Art Ltd. 2016 March-April

U.S. $5.99/CAN $6.
99 Mar/Apr 2016 REBECCA CAMPBELL

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MONSTER ROSTER
STATE OF CERAMICS
JULIA HAFT-CANDELL
GEORGE RODRIGUEZ
Tuesday–Sunday, 11 AM–5 PM • Admission free
24255 Pacific Coast Highway • Malibu, California
310.506.4851 • arts.pepperdine.edu/museum
Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1970, 10 of 10 from Flowers portfolio, screenprint, 36 x
36 inches (each), © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Credit: Dan Corson
CREATE : CONNECT : SAN JOSE

Dan Corson, Sensing WATER*, 2015
Downtown San Jose
Highway 87 Underpass at San Fernando Street
City of San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs
Public Art Program
* This artwork’s lighting pattern reacts to changes in weather www.sanjoseculture.org
FRANK BUFFALO HYDE
Byzantine Madonna, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”
March 11 - April 1, 2016

Opening Reception: March 11, 5-7pm
652 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 |505-955-8513 | www.tanseycontemporary.com

ANN
GALE
Shannon in Red,
2015, oil on copper, 12 x 9”
March 3 – April 2, 2016

SAN FRANCISCO | www.dolbychadwickgallery.com
Yellow Square 03, 2015, oil on linen in artist’s frame, 12”x12”
#&/+".*/(6''&&t0*-1"*/5*/(4
www.benjaminguffee.com
Wishing Well (detail) oil on panel 72” x 72” Chaise #24 (detail) oil & charcoal on panel 31” x 41”
Market (detail) oil on canvas 72” x 60”
Andrea
Schwartz
Gallery 545 4th Street
San Francisco
www.asgallery.com
L U KE M AT J A S
March 13 — May 22, 2016
Reception, March 12, 5-7pm
Artist Gallery Talk — April 28, 6pm
805.385.8157 / 8158 C A RN EG I E A R T M U S E U M carnegieam.org

4 2 4 S OU T H C S TR E E T • OXNA R D, CA 93 0 3 0
El Condór de California Pasa (detail), 2016, 48” x 60”
INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS
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editor’s note contributors
Contemporary ceramics. 21st century ceramics. However you phrase it, James Yood teaches modern
it still feels a tad subversive. Perhaps that’s because of ceramics’ age. Leav- and contemporary art history
ing out cave painting (which has frankly gone out of vogue the last few and criticism at the School of
centuries and is rarely taught in graduate programs), ceramics remains the Art Institute of Chicago, where
the most venerable of art mediums still in use. Thus, modern adherents he also directs its New Arts
of the medium have always had to work all the harder to dispel the aura Journalism program. Regional
of mustiness or functionality (or, gasp, Craft!) that stubbornly clung to it. One correspondent and art critic for
got the sense the other, younger mediums were just slightly embarrassed Artforum, he has also written
by the way ceramics kept hanging around, like some cousin from the Old regularly for Art and Auction,
Country, who was genial and good with their hands, who served delicious teme celeste, GLASS magazine
soups and stews, but still spoke with a subtle accent, and who wasn’t al- and visualartsource.com.
ways welcomed to the party when the trendy insiders were invited over.
“We’ll be having Absolut, and artisan cheeses and – oh Ceramics! You’re
here, too? You brought a bowl? Oh, great. Put it over there.”
Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic,
curator, and author based in
Well I hate to break it to you, but ceramics is now the hip one in the room.
Los Angeles. She is currently LA Editor
It’s lost some weight and has a whole new look, and in fact, is crazy
for WhiteHot Magazine, Arts Editor for
promiscuous with all the other mediums. That’s right: after how many
Vs. Magazine, and a contributor to the
thousands of years, ceramics is finally cutting loose. Maybe even going
LA Weekly, Flaunt, and KCET’s Art-
a little crazy. Perhaps it’s just a middle-age thing. After all, it was just over
bound. She studied Art History at Vassar
fifty years ago that Peter Voulkos had his solo show at LACMA (April
College, and besides all the magazine
1965), and nearly fifty (November 1966) that John Mason opened his;
stuff, she writes books and exhibition
aptly, both shows were titled “Sculpture.” It was also in 1966 (July) that
catalogues, curates one or two
Ken Price exhibited at LACMA, in a two-person show with Robert Irwin.
exhibitions a year, and speaks in public
While Price’s work in many ways laid the egg for the abstract sculptural
with alarming frequency.
medium of today, in its embryonic form, as it grew to break free of its ves-
sel-like shell, Mason, too, made an indelible mark. His big Red X of 1966,
a blockish crimson ‘X’ form standing nearly 5 by 5 feet, which was subse- Neil Thrun is an artist, writer and critic
quently bought by LACMA and which remains on view, streaked and based in Kansas City. In the past, his
cracking, but defiantly monolithic, seems in retrospect to boldly declare criticism and journalism have been
“You Are Here” on the map of ceramic history, marking the time and featured in the Kansas City Star, Huff-
place (California in the mid-‘60s) that the medium came into its own. ington Post and various online blogs
and print zines. Currently, he is a regu-
Of course, the very word “clay” implies a certain flexibility, and today’s lar contributor to KC Studio Magazine.
clay is nothing if not adaptable. Beyond the hybrid crossovers with diverse He graduated from the Kansas City Art
mediums (and technologies), increasingly it is being looked at anew by Institute in 2010 with a degree in
conceptual artists who are more interested in what the medium can do painting.
than in adapting its traditions. Yet whatever its associations, clay remains
a resolutely tactile, physical medium. You shape it with your hands, engage
it with your body. So perhaps in its way, today’s mini-clay-resurgence is
a reaction to the digital, virtual, online ‘space’ in which we ever more fre-
quently spend (waste?) our time. (Click here to move on to the next item John Zotos is a Dallas-based art critic
in our ceramics Top Twenty list! Number 17 will shock you!). With this and essayist who has written widely on
issue, we look at ceramics in a variety of ways, soliciting thoughts on the modern and contemporary art. In
state of the medium from several leading ceramic artists and educators. addition to covering Dallas for art ltd.
We also review the Scripps Ceramic Annual (its 72nd), spotlight the and Visual Art Source, his articles have
NCECA conference in Kansas City (its 50th), and profile Seattle’s George appeared in numerous publications in-
Rodriguez and LA’s Julia Haft-Candell, who are each putting their own cluding ArtNexus, Art Lies, NY Arts
singular mark on this singularly mutable medium. FWIW, there are still Magazine, and Art & Culture Texas. He
other, excellent ceramic shows in LA that opened after this issue was recently completed a catalogue essay
assigned, among them the bountiful sculptural bouquets of David Hicks on the photographer Dornith Doherty for
at Edward Cella, and a career survey of ceramic pioneer Ken Price to the University of North Texas Press and
inaugurate LA’s new Parrasch Heijnen Gallery. The sense of almost the Houston Center for Photography.
biological abundance and fecundity in these works is reflective of the
overall state of the art. As venerable, and earthbound, as it is, today
the medium of clay seems to be pushing forward in a hundred different
directions, while embracing its sexy new hybrid identity as the new
cover
normal. If only the rest of us could age with that much flair.
—GEORGE MELROD
art ltd.® magazine is published bimonthly by RIK Design, Inc. Subscriptions are available at
$27.95 for six issues. All material is compiled from sources believed to be reliable but
published without responsibility for omissions or errors. art ltd.® assumes no responsibility “Glow,” 2013
for claims made by advertisers. art ltd.® is not responsible for the return of unsolicited Rebecca Campbell
submissions. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by Oil on canvas, 65" x 90"
Photo: courtesy of Susan and
any means, mechanical or electronic without written permission from the publisher.
Peter Lizotte, the artist
Copyright ©2015 RIK Design, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. (ISSN-1941-8558) and LA Louver
18 art ltd - March / April 2016
ART MARKET SAN FRANCISCO
TOYIN ODUTOLA
Fine Art Lithography Workshop and Gallery Birmingham (2014)
Full inventory online at tamarind.unm.edu Four-color lithograph with gold leaf
tamarind@unm.edu | (505) 277-3901 24 x 16.5 inches, Edition of 20
: contents march/april 2016
54 42 48 64
publisher
TRIPURA RAMESH DEPARTMENTS FEATURES
editor
GEORGE MELROD 24 REVIEWS 42 REBECCA CAMPBELL
creative director
MICHAEL CRIPPS RECENT SHOWS LA PAINTER HITS HER STRIDE
managing editor
MOLLY ENHOLM
production
34 NEWS 48 MONSTER ROSTER
KEN SAMPSON RECENT EVENTS EXISTENTIAL DREAD IN CHICAGO
editorial assistant
KIMBERLY SHELTON
administration 36 REPORTS 54 DIALOGUE
CHRISTINE KLINE
DALLAS: DMA BEQUEST CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS
contributing editors
DEWITT CHENG BERKELEY: NEW MUSEUM
SHANA NYS DAMBROT PORTLAND: PRINT CULTURE 60 CRITIC’S PICKS
PETER FRANK
MICHAEL PAGLIA DALLAS
SUZANNE SHAW 64 SPOTLIGHT
RICHARD SPEER
JAMES YOOD
KANSAS CITY: NCECA 70 PROFILES
JULIA HAFT-CANDELL
contributing writers
MEGAN ABRAHAMS 74 BOOK REVIEWS GEORGE RODRIGUEZ
JON CARVER SPRING READING
KATHRYN M DAVIS
ROBIN DLUZEN
LIZ GOLDNER 76 PULSE
NANCY COHEN ISRAEL UPCOMING EVENTS
MATTHEW KANGAS
LEORA LUTZ
AMANDA MANITACH
A. MORET
BARBARA MORRIS
SHAWN ROSSITER
DONNA TENNANT
NEIL THRUN
CHÉRIE LOUISE TURNER
JODY ZELLEN Table of contents images, from left:
JOHN ZOTOS
office “Untitled,” 1982, Paul Soldner “Siamese Sphinx II,” 1955, Leon Golub
5525 Oakdale Ave., Suite 160 ceramic Lacquer on Masonite
Woodland Hills, CA 91364 Collection of David Armstrong & Randall Welty Photo: collection of Ulrich and Harriet Meyer.
Photo: courtesy of David Armstrong Art © Estate of Leon Golub/Licensed by VAGA, New York
advertising
(818) 316-0900
“Samantha” (from the “You are Here” series), 2016 “Pride Storm,” 2015, Shannon Goff
production
(818) 316-0900 Rebecca Campbell, acrylic on paper, 30" x 221⁄4" Glazed ceramics, 16" x 18" x 15"
(818) 924-4114 fax Photo: PD Rearick, courtesy: Garcia Squared, kansas City
Photo: courtesy LA Louver, Venice, CA
March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 21

AARON PENNINGTON
Remember What We Came For

Graphite on Paper, 80” x 65”
Through March 31
3681 Sacramento Street, SF, CA 94118

415.423.4345 • www.vorresgallery.com
CONTEMPORARY ART
ASHLEIGH
SUMNER
LO S A N G E L E S
ARTIN THE CITY

MARCH 3 – APRIL 3 · 2016
MICHAEL
QUINL AN
N E W YO R K
ll WEST ANAPAMU STREET · SANTA BARBARA · CA 9310l
INFO @ ARTAMOGALLERY.COM · WWW.ARTAMOGALLERY.COM
PHONE 805.568.1400 · TUESDAY– SUNDAY 12:00 – 5:00 PM

