistic logo. Any regrets?

RR – Yes, I have changed my work radically a number of times.  I have always believed we have many songs to sing.  As artists and teachers today, we have seen so much more than artists in the past.  It is all very interesting and exciting and one wants to test the dimensions of ones experience and creative capacity.  Do I regret there is no signature style?  Yes, but the adventure is so wonderfully challenging.  In each case to bring something new to the human conversation is a thrill.  If someone looks deeply enough into all of my work, they will find the same person, it’s me.

Roland Reiss - The Dancing Lessons: Tap Dance Vigilantes 1977

RdL- No matter what style you’re working in, to me your art always comes across as more intellectual than emotionally revealing of the artist.  I always sense a layer between you the artist and me the viewer. No pun intended but you do experiment a lot with the placement of physical, transparent, and translucent layers in many of your works, any correlation here?

RR – I am a visual artist, interested above all in what Collingwood called “perceptual cognition.”  That is, knowing through the eyes.  You may be calling the formal structuring of my work intellectual.  Actually, it is in the structural/visual coherence achieved that the deepest emotional presence of the artist is liberated.  If by intellectual, you are referring to narrative reading of more overt subject matter, you will be missing the point that it is all about fractured, multiple scenarios and readings.  I think the layer you refer to is the fact that the viewer must do a great deal of the work and has the responsibility to complete the many possible resolutions or be content to live in the state of incompleteness.  I have always seen transparency and translucency as view planes composed of the different densities through which we engage experience.  Some things are foggy and some are crystal clear.  Qualities of light and vision affect the illumination of ideas, presenting them in different ways.  In the simplest terms, it’s all expressive “show and tell” and the key to it is visual perception.

Roland Reiss - Adult Fairy Tales 1: Strange Stories 1983

RdL – O.K., let’s get into the specificity of your dioramas. You really pull the viewer into each work, I was totally absorbed and when I looked around I noticed that everyone else was as captured as I was. It was a real voyeuristic trip where you created a world of the familiar that transfigured into a world of the unfamiliar- a “twilight zone” sort of world frozen between action and inaction.  Each diorama world is full of ambiguous, even incongruous, juxtaposing of objects and subjects. One encounters realism next to fantasy, completion alongside the uncompleted, and the obvious mingled with the “where ‘s Waldo”. How much of your environments are whimsy, theatricality or tongue-in-cheek situations? How much is a serious attempt to create situational narratives?

RR- Let’s start with the fact that the dioramas are very serious.  In the 60’s some of us laced our art with humorous asides to “help the medicine go down.”  This must be seen in context because there is virtually no humor in the art of this moment.  The pieces involve multiple, incomplete narrative elements meant to resonate within an individual piece and with every piece in the series.  Each series does chart out a different territory, each with wide ranging, but related meanings.  You are right on in the substance of your question.  Incongruity, ambiguity and juxtaposition are key strategies among many in the work.  In finding these, you must have gotten into the work where I want you to be.  You get the overview from above and four side views, then you project yourself into it, explore it mentally, you are the performer.  I am asking everyone to make that leap.

RdL- The amount of work that went into these dioramas is quite staggering, did you do it all yourself or with a cadre of helpers?

RR – Yes, making these things was a staggering amount of work and delayed gratification, with staying up till 4:00 in the morning quite often.  As I began to have some success, I hired “Rolaids” numbering 12 over the later years.

Roland Reiss - Adult Fairy Tales 2: Rates of Exchange 1984

RdL- One last question. When I look at your dioramas, either large-scale or miniature, I can’t but think of Rene Magritte’s surrealistic play of scale along with a good measure of animism; that is, the objects are loaded with human associations that can live with or without a human presence. Is this coincidental or a meaningful part of your creative attempt here?

RR- You know, Matisse talked about elements of a still life as characters acting out a drama on a tabletop.  I have always felt that

objects were imbedded with personal and social meanings and that they stood in for us in many life situations and contexts.  Clearly, we are the ones who breathe life into objects, forms, ideas and art.  My friend, Clyfford Still said that, “A painting is an instrument for creating a meaning.”  I would add that the viewer has to do half the work.

RdL- I really have to hand it to you Roland, I shamefully underestimated your art, in fact, you make really great pizzas. Thanks for a great viewing experience and interview.

RR- Thanks for your interest in my show.  It will be up until January 8, 2012

Hans Burkhardt in his studio

In the mid-1940’s at LACMA’s original Exposition Park site, Hans Burkhardt’s painting,  “One Way Road,” was removed from an exhibition because he used too much red paint and, well, it was deemed to be communistic. . Not strange for an era when abstract artists were sometimes suspected of being enemy agents cleverly  encrypting secret military site locations into their art.

