Dancer in the Dark/Light

Hanging lamps at Blackman Cruz

German Expressionism: dark and moody, something you'd expect from a northern European country, right? Then how did it happen that dark and moody film noir flourished in sunny swaying palms L.A.? I think if you live here you catch on pretty quickly. Angelinos are dancers in the dark and the light. After all you can't have strong shadows without strong light. Know what I mean?

Looking down on the design cognoscenti of L.A. @ Blackman Cruz

This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights each had openings and I went to them all. So let's go back together and see what's on the bleeding edge of L.A. culture.

The Blackman Cruz version of comfort: their spiked poof.

Capote was here? Anyway, it's a hand carved coffin.

Some of the adventuresome play with contrast and scale at Blackman Cruz.

Thursday was Blackman Cruz which is not a gallery but Adam Blackman and David Cruz elevate furniture and objects for interiors to the level of a work of art on display. It seems like a slight to call their place a showroom or a shop because the interior architecture is  so thoughtfully  articulated. There's a marvelous change of scale from the two story tall great room you enter to the low ceiling upper floor rooms reminiscent of the Soane Museum. There's also open air deck with a view to the Hollywood sign to remind you where you are.

The space was once a disco and the giant mirror ball remains
 scattering flecks of light from the setting sun.

Upstairs at Blackman Cruz there's a clubby feeling
and a fresh take on Sir John Soane.

Their carefully curated collection has a jesting, slightly sinister principle of taste: bats, griffins, skulls,  that sort of thing. And there's a marvelous play with scale to the furniture and objects that includes big and hulking as well as tiny and precious. The surfaces have the same sort of range of extremes from shiny and polished to matte pentimento.

Here, literally are the dancers in the dark, well mostly dark.

Same as above, lit: Laura Owens' Gavin Brown Enterprise's Sci Arc Adjacent Alternative Art Space

The following night: time to get back to the garden.

Kayne Griffin Corcoran's new location on La Brea.

Friday was a return to art school in the sense that the opening I went to was exactly like something I would have gone to as a student. No doubt there were a number of students or recent graduates there. The space is an enormous warehouse just over the L.A. river from SciArc. The space is said to be Laura Owens' studio. Her paintings are hung, though I didn't see any evidence that she actually works there. I guess it's more of an extension of Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Laura's gallery in NYC, as I hear he's footing a portion of the rent. Whatever it is, it's a nice alternative gallery space that's a welcome edition to L.A.'s art scene. The location is industrial á la Charles Sheeler and the dance performance on Friday night mirrored that kind of stark stripped down esthetic. Following the live event:  a selection of videos which included the "By a Waterfall" number from Busby Berkeley's Footlight Parade (1933). And the crowd roared approval as it perfectly punctuated the evening's roster of high concept, art-world, in joke, navel gazing.

Detail of a James Turrell study for the crater.

This is the complete drawing, one of many on display showing the Roden Crater.

Last and by far the best was Saturday night at Kayne Griffin Corcoran. They could not have made a better choice to inaugurate their new location than the work of James Turrell who at age 70 is at the top of his game. Actually I guess James Turrell will be permanent fixture of the gallery as one of his sky spaces has been created in a room. There are specially designed reclining chairs to allow one to sit back and take in the sublime light bath but even standing and looking down at the polished stone floor you get a perfect reflection of the square apex. The changing palette of saturated color is intense and trippy like all of Turrells installations. 

James Turrell's room at Kayne Griffin Corcoran.

Looking up from one of the reclining chairs.

As I looked down the color's were already changing.

You start to imagine that the air itself inside the room is saturated with color.

The main gallery space was devoted to James Turrell's magnum opus, the Roden Crater. The drawings, maquettes, photographs, and associated material defining and describing Roden Crater have a Duchampian feel and yet there's no pun here just sublime artistry. I'm telling you this setting and this show on a gorgeous spring evening in Los Angeles, well, it's doesn't get any better.

James Turrell's supporting materials for the Roden Crater project.

Like a salesman sample or Duchamp's Box in a Valise.

The scale topography is more apparent in the side view.

Stay curious!