: reviews
CLAREMONT, CA sculptures and drawings clearly flow from the same hand and mind.
“Beyond the Object: The 72nd Scripps Ceramic Annual” Her misshapen, headlike forms, adorned with delicate imagery and
at Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College topped with gloppy shreds, evoke a similar unnerving mood as her
If you don’t follow ceramics, you’ve probably never seen the Scripps allegorical, highly sculptural ink-on-vellum drawings. Both exude a
Ceramic Annual. But to a fan, it’s an engaging showcase, like an idio- palpable air of melancholy and mortality, drawing you into their
syncratic ceramics version of an NBA All-Star Game: you get to watch mysterious narratives like dark, cryptic storybooks. LA-based Oona
known and less-known figures strut their stuff, as unlikely teammates Gardner’s ceramic wall units flirt with two-dimensional relief even as
playing off each other. However, the Annual is not about consensus, they mutate into found object medleys, while her drawings, derived
instead soliciting distinct subjective visions, from a roster of guest cu- from a similar fascination with abstraction (and, no doubt, 1970s
rators, while finding new angles into the practice of this ever-evolving design), mutate inward in swirling vivid colors. Meanwhile, LA artist
medium. This year’s version (through April 3), curated by Susan Julia Haft-Candell (who curated last year’s Ceramic Annual and is
Beiner, associate professor of the Herberger Institute of Design and profiled in this issue) seems to meld the act of drawing and ceramic
the Arts in Tempe, Arizona, explored the dialogue between three-di- sculpture in her fragmentary, knot-like, wall-mounted work, which
mensional objecthood and two-dimensional drawing. While that might has been carved out to reveal its underglaze in a jauntily austere
seem to suggest traditional terrain, the selection was in fact bracingly black-and-white grid pattern. Staking out the surface between two
contemporary, offering a gamut of approaches demonstrating not and three dimensions, it calls to mind an imperfect puzzle of a girl’s
only ceramics’ brazen promiscuity with other art forms, but also with bow, or a snake, or a pretzel (which is, in fact, its name).
new forms of technology and modes of expressing visual information.
If one were to judge the show merely on the diversity of its aesthetic Some of the most striking works flaunt the medium’s adaptivity
languages, on a scale of 1 to 10 it would probably rate an 11. Still, it through the use of new technologies. The contributions by Eugene,
felt like an anxious exhibition, in a savvy way: pushing boundaries Oregon artist Brian Gillis seem especially unlikely. His architectonic
physically, while also edging into jittery psychological territory. drawing of a “pirate radio antenna” of blue pencil and gold leaf on
Veering from miniscule to monumental, from fragmentary to frenetic, vellum is echoed by a 3D version of said antenna, mounted high up
it seemed aptly reflective of the seductive-yet-disjointed post-post- on the wall in geometric, diagonal mock-functionality. His biggest
modern landscape in which we all uneasily reside. statement is his smallest: a miniature (white) portrait bust of abolition-
ist leader Frederick Douglass, made of “nanomilled ceramic,”
The show’s premise is particularly emphatic for those artists whose standing all of .1875 inches tall. Social commentary aside, they’re the
drawing and ceramic styles seem superficially at odds, like Andrew sort of works that cause one to exclaim: “Ceramics can do that?!”
Casto (of Manhattan, Kansas). Casto’s ceramic works merge organic Kingston, New York-based artist Bryan Czibesz likewise explicitly em-
and geometric forms to suggest fibrous coral stems or shards of min- braces technology, playing off his mediums’ hand-made expectations
eral crystals, gilded with blobby golden nuggets, like cysts, and lush via effigies of monumental columns and statues made of hand-built
patches of sky blue or bubble-gum pink; his two-dimensional works, and 3D printed porcelain, that look like molded vermicelli. His scrawly
by contrast, are stark black smears of roofing tar and other materials 78-inch long drawing of hand-and-CNC-drawn primary colored ink
on plywood, as if he were channeling both Adrian Saxe and Richard on acetate is oddly unsettling: where does the hand end and the
Serra, as his own private Jekyll and Hyde. But seen together, they machine begin? By contrast, Amanda Small (of Toronto, Ontario)
reveal their raw, almost corrosive texture and reflective distressed makes works that clearly reference science and technology while
state. Conversely, for Lauren Gallaspy (of Helena, Montana), both clinging to their crafted tactility, whether through spindly volumetric
forms or organic pigmented abstractions set beneath illuminated
domes. They feel like private cosmologies or biology displays,
co-opting the rigid lexicon of science toward poetic effect.
Two of the more dramatic, and wryly subversive, participants also

seem to draw from the placid terrain of still life, and the vessel. Del
Harrow (Fort Collins, Colorado) works in a lexicon that neatly blends
modularity and consumerism. His installation includes an entrance
wall, complete with faux potted plant, and a tabletop gathering of
egg-like spheres and vessels, as one wormlike cousin rises in phallic
alertness on the floor nearby. At its center he sets a carved wooden
column resembling a raised middle finger. Hailing from Deer Isle,
Maine, Paul Sacaridiz creates colorful 3D armatures with odd group-
ings of cryptic vessels or linear starbursts and twisty little forms that
evoke astrophysics diagrams assembled via Home Depot and De Stijl,
integrating ceramics with such humdrum materials as plywood, plas-
ter, powder-coated aluminum, and household clamps. Set out on their
scaffolds, they suggest nifty DIY displays from some garage mu-
seum, mapped out fragments of Big Ideas that are only hinted at:
a new genre of Atomic Still Life.
In all these works, the use of ceramic objects or materials as con-

stituent parts of larger implied systems positions ceramics, not as a
closed world with its own inbred set of traditions, but as a uniquely
pliant, ductile element that can play a vital role a wide variety of for-
mal interactions, amidst a spectrum of hybrid forms and practices.
It is that very open-endedness, perhaps, that makes this eternally
evolving medium so adaptable, and so appealing.
—GEORGE MELROD
Installation view 2016 Scripps Ceramic Annual

LOS ANGELES wall works are all viewed with the sculptures
Philip Argent: “Misaligned” in the room’s foreground, engaging both
at Shoshana Wayne Gallery the architecture and the viewer’s body, but
Rectangles of various height, weight and stopping short of an immersive distraction.
states of completion run across the canvas like Though sharing iconography and functioning
Tetris pieces. The black lines are each encased in tandem, each work’s gestalt is self-con-
by a careful application of orange dots that tained, with more than enough scenic detail,
illuminate the geometric forms so that they expressive nuance, and impressive impact
mimic circuitry, while their sequence is to exist apart from context. The music
determined by a riddle of binary code. In never stops.
“Misaligned,” Santa Barbara-based artist Philip —SHANA NYS DAMBROT
Argent explores the cacophony of digital noise
and transmission encountered when viewing LOS ANGELES
static objects in the contemporary visual Bonita Helmer: “Observed”
landscape. When viewing Untitled (Endless at George Billis Gallery
Fences II), (2014), we are tempted to momen- Trawling the cosmos for inspiration, Bonita
tarily consider that the rectangles are QR Helmer produces abstract paintings that
codes containing hidden information that can reflect the perpetual curiosity and tireless
only be revealed through the prism of a tech- imagination of an explorer. She embraces
nological lens. A treatment of yellow paint a conceptual range from suggested space-
dilutes the symmetry and recedes into the scapes to renditions of sub-atomic worlds.
canvas like bleach and soon fades inside a Her subjects imply the stuff of stardust
fractured and irregular form. Like a topographic "Untitled (Sick Glass)," 2014, Philip Argent and evoke a scope beyond the solar system,
map, the splintered shape disrupts the placid Acrylic on canvas, 72" x 56" x 11⁄2" even as they materialize out of the inner
pink and white background and severs the Photo: courtesy Shoshana Wayne Gallery realm of the subconscious. Helmer’s compo-
composition. The fracture begins at eye level sitions are dominated by asymmetrical
so that when standing before the canvas there incessant, eventually charming calliope music nebula-like forms which appear as if sus-
is an overwhelming feeling that if we apply the and soft yellow glow of the strings of deck- pended on top of amorphous backgrounds,
familiar gesture of “pinch” and “zoom,” we side lights set the mood, the vivid, feverish sometimes anchored by intersecting lines
can see beyond the single dimension of the burlesquerie of the images themselves with unexpected angles, adding a deeper
painted surface and travel further inside telegraphs what you’re in for, as surely as sense of perspective, a sort of order super-
the rabbit hole that Argent has created. the drifting twinkle and sugary promise of imposed in relation to the mysterious forms
the pier down the beach. Soon, much like and shapes hovering in the foregrounds. In
While there is a distinctive visual repetition approaching the looming glow of an actual a sense, her images are not technically ab-
present in the 15 acrylic works on canvas, carnival, surreal fabulism and hints of a seed- stract, as they are representational of matter
each varies in dimension so that our eyes can ier underbelly present themselves, hiding in and energy—the swirling and enigmatic com-
never fully predict how the fractured pattern the shadows of the family-friendly veneer. ponents of the galaxy.
will change. Argent manages to create ten- Whether these shadowy places of sex and
sion between the two layers—the first a grift are cautionary and unsettling or beckon- The work derives in part from the artist’s
meticulous background of cool turquoise, ing and seductive is perhaps more a function study of physics and astronomy—a lifelong
mellow blue, or subtle pink. The second ele- of the viewer’s disposition than the work quest to probe the origins of the universe.
ment is the abrupt fracture that breaks into itself. Mixing together the Picasso-esque Helmer is the only visual artist on the board
the canvas at various angles. In Untitled (Sick graphic character to the black-and-white of the Exploration Institute, a science-driven
Glass), (2014), we can more closely examine drawing-based works, with a little Gustonian organization that launches expeditions on
the subtle technique implemented by Ar- flair in the color scheme and caricature, plus land, sea and in space. While rooted in sci-
gent’s deft hand and can see that the two some post-Medieval cartoonishness in the ence, borrowing from the realm of quantum
layers never touch, rather they appear more narrative works adds up to as much mechanics, her work is a form of artistic hy-
stacked on top of each other. “Misaligned” a Weimar kids show as a reamplification of pothesis. The unknown is open to theoretical
is an exploration of the tension between the early 20th century art history.
handmade gesture of the paintbrush against
a cacophony of noise produced by digital Major works like I Don’t Want to Go (all
transmission. Argent also points to a new works 2015), spanning over 10 by 7-and-a-
form of abstraction, one where we can half feet, and With Your Hemlock on the
visualize the inner workings of a painting Rocks employ saturated colors and seg-
as if it were a mechanized matrix. mented allegories that do seem drawn from
—A. MORET dockside lore. The oil and ink transfer on blue
paper pieces have the schematic surface
LOS ANGELES mottling of blueprints or grave-rubbings, but
Steven Hull: “Never Again Sharpen allow the focus on Hull’s skill and jaunty edgi-
Your Teeth On the Rope That Holds ness as a draftsman to take center stage.
You So Safely to Shore” Three acrylic on wood and plastic sculptures
at Rosamund Felsen Gallery all with metal wheels seem the most like arti-
Viewing his personal, collaborative, and cura- facts but the dense, elaborate detail of their
torial practice along a single continuum of decorated surfaces can only be the work of
experiential encounters triggered by impres- an obsessive artist, not a tradesman. The
sive objects, Steven Hull describes his new
exhibition of painting and sculpture, “Never
Again Sharpen Your Teeth on the Rope that “I Don’t Want to Go,” 2015
Holds You So Safely to Shore,” as “part sea- Steven Hull
side carnival, part ocean voyage.” But that Acrylic on canvas, 10' 51⁄4" x 941⁄2"
descriptive is not necessary; long before the Photo: Grant Mudford
Courtesy Rosamund Felsen Gallery
: reviews
Hopper-esque, paintings in which signs of angles to navigate—a purgatory for evil and
human life frequently abound in the form of impatient drivers everywhere. A solitary
houses, parking lots, billboards, pools, even structure, reminiscent of the once-familiar,
a barge on the open sea, but the human fig- now-obsolete Fotomats, sit awash in one
ure itself is noticeably absent. The works of the parking lot puddles. As with the earlier
are similarly reductive and the perspective works, this quick nod to the past points
is slightly askew, just enough to cause a bit toward the unanticipated consequence
of unease in viewing the variety of land- of progress
scapes—natural, urban and sea—that .—MOLLY ENHOLM
Ballantyne puts forth. As a result, the paint-
ings act as poignant reminders of the fragility LOS ANGELES
of the human condition, touching topics as Julian Wasser:
varied as political, environmental, financial “Duchamp In Pasadena Redux”
or all of the above. at Robert Berman Gallery
One of the most intriguing factors about
The Brooklyn-based artist is not heavy- appropriation art is the way it calls into ques-
handed in this endeavor; the stoicism of the tion issues of authorship. So it seems only
“Suspension II,” 2015, Bonita Helmer compositions is often paired with off-kilter, apt to go back to the source and apply those
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 36" x 36" dry-witted titles. Ziggurat (Cul de Sac) and questions to the inventor of the “ready-
Photo: courtesy George Billis Gallery Over the Falls (both 2015), among the largest made” himself, conceptual art pioneer
works on view, each present what may at Marcel Duchamp. Unsurprisingly, issues
conjecture. There’s infinite latitude for the first seem to follow the familiar mantra of of authorship abound in the invigorating
artistic supposition of subatomic, theoretical the real estate market: location, location, show at Robert Berman Gallery, “Duchamp
particles, which are virtually invisible. As the location. The prime position at the top of in Pasadena Redux,” which celebrates, and
artist has observed, she has carte blanche to the hill carved into future housing plots, partially recreates, Duchamp’s historic 1963
come up with visual renditions of these natu- the space once occupied by the cella of retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum.
ral phenomena, seeing that even scientists the ziggurat now appears the future site of Beyond its seemingly straightforward con-
don’t know what they look like. Resembling a ticky-tacky housing development. In the cept, the Berman Gallery’s restaging
continents drifting in uncharted waters, latter work, three isolated structures occupy essentially presents a hall of mirrors,
Helmer’s nebula-like forms are multi-colored, an expansive desert vista, with one—a mod- offering multiple levels of appropriation
often thick with milky applications of pigment ernist-style residence—sits on the precipice spanning back over a century, to the
and subtle nuance under layers peaking of “the falls.” The painting seems prescient; conception of the works themselves.
through. Using acrylic and spray paint, the echoing the tragic nightly broadcast running
artist achieves the effect of crusted cracking concurrent with the exhibition documenting The original Duchamp retrospective was the
on some sections of the surface —like fis- the plight of homes and apartments on brainchild of famed LA curator Walter Hopps,
sures on the face of the moon—creating the verge of similar fate in Pacifica, CA. who had co-founded the influential Ferus
striking visual contrast. Given the fact that “Transitory space,” indeed, though hardly Gallery before moving to the Pasadena Art
the source material of Helmer’s paintings is “transcendental” in consequence. An earlier Museum, and in 1962 had curated the first
a marriage of science and the psyche, the painting titled Parking Lot with Standing major survey of Pop Art, “New Paintings of
exhibit might have been titled “Imagined,” Water (2014), presents a cacophony of Common Objects.” In bringing the iconoclas-
rather than “Observed.” Viewed as a body parking spaces adjoining at impossibly acute tic conceptualist to Southern California for
of work, the paintings convey a mood of
intrigue, and offer nuanced visions of
enthralling hidden worlds.
—MEGAN ABRAHAMS
LOS ANGELES
Chris Ballantyne: “Transcendental Divide/
Transitory Space” at Zevitas Marcus
A curious sense of dislocation permeates
the works on view by Chris Ballantyne in the
recent exhibition titled “Transcendental Di-
vide/Transitory Space” at Zevitas Marcus.
Just inside the front door to the gallery—
a newer addition to La Cienega Blvd since
this past fall—the entryway is freshly painted
to depict an abstracted landscape as seen
from a bird’s eye point of view. The forms
are simplified: the grass is a single shade of
not-quite Kelly Green bisected with an arced
gray highway curve, capped off with a solid
Cornflower Blue sky. Once inside, the gallery
presents hauntingly melancholic, almost
“Over the Falls,” 2015, Chris Ballantyne