Jack Rutberg has been one of the most passionate and dedicated promoters of Hans Burkhardt’s work since the 1970’s, and it is not surprising that this artist is his gallery’s contribution to the “Pacific Standard Time” project, along with a room devoted to works by Claire Falkenstein. The Rutberg Gallery exhibit will run through December 24. Viewing this exhibit was a wonderful opportunity to discover the magnificent journey of Burkhardt, an artist shamefully neglected and in great need of rediscovery, an artist who helped reshape Los Angeles from an artistic backwater to what it has become today.

Rutberg has hung the show chronologically and selected samples from every period of Burkhardt’s long career in L.A., so that the viewer clearly sees the art movements that informed and influenced his art: post impressionists, cubists, fauvists, surrealists, and finally abstract expressionists.

"Day and Night", 1937-38

Burkhardt was born in Switzerland in 1904,the same year that Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning were born. After an unhappy poverty-ridden childhood, he immigrated to America in 1924 and settled in New York about the same time as Gorky and de Kooning. Studying under Gorky, a deep friendship developed between both artists until Burkhardt left New York. From 1928 to 1937 they shared the same studio, even working on two joint paintings.

"untitled", 1953

Due to a difficult domestic situation with his former wife, Burkhard left New York for Los Angeles in 1937. This pivotal move raises many “what if” questions. Would Burkhardt have been as iconic as Gorky had he remained in New York? Might he have been able to prevent Gorky from hanging himself? And had Gorky lived as long as Burkhardt, would their art have resembled each other’s?

Once in LA, Lorser Feitelson arranged a solo exhibit for Burkhardt at the Stendahl Gallery (examples of his catalogs and show announcements are exhibited in the Rutberg Gallery). After that, he showed continuously throughout the 1950’s and ‘60’s, including four Whitney Museum Annuals. During that period he traveled to Mexico for extended periods of time and this became a significant period in his artistic life. Much affected by that nation’s high mortality rate and social treatment of death, he focused his paintings on existence and spirituality. In addition, the tolling of the church bells caused him to explore synesthesia, a situation where the stimulation of one sense, in this case sound, triggers another sense, the visual. In a catalog on Burkhardt, Margarita Nieto mentions his writing that “…I painted the soul of Mexico…the idea that there was something better thereafter.”

"Assemblage with Skulls on Canvas", 1967-68

In 1959 Burkhardt started teaching and by 1963 had a position at California State University at Northridge. It was a rare opportunity for art students of that time to experience and receive instruction from such an active and passionate artist.

To understand Burkhardt’s paintings, one has to appreciate the duality of his subject matter. Rutberg, who developed a friendship with the artist, remembers him referring to his paintings as either “the fierce ones” or “the happy ones.”  Burkhardt needed external events as motivation in making art; therefore his paintings are strong reactions to, even protests of, wars, and social injustices he saw around him: “the fierce ones.” Other paintings reflect his lifelong love of nature, his affirmation of hope, and his sense of the spiritual: “the happy ones.”  But the viewer should keep in mind that this duality was always part of a single coin.

"La Brea Tar Pits (Burial of the County Museum)" . 1975

There are certain constants throughout his works. There’s solidity in all of them; nothing is ever timid in his handling. There’s an ever-present kinetic energy that permeates everything he painted. His paint application teeters between formality and spontaneity. There is a constant progress towards mixed media and replacing forms with thick impasto mixes. As time goes on, his paintings get larger and his sense of independence always increases.  But perhaps upper-most, he never loses his strong expressionism; in fact, I would label him an Abstract Expressionist’s expressionist. To Burkhardt, abstraction was simply a box that held the message to be conveyed expressionistically.

"The Extra Stripe", 1993

As one turns to leave the gallery’s last exhibition room, a lone painting can be seen high over the room’s doorway. This work is entitled “The Extra Stripe” and is from his “Black Rain” series painted in 1993; it was his last painting. It consists of three charred wooden black crosses (war graves and/or Calvary) under a large stiff flag with alternating black and reddish stripes except for a white stripe at the bottom signifying hope. To the very end, Burkhardt’s duality—hope and despair– remains juxtaposed.  In a 1992 “Art in America” review, Peter Clothier fittingly wrote that his paintings were “…astonishingly energetic…elegiac in tone…works of considerable art-historical complexity.”

