Culver City Art Walk - 2010

A bit reluctantly, I went on the Culver City Art walk yesterday. My hesitation was due to past visits when much of the artwork seemed conservative; even lackluster.

I won't dwell on the work that was dull or bad, except to mention that there was one (alleged) artist owned space where a patio with 12 huge, horrible spattered paint canvases, disturbed my hopes for this event. As my friend said, "it looks like the colors came from the paint mixing mistakes pile of Home Depot." Worst of all, this guy has been there for seven years, and as with any crime I think there should be more severe punishment for repeat offenders.

On a more positive note, we saw appealing sculptures at two of the galleries along the east side of La Cienega. We crossed to west side to srutinize a vertical garden on the walls of an anonymous building, which had intrigued me for some time while driving past. It turned out to be The Smog Shoppe, an event space. There was a wedding taking place this afternoon allowing us to peek into the interior. Walking along the outside we admired how beautifully installed and maintained the selection of plants were on these walls. I have always wanted to live in one of the walled gardens, of the sort called a Carmine, in Granada. Here was the hip update to that concept. I did some research the following morning, and I've provided a link to The Smog Shoppe, which was created by a very interesting designer-artist named Miguel Nelson, who has also turned his downtown loft into another event space. Now I just have to get invited to some event there!

Next stop, Blum and Poe gallery. Even though I always admired the fact that they were the ones that kicked off the whole Culver City gallery movement, I've actually never cared much for their space or the work I've seen there. But this was their new mega-gallery and it was incredibly impressive. The largest, or certainly one of the largest galleries in Los Angeles, it is a beautifully designed sequence of differentiated interior spaces. To your right as you enter there is a very appealing, though private, art research library. We then entered a series of rooms, which fortunate for me were filled with works by Tim Hawkinson, who is perhaps my favorite Los Angeles-based artist. As usual, an excellent show. Upstairs, there was a more rustic space, wood floors exposed trusses, showing perhaps 15 huge redwood sculptures by J B Blunk, well known to me from my explorations of Bay Area furniture artists.

Blum and Poe obviously have incredible confidence, and what they've created makes a lot of the nearby galleries feel like amateur efforts. Since it's only two blocks from my own studio, I look forward to many repeat visits.

We continued down Washington Boulevard, becoming more selective about which galleries we would venture into. Why do some gallery owners think that anyone can enjoy looking at artwork in a hot, stuffy space, with incredible humidity? When I go to openings at physically uncomfortable spaces, I usually turn on my heel, without even looking at the work.

A few nice galleries, and a couple of spaces that were focal points for the cigarette smoking tattoo crowd. They had burnout, it was a beautiful day outside, and it made me wish that we had weekly, or daily promenade spaces, like many Spanish cities do.

All in all, the kind of day, and the kind of event, that makes me glad I live in Los Angeles.

We finished up at Royal-T, a cafe and gallery.

Last time I went there, I had dragged a friend about six extra blocks to show it to him, but our entry was prevented by a line of 150 teen girls, and teen-like adult women waiting dutifully to be allowed entry to the boutique in order to purchase the just-released, latest and greatest, "Hello Kitty" product. Yikes!

This time, no line. We wandered through the 10,000 or 12,000 square feet of space which features beautiful bowstring trusses, and exposed brick walls. There is an art exhibit secured behind thick plexiglass barricades, and in the middle of the space, there are perhaps a dozen café tables. The most novel thing about royalty is the fact that the servers there wear French maids costumes. Pity that all of them are girls.

This is my second time eating at Royal-T. It's affordable, friendly, and the service is excellent. I enjoyed my veggie burger, and my friend liked his chicken Katsu sandwich. I had a very nice, and large, French beer, and all was right with the world.