Acrylic on panel, 48" x 64"
Photo: courtesy Zevitas Marcus
LOS ANGELES unusual compositions—those an artist would
Rafaël Rozendaal: not have made—the tapestries easily fit
“Abstract Browsing”at Steve Turner within the canon of abstract art. That they
“Abstract Browsing” is an extension for the were created by an algorithm and commer-
Chrome browser that turns an ordinary web cially fabricated solidifies Rozendaal’s role as
page into an abstract composition of bright a postmodern, post-internet artist—one who
colors. With the click of a button, any web mines everything, looking for that perfect
page can be momentarily transformed, be- synthesis of form and content. Rozendaal’s
coming a Mondrian-esque composition. skill is in knowing what to make, not neces-
This ingenious extension, conceived of by sarily how to make it.
this quintessential new media artist Rafaël —JODY ZELLEN
Rozendaal, does not render the web page
inert, but rather changes the interface and SAN FRANCISCO
therefore the expectations. Rozendaal has Paul Mullins
infiltrated the space of the World Wide Web at Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art
in other projects—making and selling numer- Balzac’s 1837 story, “The Unknown Master-
ous domain names as art pieces with the piece,” recounted the comic tragedy of the
caveat that the collector keeps the web site fictitious painter, Frenhofer; for 10 years, in
indefinitely accessible, as well as creating secret, he paints a figure, but manages only
haikus that read like tweets. Rozendaal is “a chaos of color” from which a girl’s foot
one of those rare artists who can flow easily emerges. Cézanne famously admitted,
between mediums and scales. While over “Frenhofer c’est moi,” inaugurating the idea
200 haikus appear as three lines of HTML of the artist as existential and even absurd
“Duchamp with Door Sculpture,” Duchamp type on his website, three (numbered hero. Viewers unfamiliar with modern art’s
Retrospective, Pasadena Art Museum, 1963 192, 89 and 110) become vinyl lettering rejection of photographic reality may look at
Julian Wasser on post-it note pink, yellow and blue walls, Paul Mullins’ small mixed-media paintings as
Vintage gelatin silver print, 131⁄2" x 101⁄2" respectively. These read as existential frag- Frenhofer’s traditional artist friends did. The
Photo: courtesy Robert Berman Gallery small works on panel incorporating frag-
ments: “not here / not there / somewhere”
his retrospective, Hopps had once again is the text of Haiku 89. The three lines of ments of colored-pencil drawings based on
presciently captured a signal moment in art Haiku 192 are as follows: “i really want to / i magazine photos, and embedding them in
history (all in his first year on the job). So in know i shouldn’t / i think i will” and 110 swirling abstract brushstrokes, seem at first
a sense, Hopps is an author of this show states: “what i should do / what i can do / glance absurd, human anatomy suspended in
as much as anyone. Sent to document the what i will do.” These texts are very much painterly amber or aspic, but the more you
exhibition’s opening was young magazine Rozendaal’s modus operandi, as he does peruse them, the more you see and feel.
photographer Julian Wasser, and it is what he wants, in any medium he sees fit,
Wasser’s photographs that form the heart among them websites, books, room-sized in- Mullins’ juxtaposition of powerful draftsman-
of this exhibition. Having Duchamp’s retro- stallations, lenticular paintings and public ship with its seemingly absurd subversion
spective in Southern California was not just electronic billboards. reflects his ambivalence toward growing up
a coup for the burgeoning LA art scene, but in Appalachian West Virginia, with its less-
testimony to its vitality and coming-of-age, Not every artist would think to translate elec- than-romantic (or chivalric, Old South)
and Wasser’s images capture that energy, tronic websites into woven tapestries (pixels good-old-boy culture (nicely mocked in Will
as young artistic rebels like Andy Warhol, into stitches), yet Rozendaal seamlessly Ferrell’s Nascar comedy, “Talladega Nights”).
Dennis Hopper, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, transforms one medium into another. This Mullins is both “enthusiastic and apprehen-
and Ed Ruscha all mingle memorably. Many process changes the formal properties of the sive about… the iconography plundered from
of Wasser’s photographs present moments work, as well as access to it. While “Abstract the cheapest of cultural sources, and associ-
that now seem iconic, from Duchamp posing Browsing” is a free extension, Rozendaal’s ated with ways of life that contemporary
rakishly beside his various works to the in- tapestries are large-scale Jacquard weavings, coastal Americans should supposedly regard
delible image of the old artist playing chess commodities made to grace collectors’ or as less successful, if not outright undesir-
with a voluptuous nude Eve Babitz (an event museum walls. The compositions come from able.” He reconsiders the “popular images
staged by Wasser; the story goes that Babitz specific instances of websites including that powered the dreams of so many rural
was Hopps’ mistress and had thus not been Twitter, Gmail, Tumblr, Instagram, IMDb and kids” of his generation from the viewpoint
invited to the opening). Among other gems, Pinterest. While Rozendaal says he looks for of “someone who has been looking at Art
the show presents the contact sheet for this
series of images, as well as a trio of rare
color prints.
But this show (called “Redux” as it is a

restaging of a 2015 version seen in San
Francisco) also included credible recreations
of many of the original Duchamp works, in-
cluding both paintings and the infamous
readymades, most of them made by artist
Gregg Gibbs. All were commissioned by gal-
lerist Robert Berman, who is ultimately the
Barnum behind this meticulous, highly enter-
taining Duchampian meta-museum.
—GEORGE MELROD
“Abstract Browsing,” 2016, Rafaël Rozendaal

Installation view
Photo: Don Lewis
Courtesy the artist and Steve Turner, Los Angeles