Judy Chicago "Through the Flower"

The painter Yitzhok Loiza Grossberg is way up there on my list of favorite artist. Never heard of him? You probably know him better as Larry Rivers. Ever come across the work of the artist Judy Cohen? Perhaps you know her as Judy Chicago. And the reason I mention Chicago is that she currently has her iconic 1973 “Through the Flower” painting hanging in the Platt/Borstein Galleries at American Jewish University as part of the Pacific Standard Time celebration under way in galleries and museums throughout Los Angeles.

Fortunately for me, the galleries two curators, Elizabeth Bloom (also an artist) and Elaine Levin (an art historian), invited me to a sneak pre-opening preview of their exhibit. Bloom and Levin selected no less than eighteen Los Angeles Jewish artists active between 1945 and 1980 to hang in the show. The result is a smorgasbord opportunity to see the influence and contributions that these artists made towards turning LA from an art backwater into the significant center it now is.

Lorser Feitelson "untitled"

To me the exhibit was like an archeological site roughly five-decades/strata deep of LA’s artistic products; a healthy panoply of known and lesser-known artists. Embedded in these layers are several works representing artistic movement s that originated in L.A. For example, there are two striking untitled 1971 screen prints from Lorser Feitelson clearly indicating the birth of color field, hard-edge painting. Feitelson, who was born in 1898, saw plenty of art movements before setting foot in Los Angeles. Once here, he founded the “Post-Surrealism” movement, along with his painter wife Helen Lundeberg. If that wasn’t enough, he also taught at Chouinard and Art Center, sites where I took many an art class. At one point, he was a director of the Los Angeles Art Association, currently run by the capable Peter May, an organization of which I’ve always been proud to be a member.

Michael Frimkess "Jumpin'at the Moon Lodge"

Besides hard edge, there came the innovative conceptual work from Pomona and assemblages such as Ed Kienholz. But LA also put a new form of ceramics on the map, essentially from Peter Voulkos at Otis. His star pupil was Michael Frimkess and the show displays two stunning vessels by Frimkess. Particularly brilliant is his 1974 vessel entitled, “Jumpin’ at the Moon Lodge.” Full of his cartoon whimsical figures Frimkess’ work is known for seamlessly organized decorative patterns on oriental shaped vessels.

In the middle of the gallery stand three ceramic room miniatures: a bathroom, a café, and a bedroom, all by the artist David Furman. At first glance it’s easy to dismiss these ceramic pieces as simply gimmicky miniatures done to be different. But seconds after getting up close, one is so completely absorbed into these works that the former notion totally dissolves. Each miniature room, devoid of people, contains a single white dog (the same dog in each room). In the bathroom the dog is perched looking into the bathtub, at the café the dog stands on one of the booth seats, and in the bedroom the dog is lying on the bed. The dog turns out to be the artist’s late pet “Molly.” With great simplicity and lack of pretension, Furman manages to visually transfer his deep emotions for Molly to the viewer and is truly the show’s unexpected tour de force.

David Furman- Molly in the cafe

David Furman- Molly in the bathroom

David Furman -Molly in the boudoir

Also historically interesting are the several oil paintings from June Wayne, founder of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Hollywood, as well as two architectural photographs by Julius Shulman, the photographer who made his métier synonymous with fine art.

Joyce Treiman "Rose-in-Living-Room"

Joyce Treiman "Study for Thomas Eakins"

Excitement continues with several works from Joyce Treiman, one of the most accomplished figurative artists of this period who, like Alice Neel, stuck to her guns through abstract expressionism. Her 1974 “Study for Thomas Eakins” (she did numerous paintings placing herself in the same scene with an iconic artist of the past) demonstrates her remarkable rendering skills. Also hanging is her 1979 “Rose in the Living Room,” as sensitive as any Bonnard painting.

More outstanding figurative artists abound such as Ruth Rossman, a founding member of the Fine Arts Council of American Jewish University and Ruth Weisberg, who will soon have an exhibit at the Jack Rutberg Gallery. Another figurative artist is Pat Berger who is known for her landscapes but also what I like to call “peoplescapes”. There’s a large 1980 work entitled “Rollar Disco” from her Venice Beach series spotlighting the “me generation,” styled much like a work from the artist D.J.Hall. Another remarkably strong series from Berger, unfortunately not shown in this exhibit, was entitled, “No Place To Go”, a 1980’s study of LA’s homeless.

