ArtLA
Fette
I met with Los Angeles nearly four years ago, quite by accident. Now that I am considering it, it feels as if I ran into the city, apologized and applied for the permission to stay a little bit longer. Today, I am fortunate to witness the awe-inspiring bloom of the LA Art Scene and although some will always want her to remain the young and impertinent ugly duckling, its significance can’t be ignored.
The ArtLA Fair made its striking debut last year under the conduct of Stephen Cohen, also founder of PhotoLA. He positioned the event as the only contemporary art fair the city has known since the 90s with a willingness to display young and under-represented artists. This January most of the galleries dropped anchor from both US coasts, but foreign spaces such as Wetterling of Stockholm, Keith Talent of London and Deborah Zafman of Paris fancied the trip as well.
Being used to apprehending LA’s neighborhoods in between smoggy and unlikely serene time holes, I must say that fair’s setting made the whole contemplation process perhaps easier but certainly overwhelming.
It was disconcerting how empty the building remained during the whole event. Friday, compared to the subtle frenzy of the opening night, was quite unfrequented. Were all of the LA collectors that inflexible with their work schedule not to attend the fair on a weekday?
Throughout the Fair, Hernan Bas’ confidential paintings on display at Fredric Snitzer of Miami were one of my visitations of choice. Like a candied diversion, his seductively young and conceited personas kept coming after me. Bas will be showing his new body of work at Sandroni.Rey in LA this upcoming May.
Between Californian artist Robert Gutierrez’s detailed settings occupied by mysterious troglodytes (at Sixtyseven Gallery of New York) and Franklin Evans’s lyrical and dreamy watercolor environments (at Morgan Lehman Gallery, also of New York), I could feel some dialogue emerging between their organic and geometric structures in their quixotic dreamscapes. Evans will later on be part of a group show at John Connelly Presents in New York.
With Jumper, a large watercolor and graphite piece facing one of the main entries, Joe Biel, shown at acuna-hansen in LA, was inviting the crowd inside in the most playful yet macabre manner. Like a cynical statement about the whole event, his aberrant and clownish character was nonetheless one of my helpful landmarks through the fair. Biel was also present in Greg Kucera Gallery of Seattle’s booth with four smaller drawings on blue paper, which were also quite ambiguous. His next show will be at Kuckei + Kuckei in Berlin.
Freight + Volume of New York were showing some delicate and enigmatic pieces by James Everett Stanley. One of my favorite drawn portraits of his was of a Black man, his nose and mouth covered by a ragged sort of mask, sharply facing the observer with awe, behind a port window boring through the bleak sky. Stanley will be part of "The Manhattan Project," a group show reuniting MFA Colombia University Graduates at Fredric Snitzer Gallery in Miami this February.
Subsequently, I felt strangely disposed to stumble on Patrick Lee’s "Deadly Friends Study" series of portraits at Western Project in LA. Two frames, where two marines were exquisitely drawn, carrying such strong narratives while being abruptly silent. His photographs were on the other hand more brutal, sexually and verbally. The same young men were shot while wrestling in vivid and colorful pools of mud.
Finding myself in Katharine Mulhering Gallery of Toronto’s booth was a much-appreciated joyful moment. Her space was pretty much always busy and between the canvas-assemblages from Clint Griffin, Dana Holst’s paintings of dantesque inspired children and the wall dedicated to Seth Scriver, it was only to be expected. Toronto artist Seth Scriver records his personal journeys through the eyes of bizarre and active stenciled then drawn characters, which often seem to have digested their own environment. The artist’s hilarious animated video was also on display. It depicted the epic journey of a man through snowy Canadian scenes.
Drawings are clearly regaining a certain cachet in the art world. Their immediacy, their meditative quality and sort of raw quietude continue to attract people’s senses. Recent publications such as Phaidon’s Vitamin D: New perspectives on Drawing, Armpit of the Mole, Dear New Girl and the black and white periodic Faesthetic, certainly contribute to the resurgence of this genre.
In Jacob Magraw-Mickelson’s work–which appeared in Dear New Girl–the narrative is more surreal and not necessarily linked to existing dimensions. Motel (Portland) had three of his tiny and delicate gouaches pinned on the walls. I think that a certain step has to be taken by gallerists to show scraps of paper in a less mundane manner but rather triumphantly mounted on a frame, for people to really consider these works a serious achievement (not to say investment).
In the conjoined booth, Richard Heller of LA was showing a plethora of big hits such as Royal Art Lodge’s Neil Faber and Marcel Dzama along with Brendan Monroe, Charlie Roberts and Edward Del Rosario. LA artist Kevin Christy’s discrete but irresistible piece It’s Ok To Give Up Sometimes was also ironically inspiring while wandering in the labyrinth of the fair.
While wandering in the LA quarters of the Fair, I once again enjoyed the meticulous and dada inspired drawings from Keegan McHargue at Jack Hanley Gallery. When I immerse myself in his world, I think about Russian ballets played by queens, kings and jacks who would all have magically appeared from an ancient deck of cards found in a Greek temple. McHargue is currently showing at Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris.
I also took note of Chris Scarborough’s drawing at Gescheidle of Chicago. Admittedly inspired by the Japanimation aesthetic, Float, the portrait of a half-conscious young girl floating on immaterial water was intriguing. On the gallery website, I ran into his photographs of chimerical characters. Their digitally altered facial expressions with their freakishly large eyes and mouth were not only disturbing, but they were also provocative when materialized in those dull and familiar domestic settings.
After that, I felt more inclined to locate digitally rendered works. Unfortunately, between the overly entertaining video piece by Lincoln Schatz, Next, displayed at Quint of San Diego, the Wacom drawn, perspective-less tree by Andrew Miller at the Richard Levy Gallery of Albuquerque and the corrupted vegetal sceneries at Cythia Broan Gallery of New York, I wasn’t extremely enthusiastic. However, I was intrigued by the delicate and obsessive animation from C.E.B. Reas displayed at Bank (LA). The artist created a computer program, which renders feather-like drawings in an infinite sort of layered kaleidoscope.
Then on Sunday I escaped the tumult of the alleys for the projection of Scotland’s Secret Bunker, which included six pieces by artists previously shown at TART in San Francisco. Each film was created using found footage, such as an educational video, well-known photographs or political clips to reconstitute personal narratives. One of the distinguishing films, Tommy Becker’s Daddy Kill (1min30) brings into play an educative film about the sun’s function in the development of chlorophyll, over which metallic voices declaim a morbid and surreal litany.
Before departing, I spent some time with Kathryn Hargreaves, co-founder of Dangerous Curve, a space for experimental and live art in Downtown LA, and we talked about the lack of venues dedicated to performances and the difficulties encountered while working to make it happen. Between the ceramic beer mugs from Ann Trondson, remaining artifacts of her previous performance, Jocelyn Schneider Foye’s diaphanous Eucharist Chandelier and Tim Quinn’s Basements of the Parthenon installation, Dangerous Curve provided an appealing and refreshing contrast to the Fair’s other offerings.
Overall, I didn’t leave artLA with any knock-out experiences nor did I discover an indescribable body of work. Although the fair was a convenient and pleasant way to catch a tremendous amount of art, meet with the current trends and converse with friends, I regret that such a format doesn’t allow for more demanding, unconventional and conceptual art.