The Gold Standard

Since moving to Los Angeles a lot has happened and by that I mean there have been changes for the better in the local cultural landscape. As a matter of fact the center of the (contemporary L.A.) art world has located itself a short distance from me. When one ventures out in L.A. it's always preceded by a mental calculation: what route do I take to make it worth it? So famous is that question that it's been parodied on SNL.

Alan Kupchick's opening at Hale Arts.

This is the work of Andrea Bowers (marker on found cardboard) at  Susan Vielmetter Gallery

Fortunately Culver City is just down the street from me and this past Saturday was an opening at Blum and Poe which is always a big deal, and an even bigger deal this night because it's Takashi Murakami. His current offering is called Arhat, (sanskrit for a being who has achieved a state of enlightenment). I immediately recognized the imagery in his mural sized paintings as Yūrei, which are Japanese ghosts. Interesting. Of the contemporary artist who essentially head factories that churn out works I think he's definitely one of the more interesting ones. He's established his formula yet I believe he's engaged. Look at those gorgeous surfaces!

Murakami Opening at Blum and Poe.

Murkami's huge paintings of ghosts.

Closer to home I have a neighbor, Marina Moevs, whose paintings I love. Her work always seem to be about the aftermath of a major disaster but they're so serene that the association is calmness rather than violent upheaval. Marina and I worked to get the city to grant our neighborhood, ( Jefferson Park), historic preservation overlay zone status (which we achieved!), so suffice to say Marina really does care about maintaining an environment of peace and stability. To round things out I've included a weird piece by film maker, David Lynch and the obsessive beaded installations of Liza Lou. 

Millions of gold beads by Liza Lou at L&M Arts.

Installed view, close up, and detail of Marina's work.

Illuminated sculpture by David Lynch at Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery

Enjoy and please give me your thoughts, will you? I always enjoy your comments.

iPhone 4 with my Mandala cover

iPhone 4 with my Mandala cover, a photo by scott_waterman on Flickr.

artistecase

Cyberspace

Cyberspace.

 Meet me in Cyberspace.  I'm always there!

 I guess we all are (always here) either by virtue of the content we post, blogging, emailing or just the foot prints we leave behind traipsing from one page to the next. They tell us all this activity lasts forever on some server somewhere. Forever.

I try to be thoughtful about what I post without being intimidated by eternity. What else can we do? Now, let's look at some pictures of a non-physical terrain created by computer systems, shall we?

 I created a number of installations for my paintings, not commissioned work, but work from my extensive collection. They've already been posted elsewhere, although, here on Blogger content gets picked up by Google searches so it really gets spread around and I've just got to spread more of me around cyberspace. What about you?

By the way I try to end these posts with a question not to be rhetorical but in the hope that you dear readers really will answer me, something, anything. I want your words not just your foot prints from Lodz, Lodzkie, Poland; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Chester-le-street, Durham, United Kingdom; Cheonan, Ch'ungch'ong-namdo, Korea, Republic of; Jeddah, Makkah, Saudi Arabia; Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt; and even Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I see all of you have visited me and you've all left your footprints. 

And from Alberta, Canada I received this nice note from one of my most ardent fans:

Dear Scott,
I hope that you will accept a sincere apology! Winters are long up here!
I truly enjoy your lovely creative spirit- you are virtuoso! Looking at your
work gives me great delight. I am not in any way a threat - and don't plan a blog- I do enlarge the pics to be able to enjoy and see. Thank you kindly with respect for access to enjoy your lovely works of art!
Sincerely, DB Edmonton- (Since your first mention of Edmonton- I began to prep a note to you - too long to publish here.) I read and reread your work like an enjoyable book! All the Best! Thank you, Scott!

I knew my fan in Edmonton only through her cyber footprint and there were so many! I mean really a lot! I chided her for not bother to write me since she obviously is so interested in my work. That's the back story and hence the content and tone of her comment. Thank you Edmonton!

I'll be your mirror.

February 2013

DSC04803, a photo by scott_waterman on Flickr.

Flickr: where my paintings live.

218_phone for Artistecase

218_phone, a photo by scott_waterman on Flickr.

Are you dreaming?