David Hockney is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his recent practice using digital technology and his lifestyle in Los Angeles. “It’s a reasonably sophisticated city down the hill,” he says. “It’s very nice. It’s home, really. But I’m not that interested in what’s happening outside. I like my way of life. I just work.” (more…)
An Auguste Rodin sculpture stolen 24 years ago has been recovered after it was offered for sale to Christie’s, and returned to the owner. “In accordance with the insurance policy to which this work was subject, Young Woman with Serpent was offered back to the theft victim upon its successful recovery,”says Spokesman Jerome Hasler of Art Recovery Group, the company that assisted in the recovery of the piece. “In this instance, however, the victim has decided that the work should be sold, and it will now be consigned later this year for a new owner to enjoy.” (more…)
Rachel Harrison, Magnum (2015), via Regen Projects
New York-based artist Rachel Harrison is presenting a multifaceted exhibition at Los Angeles’s Regen Projects this month, exploring notions of representation, perspective and time as they function in both the context of the gallery and in the artist’s own work. Titled Three Young Framers, the exhibition’s tacit reference to the photography of August Sander points to this notion of the subject as a participant in the act of photography, echoed today in an era of widely proliferating photographic technology. (more…)
Shepard Fairey’s warrant in Detroit resulted in the artist’s arrest at the Los Angeles International Airport this past Monday, where he was held overnight on charges of vandalism. The artist has since been released, and has not made a statement on the event. (more…)
The LA Times looks at the immense efforts taken at the Broad Museum to ready the exhibition space, including the negotiations in installing and managing immense artworks like a recently purchased Takashi Murakami piece. “Contemporary art is so varied in form, material and scale that you often need to devise new approaches for moving and installing certain pieces,” says the Broad’s director of collections management, Vicki Gambill. “That’s what makes the work infinitely interesting and complex. Preparators love solving problems.” (more…)
As the Broad Foundation prepares to open its Los Angeles Museum, its founders are on a major buying spree, buying about one work per week to bulk up its collection. The museum already holds the world’s largest collection of works by Cindy Sherman, and is noted as having more Roy Lichtenstein works than anyone else outside the artist’s own foundation. (more…)
Robert Motherwell. Opens (Installation View) All Images Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery.
Now through June 20, Andrea Rosen Gallery will host a comprehensive exhibition of Robert Motherwell’s Open series, composed from 1967 through the 1970s, and set to coincide with the centennial of the artist’s birth. This historical marker exemplifies the gallery’s ongoing commitment to looking to the recent past of contemporary art in order to expand upon trends currently emerging, and to trace the influence of major figures in the art world. As the gallery’s press release states, “Opens not only allows us to compare these masterworks against the present-day focus on abstraction, but also encourages us to reconcile the breadth of Motherwell’s rigor and clarity.” This comprehensive exhibition of one of the artist’s lesser-known series provides the opportunity to deepen public understanding of the legacy of Motherwell as an artist and a significant force in mid-twentieth century New York City.
Maccarone Gallery is the latest New York gallery opening an exhibition space in Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. The gallery will take up residence at 300 South Mission Road, a location that inspired gallerist Michele Maccarone. “I saw the space and was very inspired by it,” she says. “The departure point was really the building.” (more…)
In a perhaps unprecedented move, the entire first year class at USC’s Roski School of Arts MFA Program have dropped out of the program, protesting moves by Dean Erica Muhl to overhaul the department’s structure and funding models. “Whatever artistic work we created this spring semester was achieved in spite of, not because of, the institution,” the seven students wrote in an open letter announcing their withdrawal. “Because the university refused to honor its promises to us, we are returning to the workforce degree-less and debt-full.” (more…)
An article in The Guardian looks at the current art community in Los Angeles, and asks if perhaps the Californian metropolis now offers better opportunities for artists than New York City’s vaunted art scene. There’s a lot of people helping each other out here,” says artist David Flores. “And there’s a lot more room to play with, more elbow room.” (more…)
Chris Burden, via NY Times
Chris Burden, the Californian performance art pioneer and sculptor, who consistently pushed the envelope of physical endurance and human capacities, passed away at home this weekend from a malignant melanoma. He was 69. (more…)
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the California Resale Royalties Act is unconstitutional, but has allowed the law to remain on the books if the objectionable portion of the law is removed, keeping the resale royalty provided the sales take place within California. Some speculate as to wether this may prevent major auctions from happening in the State. (more…)