Dividing the Light - James Turrell

I visited James Turrell's 'light and space' piece at Pomona College on Saturday. I had last seen it two years ago, after the symposium in honor of the opening of this work. At that time, I was a little overwhelmed after several hours of conversation from the speakers at the symposium, and I enjoyed "Dividing the Light," but wasn't really able to focus on it. When you have an artwork that is large-scale, but also about subtle effects that can only be experienced over time, you really have to be careful to create a circumstance where you can give yourself over to what is happening in the moment.

The work is a large canopy floating over a square arrangement of stone benches. The ceiling of the canopy is illuminated by lights that shift in color and intensity according to programs created by the artist. There is a large square aperture punctured through the center of the canopy, like a frame for a particular portion of the sky. Below the opening is a black reflecting pool.

If you ever studied Joseph Albers', Interaction of Color," you would immediately understand the forces at play here. According to the principle of simultaneous contrast our brain tries to establish a neutral field, upon which we evaluate the color of various objects. So if you spend half an hour in a room illuminated by pink light, and then step outdoors, everything seems to have an weirdly bluish cast for a few minutes.

Even though I know the science of how this works, I was amazed at the power of "Dividing the Light." The canopy is eliminated by Lavender light for the first 20 minutes or so, and the sky color through the aperture looks fairly natural. Then, in just two or three minutes the light colors switches to Turquoise, and the sky becomes much more gray. I kept comparing the color of the sky through the aperture, to the sky color to the west, as the sun was setting. At first, they seemed to match, but as the color effects on the canopy became more dramatic, the sky above contradicted the "outside" sky.

I didn't really expect more than a few people to visit this case on a Saturday evening. It's best to get there 30 to 40 minutes prior to the Sunset. The "show" begins 25 minutes before sunset, and continues for about an hour. As I approached the courtyard, I saw several people walking towards it from other directions, and I heard a fairly loud rumble of conversation. And in fact the benches surrounding the reflecting pool were nearly filled and there were about 50 people in attendance.

As is typical, when people are waiting these days, there was a fair amount of e-mail checking, text team, looking at things on mobile phone browsers. There was a nice mix of young and old, and no surprise that this looks like a fairly affluent and educated bunch of people. Several families were there, and what I thought would feel restrained and spiritual, felt more like the beginnings of a family picnic. Anyway, I didn't mind, because the last thing I wanted was some guard telling me not to take any pictures, or not to talk. Once the event began, the audience became very focused, and conversation involved only that delighted sharing of something unusual and beautiful.

The work held people's attention, and they were patient enough to let the color effects develop. About 40 minutes into the program, there were some sudden and dramatic shifts in the intensity of the sky seen through the aperture. It made me happy to see that this work by Turrell, who is one of my favorite artists, was being received with enthusiasm.

In addition to the sky phenomena, a seconary aspect of this piece is just watching the other people watch the sky.

Near the end of the hour, I experienced a dramatic compression of time. It seemed like 10 minutes before I had seen a bright blue sky near dusk, and then, very suddenly, a star appeared in blackness. If you just stare through the aperture, after 45 minutes the edge between aperture and canopy blurs; and at least to me, pink and blue flashes appeared at the edges, and the sky was ink black through the hole, with a bright planet near the zenith. The canopy became very bright white with a pinkish cast. It was the color equivalent of someone suddenly shifting a zoom lens. I thought it was totally effective in producing an intense experience of the transition from day to night.

See this piece for yourself. I took a number of photographs during the program, and not unexpectedly, the objective camera kept "seeing" the same damn colors that were monotonously similar due to the lack of the an overlay of brain processing. I can't think of any other experience that has made me more aware of what my eye 'sees,' in contrast to what my brain was making of the image.

The brochure for "Dividing the Light" says it open to the public Sunday and Monday, from 10 AM to 8 PM. But since it's in an open courtyard on the beautiful Claremont colleges campus, I would assume you could visit on any evening. It's located behind two buildings on the corner of College Way and 6th St. in Claremont California. More information is available at www.Pomona.edu/museum