Max Finkelstein "Round Plus Hexes"

Additional artists like Baila Goldenthal who was a student of Hans Hoffman; or formidable works by Peter Krasnow line the gallery walls; stunningly crafted aluminum and wood pieces by Max Finkelstein (born in 1915 and still going strong with a twinkle in his eyes when last I saw him). There are works by William Brice, born to Fanny Brice and the gambler Nicky Arnstein, when he worked at Tamarind. Also on display are works from the famous court illustrator David Rose, the early screen prints of Dave Fox, the studies from the muralist Joe Young, and works from Edward Biberman.

The exhibit is bitter sweet when you realize that two-thirds of the exhibiting artists have passed away, some quite recently. But then you realize that irrespective of how the historical dust has settled and will settle in the future, one can irrefutably say that during their lifetime these artists walked their journey well. The exhibit will run to February 5, 2012.

Munoz Acosta

Acosta’s exhibit is formidable: earthy, naive honesty combined with the sophistication of a thoroughly trained and reconciled artist (he studied at the National Art Academy in Mexico City and in Paris during the ‘70’s). The show has representative works from 1977 to his fresh paintings done last year. It illuminates an artist who makes a singular point to explore his psychological life in visual language comfortable to him.

Hung by Marisa Caichiolo, the gallery’s vivacious director, the works of Acosta really sing. Caichiolo actually creates a work of art within the exhibit by painting the many walls shades of all the primary colors, adding the secondary color green to the mix. While most galleries play it safe with the color white, Caichiolo, an artist herself, feels totally comfortable daring the presentation envelope. I’m proud to have some of my last year’s work included on their web site.

Opening Night

So what are the objects that Acosta tosses into his container?  Lots of shoes, Mexican flags, eggs sunny side up, birds, fish, monkeys, hearts, horses, family photos, religious items, clothing, musical instruments and more. The ubiquitous lemon is probably the most recurring symbol.  These objects have a personal history. For example, the lemon goes back to his early childhood when he lived in the Sonora desert and all the children had to bring a lemon to school each day to prevent dehydration.

Munoz Acosta

Acosta’s psychological journey of discovery is not self-absorbed; his objects present his collection from past memories–his visual record–and his visual journey through life. As bold and conspicuous as Acosta’s paintings are, they speak more to his inner, even secretive world. His objects are less about coming out of the canvas towards the viewer and more about pulling the gaze inwardly into his personal iconography.

Using wood, fabric, oil, acrylic, photographs, and found objects, Acosta creates his collages. He works the entire canvas over and over again, ever deepening the volume and textures at each successive pass.  Some of the works are done on an easel, others on the floor. Connie Ellig, a woman who writes about life in Ensenada (the artist’s favored location, as important to him as Abiquiu was to Georgia O’Keeffe), notes that he is “…a master of assemblage and an artist who tears apart reality and puts it back together.” Acosta himself feels that he does more constructing than painting, blending both elements much as a Robert Rauschenberg or a Larry Rivers might. A given painting is important only while he works on it; once the work is finished, he dissolves any attachment to it.

left:"Sin Titulo" 1999 right:"Shostakovich" 1998

Mozart 2004

The first thing one sees when entering the gallery is his large 140“by 96” (1999) painting of a mythological-looking animal wearing a crown.  It’s a very gutsy piece, especially when you realize that he painted it (with fabric collages) on the back of a rug. The coarse texture of the rug imparts a uniform scintillating feel to the oils on its surface.

Nearby is a large 1998 triptych entitled “Shostakovich,” which hints heavily of Mexican mural traditions, especially those of Siqueiros; Acosta’s roots reach deep into European and Mexican traditions. A large number of Acosta’s works are homage to other creative souls such as Paganini, Puccini, Wagner, Lorca, Proust, Goya, Magritte, and many others; all testimony of a well-read artist.

Cartas De Praga No.2 2006

Also on exhibit are a number of his early drawings from the 1970’s, often looking like hybrids between a Rico Le Brun and a Phillip Guston. The exhibit includes a beautifully illustrated retrospective book and a DVD (neither translated into English).

In 2004 Acosta’s older brother– his lifelong critic and manager of his artwork–died, leaving him totally devastated. In spite of profound depression he continued to paint, designating all his art under the title of “My Brother’s Flight.” And yet his current work continues the same tradition of his earlier ones, full of life and optimism.

drawing 1970's

Much revered in Mexico and little known in the States, Acosta’s first exhibition ironically was in Los Angeles. The paintings of Munoz Acosta, when all is said and done, are a testament to a profound journey by an extremely sensitive artist and man, an example to all artists of what devoting one’s life to art can be.