William Pope L., Trinket (Installation View), via MOCA
Inside the MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary building in Downtown Los Angeles, an immensely oversized American flag endlessly flutters in a synthetic breeze, held aloft by a series of industrial grade cooling fans. The breeze is intense, and the force exerted on the delicate stitching holding the iconic stars and stripes together is gradually tearing apart, a powerful metaphor in a time when the nation is riddled by high levels of police brutality, harsh military involvement overseas and increasingly vitriolic partisanship. (more…)
The New Yorker has a profile on sculptor Charles Ray this week, the Californian sculptor known for his occasionally disturbing and lifelike works, including Huck and Jim a statue based on the inseparable pair of Mark Twin’s classic novel, which was initially intended for the plaza outside the new Whitney before it was declined over fears of controversy. “I don’t want whatever becomes of it to be less than the original idea, and the original idea was for it to be there,” Ray tells the magazine. “I’m not naïve to the controversies this would generate—I told them that controversies would be a forest we had to navigate through.” (more…)
Robert Irwin, South South West (2014-2015), via Pace Gallery
Currently on view at Pace Gallery’s W. 25th Street location is a set of new, “site-conditioned” works by Light and Space pioneer Robert Irwin, continuing the artist’s ongoing experimentation with the perceptual capacities of fluorescent lighting, and the complementary reactions of color, shadow and spacing. (more…)
French artist Vincent Lamouroux has completed a new public project in Los Angeles, covering the full exterior of an historic motel at Bates and Sunset Blvd. in white paint. “It couldn’t have been any other place,” the artist says. “Because it is a motel, a place shared by a lot of people. And this type of architecture, international style, coupled with palm trees, the motel sign and the billboard as well, is a combination of the LA idea that we all have, the California dream.” (more…)
As the Los Angeles County Museum of Art continues its 50th-anniversary acquisitions campaign, the museum announced over $200 million in new art received as “anniversary gifts” to the institution. A number of the works go on view this week as part of the museum’s “50 for 50: Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA’s Anniversary” exhibition. (more…)
Former Walt Disney President Michael Ovitz has filed a $2.5 Million bad faith breach of contract lawsuit against insurance company American International Group (AIG) and Chartis Property Casualty Co. for allegedly failing to reimburse Ovitz for a lost Richard Prince work. “While Defendants ultimately acknowledged coverage and full insurance benefits for another loss under almost identical circumstances, Defendants steadfastly, unreasonably, and without probable cause, refused to provide coverage for the loss at issue herein,” and thus represented bad faith, the suit says. (more…)
Two paintings, including a classic Roy Lichtenstein held at the Sam Simon Foundation, an organization established by Simpsons co-founder. The pair of works are valued at $400,000. (more…)
A Los Angeles Times article charts the success of LACMA curator Stephanie Barron, who has helped grow the museum and its collection into an international powerhouse of modern and contemporary art, as well as a growing Korean, Islamic and Latin American collections. “I’ve had the amazing good fortune,” Barron says, “to work for an institution that has unconditionally supported the seriousness of the work that I want to do.” (more…)
The New York Times profiles Joanne Heyler, the leader of Los Angeles’s Broad Foundation, and her role in establishing Eli Broad’s vision for his soon to open museum. “She’s thinking about how to nest this institution in the community, how to engage the broader culture, how to broaden its audience and what the experience is going to be like for someone going to this museum,” says Lisa Dennison, former Guggenheim director and a chairwoman of Sotheby’s. “The book shop, lighting, conservation, storage, the plan for the opening show — it’s all Joanne.” (more…)
John Baldessari, Pictures & Scripts: A glass of water sweetheart (2015), all images courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery
On view at both Marian Goodman Gallery, London and Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris are two simultaneous exhibitions by John Baldessari: Pictures & Scripts and Early Work. The London gallery’s Pictures & Scripts show focuses on a series of new works, while the Paris gallery will show a selection of the artist’s important early catalog.
Ed Ruscha, Cold Beer Beautiful Girls (2009), © Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever
On view at Gagosian Gallery’s Paris exhibition space are two exhibitions entitled “Prints and Photographs” and “Books & Co.,” organized by Gagosian director Bob Monk to explore the innovation and legacy of Ed Ruscha across a range of printed media.
Bloomberg Business has published strong praise for the LA outpost of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise this week, calling it “what might be the most interesting gallery in Los Angeles right now.” The article notes the 356 S. Mission Road location’s laid-back atmosphere and welcoming refreshments, alongside its impressive curatorial vision as major components to its success and inviting nature. (more…)