: reviews
their wing, teaching him invaluable skills in The Los Angeles River was originally chris-
handling pigment and oil mediums, learning tened El Río de Nuestra Señora la Reina de
to grind and mix his own colors. Los Ángeles de Porciúncula by Franciscan
explorers who descended upon indigenous
Color, certainly, is Ebnother’s passion. Earlier Tongva land in 1769. The concrete channeling
bodies of his work solely explored variations of the river as we know it today was initiated
on the hue of green; while this particular in 1938. Dorfman visited the river and took
chroma continues to receive significant thousands of photographs, then layered
attention, he has since branched out into them with historical archives to create
the full spectrum of colors. His self-imposed acutely detailed and painterly collage. The
“rules” for a painting supply a kind of moral layers contest the notion that photography
structure, imbuing a sense of integrity to the “captures” moments or freezes time; here,
work that gives it dignity and power. For his time is stretched, and the history of a single
latest show at George Lawson, Ebnother location spans the years. The layers also im-
presented “twelve paintings” each 25-inch part a blurry quality that creates a sense of
square, made of oil and dry pigment on linen. uncertainty. In true Transcendentalist fashion,
Ebnother, who was originally from the Bay much like the painters of the Hudson River
Area, now maintains studios near Santa Fe, School or of European Romanticism of the
New Mexico, and just outside of Leipzig, 1800s, Dorfman’s landscapes conjure the
Germany.#15, September 12th, 2015 deep-seated awe of confronting vast space.
suggests foliage, slathered in short,
energetic brushstrokes of a muted, creamy In particular, Sublime LA 8 and 10 place the
green like split pea soup. The thickly viewer at water’s edge, seemingly hovering
“Swig,” 2015, Paul Mullins impastoed strokes set up a dynamic rhythm, just out of frame above a presumed embank-
Colored pencil, acrylic and paper on panel while strong diagonals, often ending abruptly ment. Breathtakingly vivid color enhances
12" x 9"
in feathery tails, draw the eye up and down each ripple in the water, and each branch on
Photo: courtesy Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art
the canvas. A pair of inverted ‘V’ shapes near the foliage. Small clues of human presence
the top edge describe a hairpin turn of the remark upon the fragility of nature, such as
[his italics]… for a lifetime.” These muscle
brush, a thick rim of paint just below the white plastic grocery store bags tangled in
magazines (as I suppose), with their cars and
curve documenting the residue of this swift the bramble, or a skeletal powerline rising
babes, are hardly unique to “Southern Man,”
motion, like a ripple frozen in water. While above the trees. Human intervention with
of course. The commercialization of sex and
thick paint encrusts most of the canvas, nature is especially pointed in series num-
self-esteem is universal. Yet these small,
the linen ground appears between the thick bers 4 and 7, where Dorfman has utilized
generally high-key semi-abstractions—with
patches, its coarse texture asserting its bridge underpasses to create bold geometric
their glimpses of beer cans and bottles, ciga-
presence. Thin underpainting in cobalt blue compositions. In each of these, the Brutalist-
rettes, chewing tobacco, gesturing hands,
and mauve flickers around the edges. In like black-and-gray concrete alongside ochre
flexed arms, bellies, eyes and lips—are
#6, June 1st, 2015 a color like wet clay, just and olive toned plant-life is reflected in the
strangely poetic and even powerful. Puff,
faintly greenish, meets a variation with a faint water below. The mirroring in the reflections
Cup, Skoal, Refresh, Cig, Nails, and Swig, pinkish-purple hue. Thick strokes in scabrous creates an enclosed feeling, emphasizing the
(all 2015) with their laconic Pop titles, make
textures scuttle this way and that. Bright domineering effects of colonialization and in-
the banality of mass-market consumerism
greens and blues peek through. A trick dustry. Dorfman is most well-known for her
and the psychic wound of cultural dislocation,
of afterimage may be at play, further documentation of cultural and sexual practices
universally experienced in the modern world,
complicating the chromatic complexity. within marginalized and deviant social commu-
aesthetically meaningful, like Dada pho-
Ebnother, a former ballet dancer, deftly nities, including Fandomania which explores
tomontages and Rauschenberg’s ghostly
engages the viewer in the rapt choreography the participants of Cosplay, or Still Lovers fea-
image transfers. We are all Sisyphus; Fren-
of his committed gestures. turing people who live with Real Dolls. In the
hofer, c’est nous. —BARBARA MORRIS last three years, she has been pursuing land-
—DEWITT CHENG
scape. While the portraiture has its merits as
SAN FRANCISCO historical archive of fringe societies, the land-
SAN FRANCISCO Elena Dorfman: “Sublime: The LA River”
Alan Ebnother: “twelve paintings” at Modernism Inc.
at George Lawson Gallery Sometimes history has an interesting way
Alan Ebnother is the kind of artist who of repeating itself. Layers of time leave
lives and breathes painting, for whom the marks and impressions on the landscape,
materials of oil and pigment, and the process carrying with it stories and visual cues that
of their manipulation, transcend an interest lapse or remain. The indelibility of these
in creating something with a particular historical traces is documented in Elena
look, rather presenting a continual voyage Dorfman’s series of photographs on view
of discovery. As a young painter, he was at Modernism. “Sublime: The LA River”
drawn to the work of artists Joseph Marioni features several large-scale works printed
and Phil Sims, members of the New York- on metallic paper that imparts an eerie glow.
based Radical Painting group, whose
shared aesthetic focused on monochromatic
canvases—also proposing the dis- “#15, September 12th 2015”
engagement of the profession of painting 2015, Alan Ebnother
from the myriad concerns of the broader art Oil, pigment, wax on linen
world. The older artists took Ebnother under 251⁄4" x 251⁄4"
Photo: courtesy George Lawson Gallery
altered photographs, and mixed media have
already been demolished. Seen on one level
as an aesthetic rescue mission, “Highly Col-
ored Space” is a documentation of vanishing
urban spaces in the form of 32 paintings that
memorialize doomed storefronts, houses,
restaurants, roads and back yards. On an-
other level, when de-contextualized, they
operate as abstracted cityscapes in the
tradition of Richard Diebenkorn, photogra-
pher Aaron Siskind and local painter Paul
Havas. Minkoff begins each painting with
her photographs, then paints over them,
and scrapes (or “excavates”) back into them
to create the illusion of peeling paint, graffiti,
and fading labels or signs.
“Sublime LA 10,” 2015, Elena Dorfman, Pigment print on metallic paper, 331⁄2" x 691⁄2" Blue Light (all works 2015) reveals National
Photo: courtesy of Modernism Inc. Rifle Association graffiti on a wall while
Hardware highlights the store’s sign with
scapes implore the viewer to look within Acceptance (2012), a high-definition video,
its missing letters. Abandoned supermarket
themselves, rather than gaze at others. is comprised of two screens, one of Obama,
shopping carts (in Nomads View 1 and
—LEORA LUTZ the other of Romney, with each giving his
Nomads View 2) and crumbling houses
2012 Presidential Candidate acceptance
NEWPORT BEACH, CA (An Inner Strength Still Remains) provide
speech. Yet the words of their speeches are
R. Luke DuBois: “Now” the outer limits of any explicit social commen-
manipulated to periodically sound as though
at Orange County Museum of Art tary. Elsewhere, deteriorating sites become
each candidate is mimicking the other. The
New York-based artist R. Luke DuBois is not gentrified by Minkoff: appealingly colored,
only a master of the IT platforms of a wide divided into color blocks, and far from any
range of media, including the Internet, music, hint of detritus or decay. Of these, Remnant,
performance, video and film, he has learned Think Blink View 2, and T-Docks View 1 are
how to manipulate and combine these vari- the most abstract and least troubled by the
ous media to create dizzying videos that artist’s concerned interventions. They put the
address the inundation of images and sounds more random scenes into a decorative space,
in contemporary society. Each piece in perhaps undercutting the artist’s program of
Dubois’ first solo museum survey show on identification, rescue, memory and protest.
the West Coast is an amalgam of several The brutal cropping of the original photos
media, and reminds us of just how discon- extends to the composition of the resulting
certing our world has become. “The final mixed-media pictures. Older houses, as in
result,” former OCMA curator Dan Cameron Broken Heart: I Want it Back and Deeply
theorizes in the catalogue, “is not exactly “Academy,” 2006, R. Luke DuBois Rooted Foundation, become picturesque
pleasant, bordering on the painful.” DVD video, stereo sound rather than cautionary. The T-Dock Views
76 minutes; Edition 5 of 10, 1 AP (a popular Lake Washington inner-city
The 76-minute video Academy (2006) shows
Photo: Courtesy the artist and bitforms gallery swimming beach), along with Offramp and
the Best Pictures from 75 successive years Simplicity Brings Forgetfulness, are the
of Academy Awards, with each full-length film airiest, and most promising. They show
most illustrative piece in this show, reflecting
compressed into a single minute; this art piece open white and blue skies that are filled with
our media-rich world, is Sergey Brin and
progresses from early black-and-white movies, rain about to fall on solitary constructions.
Larry Page (2013). Here, two screens display
through Technicolor, into recent fast-paced the respective Google co-founders being in-
ones. The underlying purpose of the video is terviewed, while moving Google text and
to demonstrate how filmmaking has changed image searches, collected in “real time,”
over the decades, while presenting this pro- are superimposed over their faces.
gression in a way that watching all of these —LIZ GOLDNER
movies (in real time over 10 days) would not.
“Just as visualization helps us to make sense SEATTLE
of the ‘facts’ of our world,” the artist explains in Daphne Minkoff: “Highly Colored Space”
the catalogue, “art made with data lets us look at Linda Hodges Gallery
critically at those ‘facts.’” Yet the intense com- For her eighth solo show at Linda Hodges
pression of the individual films often renders since 2003, Seattle artist and North Seattle
them as incomprehensible, and indistinguish- College art professor Daphne Minkoff took
able from each other. The 60-minute (Pop) Icon: an archaeological approach to depicting
Britney (2010), a similarly formatted film of various locales in Seattle’s Central District,
split-second images of Spears, clearly ad- a historically Jewish and African-American
dresses the star’s public persona. As the wall neighborhood that is rapidly undergoing
label explains, the pop star has existed entirely transformation and gentrification. In fact,
within Auto-Tune and Photoshop, with all of her some of the structures she portrays in her
pictures and videos airbrushed to present a small (18 by 24 inches) canvases of oil,
perfect icon, and with her “live” performances
pre-recorded and lip-synced. This mesmerizing “Remnant,” 2015,
video trivializes the singer, presenting her to the Daphne Minkoff
world as the fake star that she really is. Collage, oil on board, 24" x 18"
Photo: courtesy Linda Hodges Gallery