Huguette Caland, Helen 2, 2009

The entrance was through a narrow path on one side of the house that gave way to a brightly colored textured wooden door which my brain translated as, “Bet you didn’t expect this door did you?”  The sheer contrast of a variegated, artistic-looking door next to an otherwise bare wall was startling and filled one with immense curiosity as to what might lie behind such a door.

Before I describe the inside of the house, a short word about the famous Lebanese artist Huguette El Khjoury Caland, who has made her house a refuge, or better still, a monastery for the creation of art. A resident of Los Angeles since 1988, she is one of Lebanon’s most accomplished women artists. Like Helen el Khal, another well-known Lebanese artist, she took advantage of the new freedom accorded women in some of the Middle East cosmopolitan centers such as Beirut. Caland was born in that city in 1931 at a time when modern art and, even more significantly, art by female artists were first being exhibited in Lebanon. As the only daughter of Bechara El Khoury, an enlightened nationalist lawyer opposed to the French Mandate of Lebanon who eventually became the first President of that country, Caland’s freedom to pursue art from the early age of sixteen was a given.

Caland in her studio

Caland studied under the Italian artist Fernado Manetti, who had settled in Lebanon after WW2. She later studied art for four years at the American University of Beirut, where she developed her life-long artistic love for and fascination with embroidered fabric creations. In 1970 she moved to Paris where, except for a year in New York, she lived until her move to Los Angeles. It was in Paris that she studied under the Romanian sculptor George Apostu producing stone, wood, and terra cotta creations. To this day she creates sculptures.

Entire studio

Besides her devotion to her now-grown children, Caland has steadfastly devoted herself to creating art throughout her life. Even her one and only official job was all about art. That occurred when, noting the originality and creativity of her work, Pierre Cardin hired her to design over a hundred caftans. In her article “Byzantium in Venice: A Visit with Huyguette Caland,” Joanne Warfield quotes Caland as saying, “This is haute couture, but I painted over it!”

Caland’s work, whether deliberately, coincidentally, or subconsciously, seems informed by artists such as Paul Klee and to a lesser extent Gustav Klimt. Wild, colorfully inventive forms swirl around the canvas, seemingly unorganized yet quite unified. Her works are a retinal symphony designed for the senses, yet I found them to possess more than that. Caland views her works as going no further than what you see in front of you, they simply speak for themselves. She simply puts down on canvas things that she loves; there is no attempt or motive for analysis. She firmly maintains that her paintings explain and define nothing, that they have no meaning, stating, “The work speaks for itself.” Caland takes this a step further by hoping that the viewer will enjoy her art without placing any intellectual interpretation into it.

Paul Klee, Highway and Byways, 1929

I have no reason not to take Caland at her word but her creations, like the clouds, have unintentional consequences. Out of her stylized shapes and lines, the viewer can and does construct narrative, wanting to discover what the artist meant to convey. It is actually difficult to look at her work and not have your imagination stimulated. There is a cerebral aspect to her work after all. Try as one can, the visual mystery Caland has placed on her canvases is as powerful as her front door, it makes one want to know what’s behind the beautiful visceral colors and lines.

Huguette Caland, La Mer 2, 2008

And so, when I walked through that front door, I discovered a 5,000-foot space full of her enticing and spectral works. As Warfield quotes Caland’s instructions to her architect, “I want my house to be a cathedral – it is my institution.”  Caland more than achieved her goal. Her hanging art becomes the windows of her cathedral, (there are almost no windows looking out from the house, most windows look into the interior patios and gardens). There is only a single door (the guest bathroom) in the entire house. Essentially she has created one large work of art to house her smaller works. Even a significant portion of her kitchen is covered with her art.

Caland's kitchen

To the left of the house is a gigantic, mostly empty, two-story high studio with only a large table in the middle and several small tables in the corners. The center table is where, if she’s not swimming laps in her pool, the artist is usually patiently and serenely doing her art. Around or near her are any or all of her three full time assistants, Emily Smith, Julienne Hsu (both hold MFA degrees from Claremont Graduate University), and Kour Pour (who holds a BFA from the Otis College of Art and Design).  The admiration and loyalty observed by her assistants are a reflection of the enormous respect and generosity Caland shows them.

On the studio walls hung a few large cotton canvas works dwarfed by the immensity of the wall space. On the table was a large folded canvas that was being worked on, section by section. Sometimes the canvas is hung on the wall and worked there.  Caland makes no prior studies lest, by doing so, the emotions get diminished. There is something of the surrealist automata about her creative process; she cherishes the spontaneity of creation. Most of the paintings were being done with colored felt markers but watercolor markers, oil markers and acrylic paints are also used. From far off or close up, her works simulate her love of tapestry, and section after section has short lines as if to simulate stitching. The effect is mesmerizing; one could easily imagine each one in the Bauhaus studio of Gunta Stolzl. Concurrent with this activity Caland also creates sculptures, in this case wire morphed human shapes with yarn wrapped around selected sections. To my eye, they hinted a bit of Niki de Saint Phalle.

Huguette Caland - detail of a recent painting

Huguette Caland is represented by the Janine Rubeiz Gallery in Beirut where some of her work is permanently displayed, and is represented in the US by the art dealer Aldis Brone (?).  Her work is also in the Monaco and Beirut collections of the prominent collector Pierre Naim.

Caland is not only completely one with her space, but also one with her art; the two have totally merged. Hugette Caland, like Georgia O’Keeffe at Abiquiu, has created a monument, and that’s a beautiful thing to behold, that’s creating Nirvana.

Half the fun of looking at an artist’s work is observing his or her journey; how they got from point A to point B.  And Rutberg is the consummate master at unearthing early works, the “A” points so to speak, from some of art’s major players. It was therefore a pleasure responding to his invitation to participate in an Eric Minh Swenson Place (f.64) video production at Condo’s opening (I speak towards the end of the video.)

Directed by Renee Fox, this exhibit place provides an opportunity for critics and curators to put up shows only dreamed of before. Already, under the umbrella title of “Critics as Curators,” Doug Harvey, David Pagel, Peter Frank, and Shana Nys Dambrot have each previously set up exhibits there.

Tim Youd "Vibrating Super Cunt with Flashing Lights"

Now, it’s Mat Gleason, critic and editor of the Coagula Art Journal, who is taking advantage of this amazing space. Gleason came across as a straight-shooting, iconoclast possessing keen artistic insight coupled with a marvelous sense of humor for extra seasoning.

Here’s what he did. Taking nine personally owned (well, he owned most of them) art works, he established nine separate “chains” of artists, a dozen or so artists in each chain, who received the work of a previous artist in their chain. They had ten days to create and complete their take on it and pass it down the line to the next artist in their chain. Are you still with me? Gleason solved this monumental organizational headache by enlisting a cadre of co-curators to deliver paintings back and forth within LA’s logistically unfriendly geography.

So there I was, listening to the echo of Gleason’s voice as he explained each work in succession that hung on parking lot concrete walls. With such a large number of artists’ works, this day covered only a third of the participants.

The first chain started with a photo of a modest nude female that morphed into a Botticelli-like “Birth of Venus” in the hands of the next artist. Somehow, the following participant saw Venus as a vertical surfboard. The next artist added a lifeguard hut and placed the surfboard on a billboard. The artist after that turned the hut into an iconic British red phone booth along with the billboard. But then the surfboard on the billboard turned into a fish, which was stenciled over by the next artist. The whole chain ends with a beautifully composed painting continuing the stencil motif but turning it into a passage from a Henry Miller novel with two light switches embedded. Turn one on and multiple lights above the painting flash on and off; turn on the other switch and the whole painting pulsates. What did the artist entitle this? “Vibrating Super Cunt with Flashing Lights”– makes sense.

Another chain began with a pixel scan of an artist’s abstract painting. The second artist hung this work on her wall and photographed a model sitting under it as her contribution. Several succeeding artists went back to making computer-manipulated works until someone turned their piece into a jewelry case with an eyeball necklace. Several other boxes emphasizing texture and stylized vegetation followed until the next artist made it into a photograph of drawers. This launched several abstracted interpretations of the drawers, one by artist Gina Stepaniuk, who saw jazz music in her abstracted deconstruction painting, followed in turn by another artist, Ilana Bloch, who saw in Stepaniuk’s work landmasses and clouds which she coalesced into a bird’s eye view of a cityscape.

Gronk "Cocktails"

But the chain that tickled me most began with a work from the artist Gronk, nee Glugio Nicandro, entitled “Cocktails.”  Lavialle Campbell, who saw something of a fish tail in Gronk’s piece, produced a beautiful small quilt.

Lavialle Campbell "Red Quilt"

The fish tail was picked up and elaborated on by Adam Teraoka, who also changed Ms. Campbell’s predominantly red work into an overall blue one, and then split the painting into a diptych.