: reviews
(2015) incorporates watercolor, ink, and pen- SEATTLE
cil in a serpentine composition of segmented Cable Griffith: “Sightings”
ovals in myriad strata. The fancifully titled Pri- at G. Gibson Gallery
vate Super-Nova (2011) is a paean to looping Given a debut on the eve of the recent X-
waves of color à la Karin Davie, heaped upon Files reboot, it was either prescience or a
one another. Atop these twisting gestural rib- nod to the eternal, incorrigible human longing
bons, balanced as if on a knife’s edge, rests for things unseen that informed Cable Grif-
a cluster of multi-hued shapes, which in fith’s exhibit of nocturnal landscapes at G.
aggregate resembles a rough outline of a Gibson Gallery. Dotted with bouquets of levi-
United States map. tating, phosphorescent orbs and fledgling
flocks of UFOs, the paintings of “Sightings”
A similar cluster of color-chunks clings to- comprise a pleasant migration from Griffith’s
gether in an ominous, pink-hued sky in the previous work, which has increasingly
abstracted landscape titled Slipstream (2013). reduced landscapes to pixelated amalgama-
Beneath the nucleated shapes lies a spartan tions of dashes and dots. With Griffith
hill dusted with burnt trees. Notably, the careening toward a unique pointillism
artist invests this scorched-earth tableau with that harkens simultaneously to Seurat and
the suggestion of hope and renewal, for just Minecraft, sometimes climaxing in a purely
beneath the lonely tree stumps lies a net- abstract, Morse codification of place, his
work of green and lavender shapes that work in “Sightings” dips back toward fully
curve like a giant, subterranean laurel wreath. recognizable terrain, featuring the terrestrial
The wreath’s deepest-reaching leaves extend stuff of trees and hills. For the series, Griffith
like fallopian fimbriae toward a grouping of draws from real-life reports of UFOs. The
bright white rocks or crystals. At the two larger paintings on canvas—approaching
“Untitled #375”, 2015, Gabe Brown spots where the wreath touches the hillside’s Bierstadt proportions—are drenched in
Watercolor, ink and pencil on paper, 30" X 22" surface, white clouds spray into the sky, car- the murky blues of the Pacific Northwest.
Photo: courtesy Butters Gallery
rying, perhaps, a regenerative power from
Minkoff’s chronicle is selective in its choice of deep within the earth. And so from a seem- In Two Lights in the Woods (both works
dwelling and community hangouts. Her treat- ingly whimsical grouping of shapes, Brown cited, 2015), three fingers of a woodland
ment avoids any real anguish or rage, settling has conjured what might be viewed as a creek cascade down moonlit moss, their
instead for colorful, wistful nostalgia, a feeling profound trajectory from environmental dev- froth comprising Griffith’s signature neon
that no doubt will increase with time as the astation to renaissance. Her paintings lend dashes of laser-blue liquid. The tributaries
city’s other neighborhoods are gradually re- themselves to such allegorical interpreta- converge and pool under the portent of
placed with unaffordable housing and tions, with their imagery drawn from the a pulsing green and violet light. 3 triangle
economically upward-shifting demographics. crossroads of the natural and the mystical. shaped white lights slowly moving together
—MATTHEW KANGAS In her perspectiveless, self-consciously low- (after Bierstadt) is a vast landscape at
brow style, she composes romantic hymns dusk, its heavy sky a layer cake of emerald,
PORTLAND to the organic world, with pagan undertones turquoise and graying greens that dissolve
Gabe Brown: “Above Below” and transcendentalist overtones in haunting into purple shadow. A lone campfire provides
at Butters Gallery visual harmony. the only spark of warm color. Pines crane
Disjointed geometric motifs integrate seam- —RICHARD SPEER their arrow-like tips, pointing to the heavens,
lessly in Gabe Brown’s fantastical
compositions. Wave forms, geodes, trees,
and painterly drips seem to vault, arc, and
float in an illusory space hailing from the line-
age of Surrealism. In a suite of oil-on-linen
paintings over wood panel and a smaller
set of mixed-media works on paper, the
Kingston, New York-based artist combines
diverse imagery into what she terms “inner
landscapes” and “narrative vignettes.” To
be sure, these are not narratives in any tradi-
tional sense; while they do feature recurring
symbols, there is no sense of characteriza-
tion or time-driven plot. But the works do
sketch a kind of visual story, albeit in broad
strokes, akin to a fever-dream or psychedelic
trip. In the paper piece Untitled #328 (2013),
honeycomb forms and geodes hover above
a passage of blocked color, which appears
to spray out the end of a funnel like a
mysterious energy source. Untitled #375
“Two Lights in the Woods,” 2015
Cable Griffith
Acrylic on canvas, 54" x 72"
Photo: courtesy G. Gibson Gallery
in the shadow of the mountains. The struc- when he makes a work of art, he creates
tures she’s inserted into the scenery are something that persists in the world, unlike
skeletal and incomplete, making them almost Tweets, Facebook posts, and YouTube
transparent in places. The success of the videos. He organizes the 56 collages and as-
representational illusion owes much to the semblages in the show into nine categories.
sweeping vista of a mountain range in the “Assemblages in Blue” have been described
background; but mostly it’s her insertion of as Louise Nevelson meets Yves Klein. Small
those skeletal structures, done in linear per- but powerful, these wall pieces are con-
spective, which reinforces the illusion of structed from scraps of wood arranged in
three-dimensional space. abstract patterns and painted “Yves Klein
Blue.” The category “Paper Cuts” includes
At the other end of her output are those a series of abstract colored-paper cutouts lay-
pieces that seem at first to exemplify pure ered to reveal the colors below. The Rhythm
abstraction, though they actually represent of Moonlight (2015) is a surreal collage made
the same subject as the more clearly repre- from antique book illustrations depicting
sentational ones—a structure set in nature. a tsunami wreaking havoc, as figures run
In the marvelous Pile Heap Jumble Stack, about wailing, boats land on top of rocks,
a riot of roughly rectilinear shapes have been and fish swim in the sky.
set at diagonals defined by perspective out-
lines evocative of a scene that looks like For “Cartoneros,” McCartney divides dis-
there’s been a demolition in the foreground carded boxes into geometric sections and
with new construction in the background. fills them with cardboard stacked and
The scene is merely suggested by the per- arranged in creative ways. The series is
“Re-envisioned Landscape,” 2015, Laura Truitt
Oil on canvas, 20” x 15” spective lines that converge at the top center named for people in Buenos Aires who make
Photo: courtesy William Havu Gallery of the painting. To carry it out, Truitt uses a meager living collecting cardboard from
a complex palette dominated by an array the street and selling it. Like the Cartoneros,
where three UFOs hover in a patch of sky of oranges in shades from Hazmat to rust, McCartney uses discarded materials, describ-
visible through a tangle of branches. A series accented by other shades including a pun- ing his work as being “crafted from the
of smaller acrylics on paper scale the paranor- gent turquoise. The paint both honors and chaos of the superfluous.” He traces his
mal to bite-size chunks; in contrast to the violates the margins established by the out- obsessive need to compartmentalize back
large paintings, they grid the gallery wall like lined shapes and as a result, the painting to frequent trips to the British Museum when
pages torn from a picture book of Space Age functions simultaneously as both an abstract he was a child. Attention to detail is para-
mythology. Reports of sightings in places like work and a representational one. mount, and everything is expertly assembled.
the Pacific Northwest, Spain and Algeria are McCartney reminisces about the past in I
mapped out with geometric precision. Alien Truitt lives and works in Fort Collins, which Don’t Need You to Cut My Meat, Homage
spacecraft plotted against the inky, gem-tone is also where she earned her MFA, at Col- to the Post-Feminist American Male (2015),
night skies vibrate. orado State University. Although Denver is using his mother’s silver carving set to ques-
the state’s art center, Fort Collins has long tion traditional gender roles: the fork has
Griffith’s dalliance into UFO storytelling had a significant contemporary scene as well. been transformed into a female figure and
nested within the tradition of landscape paint- Like Denver, Fort Collins is going through an the knife a male. In other works, collected
ing doesn’t just offer a painterly depiction of unprecedented building boom marked by the seashells become a Victorian-inspired col-
the universal—at times downright mad— demolition of old buildings and the construc- lage, and a teddy bear appears to have been
yearning for something supernatural. By tion of new ones. The references to buildings tarred and feathered. McCartney’s transfor-
mythologizing the regional landscape in the going up and down are easy to discern in mation of materials provokes new ways of
era of regional tech glut, he offers a timely Truitt’s works. In her artist statement she seeing; as he explores color and perception,
twist in the continuation of Modernist-era alludes to this, writing “my work explores he asks us to consider how we construct our
Northwest Mystics like Mark Tobey, Morris structures between life and death; construc- reality with material possessions, and how
Graves and Kenneth Callahan. In a similar vein tion… and destruction”. So in a way, her we relate to the world around us.
to their divination through mark making which pieces present telling documents of their —DONNA TENNANT
found a basis in the natural world, by reducing place and time.
his landscapes to tangled cuneiform abstrac- —MICHAEL PAGLIA SANTA FE
tions, Griffith locates the sublime at a Susan York: “Carbon”
crossroads where nature, technology, and the HOUSTON at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
imagination, all unexpectedly meet. Edward Lane McCartney: Susan York’s sculptures and drawings fold
—AMANDA MANITACH “Media Whore: the persistence of making” the three-dimensional into two and back
at Hooks-Epstein Galleries
DENVER The title of this show refers to the fleeting
Laura Truitt: “Re-Visions” nature of social media in today’s culture.
at William Havu Gallery McCartney is not the “Media Whore” re-
Comprised of nearly 20 paintings and mono- ferred to in the title; that would be people
types, Laura Truitt’s “Re-Visions” featured a like the Kardasians, who use social media
range of her sophisticated interpretations of platforms to live in the public eye. In fact,
the built environment set in nature. There are McCartney is just the opposite—he believes
those with sketchy, if recognizable, imagery. in the “persistence of making,” the fact that
Then, those that have been so thoroughly
reworked as to seem be all but non-objec- “Ursus Maritimus Petroleum Acclimate,” 2015
tive. Finally are those works representing Edward Lane McCartney
discrete steps somewhere in between those Rubber, Kraton 1652 along with solvents,
two poles. Among the more representational plasticizers, 1,1,1 - trichloroethane, VM&P
Truitts is Re-envisioned Landscape, in which naphtha, toluene, hexane, etc.
an under-construction industrial facility is set 12" x 12" x 9"
Photo: courtesy Hooks-Epstein Galleries
: reviews
The last gallery belongs to York, and she is an especially excellent example. Moon
shines. In it, the 1915 Suprematist exhibition craters, rings of Saturn, planetary topogra-
“0.10” in St. Petersburg is revived, thanks to phies, and other interstellar associations orbit
Kastner’s knowledge of art history, and the the small square piece G6, composed prima-
installation is effectively Malevichian. Two of rily of the aforementioned sliced Styrofoam
York’s graphite sculptures hang high in the beverage containers. Transformation of mate-
corners, as Russian icons, and Malevich’s rials, and ultimately, the transformation of our
Black Square, once did. It doesn’t hurt that material culture, are the key concepts for
York and Kastner know how to work every grasping the significance of Roth’s process.
angle in the room while deflecting attention Like Lee Bontecou, Roth produces work in
from their own talents and intelligence—the an idiosyncratic visual language that is en-
work is just that good. tirely his own. The most radical alteration,
“Tilted Column,” 2008, Susan York —KATHRYN M DAVIS the show’s masterpiece, takes the form of
Solid graphite, 70" x 14" x 15" a large vertical relief, that protrudes nearly
Collection of the artist SANTA FE a foot off the wall, composed primarily of
Photo: InSight Foto Inc. 2016, ©Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Thomas Roth: “White” melted plastic picnic forks with an overlay
at Tansey Contemporary of plastic sheeting, also subjected to heating,
again. Her medium is graphite and geometry;
We live in a material world, and mixed-media melting and tearing. Reminiscent of a giant
the effect is pristine and personal. Her solid
artist Thomas Roth is a material guy. He’s in- papery insect nest, or some natural mineral
graphite columns float an inch or so above
terested in what happens at the edges of
the ground, and are scaled roughly in a 1:1
empiricism, when things fall apart, and cen-
relationship to the human body. York’s highly
ters cease to hold. His work comments on
polished pieces recall Donald Judd’s Minimal-
the accumulation of objects and items in our
ism in their forms, but are decidedly
post–industrial lifestyles, and the scale of the
Post-Minimalist in their sensibility. The sur-
systems of mass production consumed with
faces deny entry, like the self-contained
producing consumables. Where Warhol gave
monolith of “2001: A Space Odyssey”
people what they wanted in the form of
(1968). Still, graphite is organic, as non-threat-
Marilyn and Elvis, Roth provides a perfectly
ening as a grade-school pencil. It absorbs and
warped picnic of plastic products. Some of
reflects light; it is warm and cool, compelling
the best of the nearly all white works in his
and confounding. To add to the paradoxical “Oracle,” 2015, Yoshua Okón
current show are wrought from (spastic)
nature of her columns, York skews their Video still
plastic forks, and sliced Styrofoam cups.
geometry just enough that the viewer may Photo: courtesy of the artist. Produced in conjunc-
Even during these deeply jaded days there
not realize consciously that something about tion with the Arizona State University Art Museum
is something slightly audacious about making
them is slightly off. The columns cause a
your art out of disposables. Not that every-
shiver of vertigo in the viewer. We’re not
body from Duchamp to Tuttle hasn’t already, accretion on a cave wall, the work asks view-
quite sure we’re supposed to be feeling this
but as Roth’s exhibition goes to show, the ers to look through the holes and tears in the
sensation, but it brings with it a secret, illicit
fine line between what lands in the landfill, overlay to the twisted, nearly unrecognizable
thrill. Her drawings do something similar:
and what wears well on the wall is exactly forks within. Evoking a strong sense of
It feels as if the geometric shapes would,
the point. interiority, it affords wonderful moments of
if they weren’t under glass, float right off
the page. curious exploration and intimate discovery,
Roth wins the prized golden hot-glue-gun for which is really what art is all about, after all.
his gestural abstractions accomplished in this —JON CARVER
It’s not enough, however, to describe the
largely under-explored medium, and in the
artist’s work here, because another player
even stickier substance of silicon caulk. In SALT LAKE CITY
has made all the difference. Curator Carolyn
a signature Rothian turn, the stuff that other Yoshua Okón: “Oracle”
Kastner put this show together with a flaw-
artists use to glue their work together, the at Utah MOCA
less vision. She used her deep familiarity
unacknowledged, invisible in-betweens, be- It is impossible to anticipate what sort of
with the museum’s galleries, and with the
come both subject and object of his practice. shelf life a politically inspired piece of art will
Santa Fe-based artist’s work, as well as her
The large chevron diptych (titled G2 and G3) have. When Mexico City-based artist Yoshua
encyclopedic understanding of Georgia O’Ke-
effe’s paintings, installing York’s works in the Okón visited the border town of Oracle,
museum’s main galleries, in dialogue with Arizona, to ask members of the AZ Border
O’Keeffe’s. The result is a perfect installation. Defenders to reenact their protest against
Even the museum’s architecture is brought the entrance of unaccompanied children into
into play; the softly rounded adobe surfaces the US, the story of the Central American mi-
suggested by Richard Gluckman’s renovation grants was already being nudged aside by
in the late 1990s are reflected in O’Keeffe’s other news items. And by the time his result-
nearly abstract My Last Door, a painting from ing video piece “Oracle” opened at the Utah
1954. In turn, York’s Tilted Column is lit in Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) at
such a way that it reflects the blacks, grays, the end of January, the issue had almost
and whites of O’Keeffe’s painting of her completely faded from collective and journal-
beloved patio door. istic memory. Even so, Okón has captured a
fragment of American culture that promises
to retain its relevance for some time.In
Okón’s multi-channel video piece, the protes-
“G6,” 2016, Thomas Roth
tors are shown walking along a dirt road,
Mixed media, 18" x 18"
Photo: courtesy Tansey Contemporary bearing the Stars and Stripes and a “Don’t
CHICAGO physical presence. On the edges of each
Nicholas Frank: “Post-Self” panel, globs of dried paint reveal the thin
at Western Exhibitions layers of tones that were built beneath the
Everyone’s tired of hearing about “selfies,” matte black grounds, and the surface bears
the early front-runner in 21st century the dusty smudges from marks made and
narcissism (though they even make me erased as the compositions progressed.
sympathetic to politicians, who daily are Modestly sized, these works on panel are
subjected to a close clinch with a series filled with contents that feel grim, deep and
of idiots holding a cellphone at arms length). encompassing. While there’s no doubt that
Nicholas Frank takes us back to a long-forgot- Washington’s concerns are weighty and
ten simpler and sylvan time—you know, a poignant, she counters that conceptual heavi-
decade ago—when having your picture taken ness with material lightness: a wallpaper
in front of some thing or place required the installation of wispy, reflective emergency
participation of another human being who blankets, and images on panels that are
would hold the camera or cellphone and do rendered delicately through drawn lines
the deed. Frank gets around, and on trips of white chalk.
this last decade to Great Britain, Russia, and
China he engaged in the surreptitious act of Washington’s Search for Meaning (2015)
“Summer Palace 3 (Sky Blue)” taking pictures of people taking pictures of features a drawing of Viktor Frankl’s
2007/2015, Nicholas Frank people. They look like a bit like a one-person renowned 1946 psychology text, “Man’s
Inkjet print on Epson Ultra Premium Luster firing squad, someone stands perfectly still in Search for Meaning.” In Ruin and cosmic
Archival 260gsm Paper mounted in front of something, and the other stands or dust (2015), the precisely drawn head of
Rising Museum Board squats 10 or 15 feet away, also perfectly still, a classical-looking sculpture is missing its
Custom-designed and cut maple frame, painted takes aim and shoots. Frank’s project here is nose. Three drawings of the artist’s own right
by the artist, glazed with UV Framing a wry slice of the human comedy, looking at hand after the removal of sutures years ago
Quality Plexiglas, 211⁄2" x 241⁄2" a practically universal situation as a simulta- recall the history of medicine and anatomy.
Photo: courtesy Western Exhibitions neously intriguing and pathetic act, proving Such subject matter depicted with Washing-
that old adage that wherever you go, there ton’s chalkboard technique reminds one the
Tread on Me” flag, as well as yellow placards you are. stuffy lecture halls of universities—places
that read “Stop the Invasion.” Eventually with one foot in the past and the other in
three men from the group plant Old Glory Frank is a witty and intelligent artist whose the present. They suggest places where the
among a pile of boulders. These shots are work falls between the ruminative and the facts and histories of the heavier sciences
intermixed with clips of anti-immigrant plac- quirkily revelatory. He enlivens this project by are discoursed in only one direction: from the
ards, ants seen scurrying across a desert framing the inkjet prints of photographs in in- teacher to the pupil. Yet Washington’s works
floor littered with spent shell casings, and dividual largish frames that are—I looked it are the furthest thing from didacticism. While
shots of Hispanic youths facing a wall while up—isosceles trapezoids, meaning that two the chalkboard works in “Useful Knowledge”
chanting a modified version of “The Marine’s of the four unequal sides (here, always the do nod to the finite nature of knowledge,
Hymn.” The emotional and visual core of the left and right) are parallel while the other two they are far more emphatic upon that which
piece, however, ends up being the shots of are not. While the images are always plumb is nebulous. The chalkboard is also the
a white pickup doing donuts around an island horizontal they don’t appear so at first, epitome of ephemerality: a surface that is
of sagebrush and cactus, shown both from seeming askew or foreshortened by their intended for practice, false starts, or brain-
the outside, where the truck spins round and capriciously asymmetrical framing. This proj- storming, the space for the lengthy means
round beneath a clear blue sky, and from in- ect had me humming “Picture Book” by the to an end, as a problem or equation is
side, where a man of AARP age punctuates Kinks (go ahead, YouTube it) for weeks after- worked through to its conclusion. The marks
the soundtrack of his roaring engine with ward. A second project by Frank, Greatest upon a chalkboard are the stuff that are not
random pistol shots and an occasional “Yee- Skips (2015), had him amass all of those that meant to stay, but to be inevitably wiped
haw!” In one of the final clips, the driver is were on his LP record collection and create clean. That Washington’s work depend on
shown again, this time wielding an assault another LP that for some 30 minutes (both preserving these chalk marks emphasizes
rifle as he spins the wheel and strings to- sides) played his skips one at a time over the methods and practices that take us
gether phrases like “You mess with us and and over. Hearing dozens of 3-4 second from uncertainty to certainty.
you’re going to mess with fire,” and “We skips individually repeated 30 or 40 times in —ROBIN DLUZEN
love you, we welcome you, any race, a row turns each one into a kind of chant,
creed, color, doesn’t matter... but do it fragments of music sometimes vestigially
the right way.” recognizable. It’s a bit of a retro Cage match,
a refusal to overlook the accidents that seem
Distanced from the original news story, like imperfections but actually invite a fresh
Okón’s video piece may have lost its immedi- rethinking of the medium. Nicely done!
ate political poignancy, but he’s managed to —JAMES YOOD
capture a slice of Americana that resonates
beyond a single issue or news cycle. If CHICAGO
members of the AZ Border Defenders are Erin Washington: “Useful Knowledge”
not among the people who occupied the at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Chicago-based artist Erin Washington’s chalk-
Oregon, they are certainly cultural and board-like works have a very strong material
ideological cousins. allure, though viewing them immediately
—SHAWN ROSSITER directs one’s thoughts far beyond the pieces’
“Ruin and cosmic dust,” 2015