Adam Teraoka "Fish and Eggs"

The conceptual artist Claudia Parducci saw the fish tail as that of a whale and what better whale than Moby Dick? She maintains the diptych and vertically spells out in large red Morse code the name M-O-B-Y on the left panel and D-I-C-K on the right panel.

Claudia Parducci "Moby Dick"

When Lava Thomas saw Parducci’s work, she picked up on the “DICK” and drew a technically sophisticated drawing on paper of nothing more than a man’s face atop a penis.

Lava Thomas "Moby Dick"

Kara Maria, not to be outdone, does a portrait with a penis for a nose so long that the penis head resembles a man with a long chin.  Joan Sebastian and Iva Hladis both painted a full-body, standing male figure posed as if in front of a urinal, both hands holding onto his, well, Moby Dick.

Kara Maria "El Pelon"

So in one chain we see a fish turning into a female sex organ and in another group the fish turns into a male organ.You wonder why today’s art world is flying in multiple directions simultaneously? Wonder no more; Mat Gleason’s brilliant exhibit shows you why.

All of the artists are recognized names, some iconic (Marca-Relli, Man Ray, Motherwell, Nevelson), while some are from the Gallery’s stable (Graham, Witkins). The show’s connecting sinew is that almost all of the works are collages. However, that does not mean that this many artists see collage the same way, quite the contrary, and that’s what’s so much fun about this show.  Fortunately, as a result of Rutberg’s ability to hang a show (an art in itself), such a diversity of collages co-exists exuberantly without visual casualties.

Conrad Marca-Relli 28 by 34 inches

Near the front entrance Rutberg hangs a stunning 1982 Conrad Marca-Relli collage of burlap, various other fabrics, and newspaper cuttings titled “The Sunday Caller.” In spite of its fading (which actually helps since most of the colors are shades of brown), it’s as powerful today as it must have been when first created. The impact of the composition becomes clear when you step away from the collage and realize that it could easily have been a painting.

Also near the entrance hangs a splendidly made 1970 collage that could easily be taken as an actual hard-edge painting on raw linen fabric (I admit, I was fooled) by Stanley Boxer, made up of asymmetrical stripes climbing a narrow, tall, vertical canvas.

When I first bumped into Edward Kienholz’s “Back Seat Dodge ‘38” at LACMA in the early ‘60’s, I understood that abstract expressionism had died. Such an experience guaranteed curiosity about the Kienholz works in the show. The first, a 1977 small television (created with Nancy Reddin Kienholz) as a jerry can with a set of bunny ear antennas and a counter behind the screen ticking out seconds, did not surprise me. But the second piece did: a 1956 not overly refined construction piece assembled from scrap wood, a twisted saw blade, and some popsicle sticks sitting on a typical abstract expressionistically treated background. I had never seen the pre- Dodge -’38 side of this artist, I didn’t even know it existed; imagine, a Kienholz when he wasn’t, well, Kienholz.

Jose Luis Cuevas 28 by 44 1/8 inches

But this Kienholz surprise was nothing compared to a large 1993 piece constructed of separate tiles forming a single image in the center area by Jose Luis Cuevas and entitled “La Carta.”  As a long-time fan of Cuevas, I’ve never encountered anything but drawings or prints, and neither has Rutberg or anyone else I know. It’s a beautiful piece that displays his unique style, just as impressive as his works on paper.

Halfway through the gallery one encounters more gems such as Mark Toby’s 1974-5 mixed media palette. What artist has not at some time glanced at their painting palette and thought it looked better than the painting on the easel.

Hans Burkhardt 12 by 17 3/8 inches

There’s also a small collage by Hannelore Baron, one of the most accomplished artists in this media; her works are consistently strong, sensitive, and brilliantly composed. In spite of Baron’s amazing work, Hans Burkhard’s small 1992 untitled collage stole the show. The piece consisted of two small, side-by-side, tilted off the vertical, detailed packed rectangles floating in a minimal environment that displays immense visual power in such a diminutive work.

Towards the end of the Gallery hangs Huguette Caland’s 1997 untitled painting that consists of two long, thin, separate canvases placed side by side. That it unintentionally brings to mind the 9/11 twin towers well before the event is a bit unsettling. Viewed up close, Caland’s brilliant treatment of surfaces becomes apparent.

Tom Wudl 75 1/4 by 50 3/4 inches

Finally, it would be impossible to miss spotting a good size 2007 collage (pencil, acrylic, oil, gold leaf, vellum) by Tom Wudl, the person who single-handedly showed me what it meant to be an artist. Entitled “Henry Flower AKA Leopold Bloom in Nighttown,” the collage juxtaposes Andrea Mantegna’s Saint Sebastian, at least from the neck down, to include every single arrow in the corpus, along with elements from the artist’s own imaginative iconographical lexicon. Wudl is all about the phantasmagorical creations of puns, parodies, allusions, and stream-of- consciousness. In this particular image, the clubs, eyes, breasts, lips, and chapeau make sense only because of the title. Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses who uses the pseudonym of Henry Flower, is accompanying Stephen Daedalus to a Dublin brothel. Like his Laurel and Hardy series, Wudl’s exacting representations and abundance of surrealistic detail make it difficult to know where the line between tongue-in-cheek and gravitas lies. Having had the good fortune to work with the artist for a two-year span, I can safely say that Wudl is a study in polarities: transparently obvious at one level yet opaquely mysterious on another, and I highly suspect that’s exactly where he wants the viewers who enter his Universe.

Try not to miss seeing Jack Rutberg’s exhibit before its closure after May 31.

But Secrest’s book is not about forgeries; it’s about myth busting, primarily the myth that portrayed Modigliani mainly as a dissipated alcoholic and drug addict who painted strange elongated faces, most likely when under the influence. Through strong research Secrest dispels this two-dimensional notion by pointing out the real reason behind the artist’s ever increasing use of drink and drugs that ended with his death at the age of thirty-five, without a single tooth left in his mouth.

Amedeo Modigliani in good health

His death was due to tubercular meningitis, not a dissolute life style. No doubt the artist drank and took drugs to excess, rather de rigueur for most artists at that time when such things were legal and easily obtained. But Secrest shows us why Modigliani indulged even beyond what was considered normal for his fellow bohemians. She portrays a man working overtime to avoid the stigma of having tuberculosis. She puts forth convincing evidence that his heavy drinking and drug use, particularly opium with laudanum, which he used as an antispasmodic to suppress his fits of coughing and later as an analgesic to relieve his pain, were out of necessity.

Amedeo Modigliani in poor health

Modigliani’s tuberculosis developed into tubercular meningitis, which affects the brain causing severe headaches and wide mood swings. This would have caused strange behavior, which, coupled with his ever-increasing alcohol and drugs to damper his suffering, guaranteed the myth that would define him. Yet even at the time few knew the reason for his overindulgence.

Jeanne Hebuterne

“Dedo,” as he was usually called, was famously handsome, sensitive, likable, gregarious and intelligent. Involved in numerous affairs with women, the book concentrates at length on the three primary females in his life. There’s the short relationship with the Russian Anna Akhmatova; later, the more serious affair with the English Beatrice Hastings; and finally his life with the young beautiful French girl Jeanne Hebuterne, who gave him a daughter. Modigliani died on a Saturday night and on Monday at three a.m. Jeanne, heavily pregnant with another child from Modigliani, walked backward out of a sixth-floor window to her death.

The book also covers Modigliani’s two dealers, Paul Guillaume and Leopold Zhorwski, as well as the numerous artists who floated with him around Montmartre and later Montparnasse. Two of the most significant artists were Soutine, another physical wreck (a ruined digestive system and liver from years of drinking and semi-starvation), and Brancusi, who understandably influenced him since Modigliani had wanted to be a sculptor above all else. Besides Brancusi’s effect and influence, other artists and art movements hardly moved him, not the Fauves, not the Nabis, not even the explorations of Braque, Matisse or Picasso; Modigliani went his own way.

The book spares little: You read about his carefree manner with money, his skipping out of debts, his shabby studios, all is there. And what of Jeanne Modigliani, his surviving daughter from Jeanne Hebuterne? She’s covered as well. What’s lacking, from an otherwise formidable book, is analysis of his art coupled with adequate examples of his paintings. There is no shortage of the splendid photographs one expects to find in an artist’s biography, but which, as in most such texts, fail to render an artist’s works as significant as his life experiences. Solution? Find a second book to fill the void.  In this particular case I used Phaidon’s Modigliani by Douglas Hall.

After the success of Modigliani’s London show at the Mansard Gallery, his works began to sell well, but by then he had little time left before his death. Meryle Secrest used two terms in her book, “rara avis” (rare bird) and “vie maudite” (cursed life), which pretty much epitomize the man’s life, the cursed life of a rare bird named Amadeo (“Beloved of God”).