Erin Washington
Chalk, acrylic, and gouache on panel
341⁄2" x 30"
Photo: courtesy Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

: news
The roster of participating artists for the
Portland 2016 Biennial, curated by Michelle
Grabner, exhibition has been announced.
Grabner, the Chair of Painting and Drawing
department at SAIC and widely known as a
co-curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial,
selected the 34 artists and artist teams after
conducting 100 studio visits across the state
resulting in over one-third of the participants
coming from outside the city of Portland.
Redwood Media Group recently announced

the acquisition of Red Dot Art Fair, a Miami
Art Week venue, and Art Santa Fe, an inter-
national contemporary art fair celebrating its
16th year this July. Redwood Media Group
currently owns and operates a bi-coastal
roster of international art fairs, including
Spectrum Miami, Artexpo New York,
Spectrum Indian Wells, and Art San Diego.
After serving 10 years as the founder

and executive director of LAXART, Lauri
The James Goldstein House, designed by John Lautner Firstenberg has announced her retirement,
Photo: ©Jeff Green, Courtesy: LACMA effective March 31, 2016. In an official state-
ment, Firstenberg described the transition
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Wexner Center for the Arts has “from a founder-based organization to a new
(LACMA) announced the promise of a been awarded a two-year, $100,000 grant leadership team.” The internationally recog-
John Lautner-designed home by owner from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the nized nonprofit, which recently moved from
James Goldstein who purchased the estate Visual Arts. The grant will be used to its longtime location in Culver City to Holly-
in 1972. The promised gift, which includes support ongoing production work by the wood, built its reputation over the course
a James Turrell Skyspace, “Above Horizon,” Film/Video Studio Program as well as of a decade launching over 500 exhibitions,
its contents, and the surrounding estate its residency program. public art programs, as well as biennials and
to LACMA, and today shows the results of festivals with leading local and national insti-
a 15-year collaboration between Goldstein The MacArthur Foundation has announced tutions. Firstenberg will continue her
and Lautner after the owner contacted the 14 Chicago-based arts organizations recipi- association with LAXART by serving on the
architect in 1979 to redesign aspects of the ents of the 2016 MacArthur Award for board of directors.
home which was first built in 1963, such Creative and Effective Institutions, providing
as collaborating on custom-built minimalist each organization with awards ranging from The Tamarind Institute recently named
furniture made of concrete, wood, and $200,000 to $1 million. The annual award, Diana Gaston, curator of Fidelity Investment
glass. The house famously entered into now in its eleventh year, has historically Corporate Art Collection for the past 12
the lexicon of popular culture serving as been distributed to creative organizations years, as the new director replacing Marjorie
the residence of character Jackie Treehorn’s both nationally and internationally. This year, Devon who retired after serving as director
in the Coen brothers’ seminal film, the awardees were drawn exclusively from for 38 years. Devon was the last of three
“The Big Lebowski” (1998). the foundation’s hometown in support of long-time veterans of the Institute who re-
music, film, as well as theatrical, literary, cently retired, following Education Director
The University of California, Davis has an- and visual arts in Chicago, including the Rodney Hamon who retired in December
nounced that the new Jan Shrem and Maria Hyde Park Art Center, which received a 2015 after 16 years, and Tamarind master
Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, currently grant for $625,000. printer and workshop manager Bill Lagattuta
under construction, is scheduled to open to who retired in July 2015 after 27 years.
the public Sunday, November 13, 2016. The
75,000 square-foot museum site capped with
a 50,000 square-foot “Grand Canopy” of per-
forated aluminum triangular beam reflects
the collaborative design between associated
architects SO-IL, an emerging firm based in
Brooklyn, New York, and Bohlin Cywinski
Jackson, based in San Francisco, Seattle
and Pennsylvania.
Right:
Rendering of the Planned
Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem
Museum of Art, at UC Davis
SO–IL/Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Photo: courtesy SO–IL/Bohlin Cywinski Jackson,
Associated Architects
Photo: Mark Bradford, courtesy of the artist
and the High Museum of Art
Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford

(pictured above) was recently named the
recipient of the 2016 David C. Driskell Prize.
Established in 2005 by the High Museum of
Art, the Driskell Prize is the first national
award to honor and celebrate contributions to
the field of art of the African Diaspora. A cash
award of $25,000 accompanies the prize, which
will be awarded to the artist at the Annual
Driskell Prize Dinner on April 29.
People Moves:
The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

announced Jeffrey Uslip, who currently serves
as chief curator, has been appointed deputy
director for exhibitions and programs.
Naima Keith, formerly Associate Curator

at the Studio Museum in Harlem, has been
appointed Deputy Director of exhibitions and
programs at the California African American FEB 6–MAY 15, 2016
Museum.
The son of a French bureaucrat, Pierre Bonnard turned his back on a
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft conventional career and was instead seduced by a life of painting. His
(HCCC) has announced Perry Price as the
center’s new executive director. Price previ- ZRUNUHÁHFWHGDQ$UFDGLDQYLVLRQRIHYHU\GD\OLIHÀOOHGZLWKFRORUOLJKW
ously served as director of education at the humor, and tenderness. See more than 70 paintings and photographs that
American Craft Council in Minneapolis, MN. UHYHDOWKHDUWLVWDVDNH\ÀJXUHEULGJLQJ,PSUHVVLRQLVPDQGPRGHUQLVP
The Seattle Art Fair has announced the
appointment of Laura Fried, who previously
served as curator at the Contemporary Art
Museum St. Louis, to serve as the artistic This exhibition is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and the
director for the second annual event. Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid.
The Corning Museum of Glass announced

the appointment of independent curator,
writer and historian Susie J. Silbert as Presenting Sponsors: Cynthia Fry Gunn and John A. Gunn, and the San Francisco Auxiliary of the Fine Arts
curator of modern and contemporary glass. Museums. Director’s Circle: William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation and Diane B. Wilsey. Curator’s Circle: the Ray
and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund. Benefactor’s Circle: Lucinda B. Watson. Patron’s Circle: George and Marie
Hecksher, and David A. Wollenberg.
Pierre Bonnard, Nude in an Interior(detail), ca. 1935. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Paul Mellon, 2006.128.8. © 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

: report
DALLAS
A collector’s unique bequest helps Dallas Museum of Art enhance its permanent collection.
Imagine having carte blanche to acquire any work from an outstand- Clemente, Joan Miró, Karel Appel, Howard Hodgkin, Jean Dubuffet,
ing private collection. That dream scenario recently became a reality Edvard Munch, Tracey Emin and Lucian Freud and sculpture by
for the Dallas Museum of Art. When collector and Museum supporter Jean Arp round out the broader collection of European Modernism.
Dorace Maritzky Fichtenbaum passed away last July, she left behind
a bequest allowing DMA curators the opportunity to select whatever The collection’s roster of female artists is equally impressive. Late
they would like from her treasure trove of modern and contemporary 20th-century luminaries such as Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell,
American and European artwork, as well as objects from African, Lee Bontecou, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith and Susan Rothenberg are
Asian and Ancient Mesoamerican cultures. Widowed in 1984, well represented. Meslay applauds Fichtenbaum’s collecting acumen,
Fichtenbaum amassed the collection largely on her own. The particularly in this area. He says, “The piece that she acquired at
Museum selected 138 objects, which, according to Olivier Meslay, the beginning of the 1980s from Yayoi Kusama is very strong. And
Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, represented about half of the Eva Hesse works on paper are extremely rare.” Fichtenbaum
her vast collection. As Fichtenbaum left no heirs, the fate of the rounded it out with the work of regionally prominent artists such
remainder of the work is unknown. as Annette Lawrence and Linda Ridgway.
The Museum selectively chose works that complemented already ex- Her canonical collection of 20th-century American male artists is
isting collections or enhanced underrepresented areas. “She was very also noteworthy, and includes work by Ben Shahn, Roy Lichtenstein,
interested in women artists and German Expressionists, which for us Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden and Frank Stella. Among the
is a great opportunity to strengthen our holdings in these areas,” many gems in this cache is the rare and unique Jasper Johns’ 0 to 9
explains Meslay. The work of German Expressionists represented suite of lithographs from the early 1960s. A small, spherical wooden
a void in an otherwise dynamic collection of Modern European art wall piece by Martin Puryear is also joining the DMA collection.
at the DMA. With Fichtenbaum’s bequest, the Museum now owns a Artists with local Texas roots include David Bates, Vernon Fisher
thorough representation of this period, comprised largely of drawings, and Sam Gummelt.
watercolors and prints. In addition to the pantheon of expressionists,
such as Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Beginning this month, these works will be exhibited together as a
George Grosz and Käthe Kollwitz, among others, Fichtenbaum also cohesive collection for a final time. This select group of objects will
owned work by artists such as Gabriele Münther, Erich Heckel and remain on view for six to eight months. Gavin Delahunty, The Hoff-
August Macke. Works on paper by Wassily Kandinsky, Francesco man Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, envisions an

exhibition installation reflective of its previous
surroundings. He says, “Dorace Fichtenbaum’s
collection covered nearly every wall of her
home. For the DMA presentation we will
replicate this aesthetic with a salon style
hang—grouping objects by similarity and like-
ness in the way that their previous owner tried
to rationalize and organize the diversity of her
collection.” Once the exhibition closes, Meslay
says, conservation work will be done on the
works on paper before they return to the dark-
ness of their boxes. He stresses that it is “not
because the work was treated badly,” but
rather to re-mat much of it onto safer paper.
Some of the African objects will go on view im-
mediately and plans are afoot to put Mitchell’s
iconic 1981 painting, Untitled, on display.
Fichtenbaum travelled widely and often

brought home indigenous objects from her so-
journs. However, beyond the canon of Western
art, it is the addition of her African objects that
will be most keenly felt. While African art
is already well represented at the Museum,
these pieces will fill in some gaps. Dr. Roslyn
Walker, Senior Curator of the Arts of Africa, the
Americas, and the Pacific, looks forward to the
addition of a Chokwe scepter from Angola for
a variety of reasons. “The scepter comple-
ments the collection of royal regalia from
modern Ghana, Nigeria, and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo,” she says. Walker
is equally enthusiastic to explore how these
works can provide a deeper understanding of
the communities in which they were created.
She adds, “I am especially excited about the
Yoruba Gelede headdress from Nigeria. It is
clearly by a different artist than one already
in the collection. It proves a point about how
artists execute the established canon, i.e.,
they give it their own ‘aesthetic spin.’”
In addition to her collection, Fichtenbaum leaves

behind the good feelings of DMA board mem-
bers, docents and friends. Meslay calls her gift Seymour Rosofsky, Patient in Dentist’s Chair (detail), 1961, Oil on canvas. Smart Museum of Art, The University of
Chicago, Gift of the Rosofsky Estate, 2014.16.
“the ultimate generosity.” Unlike many collec-
tors, Fichtenbaum lived quietly among her
treasures. For Meslay, it was a revelation that a
local collector lived under the radar and amassed
such an important body of work. He concludes,
“For me, what is most exciting about this be-
quest is the human aspect of it: someone who
collected these works, loved them and gave
them to us. We are all deeply grateful.”
—NANCY COHEN ISRAEL
Opposite left to right:

Woman at the studio window
(Weiblicher Akt beim Studiofenster), 1913
Erich Heckel
Watercolor and charcoal on paper
185⁄8" x 151⁄2"
Dallas Museum of Art,
bequest of Dorace M. Fichtenbaum
Gelede headdress (ere Gelede), THROUGH JUNE 12, 2016

Early 20th century
Yoruba peoples, Nigeria, Africa
Wood, leather and pigment Admission is always free. All are welcome.
Overall: 91⁄2" x 81⁄2" x 91⁄2" smartmuseum.uchicago.edu
Courtesy Dallas Museum of Art,
bequest of Dorace M. Fichtenbaum
: report
BERKELEY
After years of planning, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive gets a new home.
It’s been a challenging few years in the Bay Area art world. There’s
been the shuttering or scattering of galleries from central locations. BAMPFA’s new space, designed by internationally recognized archi-
The temporary closure (due to construction) of two of the area’s mu- tectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro—who are also responsible for
seums, including the anchoring SFMOMA. Artists getting priced out the ICA Boston, the expansion of MOMA, and the recently opened
of studio space. And so on. That is all making an extreme about face Broad Museum in LA, among other notable structures—is in many
this year, starting out with an incredible January, which was topped ways the opposite of its predecessor. Where the Ciampi was heavy—
off, on the last day of the month, by the reopening of the Berkeley made of rough, grey concrete slabs, exposed inside and out—the
Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) in its new, spectacu- new space is light, with a lot of traditional white, and features clean,
lar home. (Earlier in the month the artist house museum of smooth lines. Where the interior of the old space had a loud visual
David Ireland, 500 Capp Street, opened, and the San Francisco Arts voice, the DS+R building stands back; as Rinder points out, the cur-
Commission introduced its new, much improved gallery location). rent galleries are intentionally neutral, allowing the artwork to take
The excitement around BAMPFA’s new space was palpable leading center stage, and it does. Reduced, but intentionally not gone—an
up to and including the opening, which saw lines around the block. homage to the Ciampi—are the old building’s open sightlines. But
BAMPFA director Lawrence Rinder also noted that the institution where the former museum was so open inside it could be distracting,
surpassed its $105 million capital campaign goal and the opening the current configuration provides both focused moments and the
night gala alone raised around $1 million. ability to look across spaces. To add icing to the cake, the new
museum is also situated in a more easily accessible location, just
The University Art Museum, as it was first named, opened in 1964 on a block from the Downtown Berkeley BART station.
the UC Berkeley campus under the direction of former MoMA curator
Peter Selz (who has remained a fixture on the Bay Area art scene, and This new structure was not without unique challenges. First was
whose fresh insights this magazine publishes to this very day). Within the melding of old with new: for its relocation, BAMPFA was provided
six years, it moved off campus to a new space: the bold and well- the late-1930s Art Deco–style UC Berkeley printing plant, but the
loved Brutalist-style building designed by Mario Ciampi. However, museum required additional space. This was achieved in two ways:
the Bay Area being the shifty place it is, in 1997, the structure was a second floor was dug out under the existing structure; and there is
deemed seismically unsound. The hunt was on for a new home, an addition, which spills off to one side and looks somewhat like a
which was finally decided on in 2010, and BAMPFA closed the twisted rectangle. The movement of the biomorphic new construc-
doors of the Ciampi building at the end of 2014 to relocate. tion—which also creates interesting curved spaces inside—plays

nicely off of the blocky existing structure, just as the silvery grey
DONN DELSON
of the stainless steel covering the new structure plays off of the
white of the printing plant. Architect Charles Renfro points out that
he is particularly excited about how nicely the structures mesh, both
inside and out; the transition areas are indeed fluid. To temper the
coldness of the abundant steel and glass utilized, the interior fea- LIGHT AMPLIFICATION
tures custom wood structures designed by master woodworker
Paul Discoe, using pine reclaimed from the build site: “The level
of craftsmanship is really high,” noted Rinder. Interior accent walls
in a deep chili red also add warmth.
The building also succeeds in melding the museum’s two distinct

agendas: “We are unique among museums,” Rinder explains, “be-
cause BAMPFA encompasses art and film in equal measure,” so the
space must do double duty. Because the original museum was built
before the film archives were part of the organization, this hadn’t
been addressed from a design perspective before (and the two enti-
ties have been housed in completely separate spaces since 1999, so
this also marks something of a reunion). From the exterior, this is
done directly: one side of the museum features large plate-glass win-
dows that look on to an “art wall,” a 60-by-25-foot mural space for
which
a new work of art will be commissioned every six months (the first
piece, titled The World Garden, was created by Chinese artist Qiu
Zhijie). On the other side of the building is a 30-foot outdoor LED
screen for public screenings (yes, it’s very cool). Inside, in addition
to 25,000 square feet of gallery space, BAMPFA houses two state-
of-the-art theaters, touted as some of the best places to watch
film to be found.
For the first exhibition, Rinder chose, appropriately, to focus on

architecture. But he approaches it both from a straightforward sense
as well as by looking at architecture as a metaphor. The resulting
show, titled “Architecture of Life,” well establishes the museum’s
role in being, as Rinder said, “quasi-encyclopedic,” while also being
accessible, a driving focus for the museum. “As the doorstep to the
university, the museum needs to be welcoming to everyone,” states
Rinder. The show features over 250 works spanning 2,000 years. It
readily draws well-thought and pleasantly unexpected connections
to this broader concept of architecture—in Rinder’s accurate
description, “It’s a poetic excursion.” It also nicely blends work
by well-known artists—for instance, Georgia O’Keeffe, Chris
Johanson, Buckminster Fuller and Hans Hofmann (whose gift of 45
paintings and $250,000 in 1963 is how the museum got its start)—
with those lesser known or more obscure, showing the wide breadth
of the museum’s curatorial reach as well as its holdings. “Our collec-
tion encompasses artwork dating back to 3000 BC as well as new
commissioned work; it’s very diverse,” Rinder observes.
The curatorial aim for exhibitions over the next year and into 2017
is to highlight that quasi-encyclopedic diversity, with shows of both
historical work and that which is more current. “Berkeley Eye: Per-
spectives on the Collection,” “Mind over Matter: Conceptual Art
from the Collection,” “Repentant Monk: Illusion and Disillusion in
the Art of Chen Hongshou,” and “Covered in Time and History:
The Films of Ana Mendieta” are a few of the upcoming exhibitions.
About his new space, Rinder enthusiastically notes that “it’s a new
instrument for me, and it plays well.” Echoing early expressed senti-
ments of the museumgoers, he adds, “It feels great.”
—CHÉRIE LOUISE TURNER
March 22-April 16
Opening Reception
Saturday, March 26, 5-8pm
Aerial view from the UC Berkeley Campus of UC Berkeley Art Museum
Bergamot Station, Bldg. D3
and Pacific Film Archive, 2016
2525 Michigan Ave.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro donndelson.com
Photo: Iwan Baan Santa Monica, CA 90404
Courtesy: Diller Scofidio + Renfro; EHDD; and UC Berkeley Art Museum taggallery.net 310-829-9556 info@donndelson.com
and Pacific FilmArchive (BAMPFA)view Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

: report
PORTLAND
Print Culture is booming in the Pacific Northwest.
In a state abounding with natural resources—the Cascade mountain

range, old-growth forests, copper mines dating to the 1860s—and
a hardworking, practical-minded populace descended from pioneer
stock, it’s apropos that printmaking would come to prominence in
Oregon’s cultural milieu. Natural materials are endemic to stone li-
thography, woodblock prints, copperplate, and other variants, as are
the methodical approach and old-fashioned elbow grease required
to master these intensely physical processes. But symbolic links
between nature and materiality are far from the only reasons that
Oregon, and Portland in particular, has become a mecca for printmak-
ers. A broad confluence of infrastructure and esprit de corps was on
display for the world to see this January at the third annual Portland
Fine Print Fair, held at Portland Art Museum, and will draw similar
worldwide attention from March 30 to April 2. That’s when the city
will host the annual SGCI (Southern Graphics Council International)
conference—only the second time in the organization’s 44-year his-
tory that the conference will have visited the West Coast.
To take even a cursory snapshot of the printmaking scene in Oregon,

one needs a wide-angle lens. Drawings and prints have formed an
important part of the Portland Art Museum’s holdings and program-
ming ever since its founding in 1892. Significant gifts and acquisitions
through the decades reached a climax in 1978, when art educator
and curator Gordon Gilkey donated some 8,000 prints to PAM, span-
ning the gamut of techniques, subject matter, and historical practices.
The gift became the cornerstone of what is today a collection of
22,000 works on paper. Notably, many of the region’s best-known
artists taught printmaking at PAM in its earlier years, when it had
an educational arm known as The Museum Art School. Louis Bunce
taught screenprinting there, Manuel Izquierdo taught relief printing,
and George Johanson taught etching. In the regional visual-arts
culture, those are some big guns.
Another Portland print-community milestone came a year after

Gilkey’s donation, when Robert Kochs became owner and director
of Augen Gallery. Under his direction, Augen went on to become one
of the Northwest’s leading sources of Modernist, Pop, and contempo-
rary prints. With his encyclopedic knowledge of the medium and its
market, Kochs has brokered major acquisitions for a roster of exacting
clients. Among these is one of the West Coast’s most important print
collectors, Jordan D. Schnitzer, whose personal and Family Founda-
tion collections include nearly 10,000 prints, with an emphasis on
Warhol, Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, John Baldessari, Robert Longo,
and Kara Walker. Schnitzer has not only lent his prints to myriad
exhibitions at the Portland Art Museum and the Jordan Schnitzer
Museum at the University of Oregon (Eugene), but to dozens of
museums around the world, without charging exhibition fees.
In 1981, two years after Kochs bought Augen, the nonprofit North-
west Print Council/Print Arts Northwest was founded, exhibiting
works by artist members and printmakers of international renown.
The organization’s educational outreaches are part of a strong
pedagogical tradition in Portland, with printmaking courses or entire
programs offered variously at the Pacific Northwest College of Art,
Portland State University, Portland Community College, and the
Oregon College of Art and Craft (all of which are co-sponsoring
the SGCI conference), as well as Lewis & Clark College and Reed.
The tradition of teaching and learning continues at the SGCI event,
with classes built around this year’s theme, “Flux: The Edge of
Yesterday and Tomorrow.” In addition to seminars devoted to
Japanese and Native American printmaking, there is a host of
timely topics built into the conference curriculum, among them
“Socially Engaged Printmaking” and “Printmaking and Gender.”
In addition to a lifetime achievement award to be bestowed on
this year’s keynote speaker, painter and printmaker James Rosen-
quist, two other awardees, Tom Prochaska and Christy Wyckoff,
will be honored for their decades-long teaching careers at PNCA.
For his part, Wyckoff believes that economic necessities tend to

draw “print people” together. “It’s a subculture where you’re not
just the Lone Ranger doing everything by yourself,” he says.
“Because of the cost of the equipment, you’re sharing space
and tools with other people. There’s a lot of collaboration.” He
also feels that Portland-based printmakers have benefited from
the longtime presence in the city of Gamblin Paint Company,
which offers a wide array of printer’s inks, and McClain’s
Printmaking Supplies in nearby Tigard, which imports Japanese
woodblock print supplies and papers.
“We have an ecosystem here that supports prints: makers,

suppliers, collectors, galleries, schools, and of course the
museum,” echoes Portland Art Museum’s curator for prints and
drawings. Mary Weaver Chapin. “One thing that impressed me
when I came here was the presence of makers, not just in tradi-
tional printmaking, but also letterpress and other processes where
people are striking out on their own, not just sitting around waiting
for official approval. It’s really vigorous and unapologetic.” As ex-
emplars, she points to local printmaking entrepreneurs Mark and
Rae Mahaffey, who run Mahaffey Fine Art, a collaborative print-
making workshop, and to the powerful impact of Crow’s Shadow
Institute of the Arts, a printmaking studio and gallery in Eastern
Oregon founded by James Lavadour, arguably Oregon’s most
celebrated living artist.
These synergies, which are easy for local artists to take for
granted, are immediately apparent to printmaking professionals
who visit from other parts of the country and the world. David
O’Donoghue, co-director of Stoney Road Press (Dublin, Ireland)
was one of 18 exhibitors with booths at the Portland Fine Print
Fair. “Of all the fairs we do,” he remarked afterwards, “nowhere
except in Portland have I seen a queue halfway down the block
to get in half-an-hour before it opens!” As to the attendees them-
selves, “They know what they’re looking at, and they’re not shy.
They’re asking questions, they’re engaged, they’re passionate
about printmaking techniques, they love paper and deckled
edges—and they all seem to know one another.”
Community, infrastructure, and an affinity between landscape,

materials, and process all contribute to a “perfect storm” of
opportunity for print aficionados in Oregon. Or, more dramatically,
as Chapin puts it: “This state is bearish on prints—it’s a fervor!”
—RICHARD SPEER
Opposite top to bottom:

Portland Fine Print Fair 2016
Photo: courtesy Portland Art Museum
Studio Shot, Midwest Pressed, featured at the SGCI

REBECCA CAMPBELL (This is Your Life)
Investing narrative painting with her own personal content
and a keen appreciation for artifice, the LA-based painter is
hitting her stride with three new bodies of work.
By Shana Nys Dambrot
Rebecca Campbell at just 44 is already established as one of the most intriguing and accom-
plished artists of her generation and a brightly burning star of the Los Angeles painting firmament.
What is particularly fascinating about her popularity (among curators, critics, collectors, and most
especially other painters) is that she arrived at it while practicing an almost counter-revolutionary
dedication to craftsmanship, technique, and facility in the historically conventional genre of repre-
sentational, narrative, and [gasp] deeply personal figurative painting, at a time when academic
thought heavily favored conceptual, abstract modes of art making. But if the region-wide
Rebecca Campbell exhibition juggernaut that has been her 2016 so far is any indication, it
may finally be time to pronounce that particular mountain conquered.
Circumstances conspired to produce a cluster of three major gallery and institutional exhibitions
in a partially overlapping consecutive rollout which, when considered together, formulate a kind
of ad hoc mid-career survey for Campbell. The triad is comprised of “You are Here,” a solo exhibi-
tion of portraits of female art-world colleagues at LA Louver from January 13 – February 13;
“Dreams of Another Time,” a two-person show with Samantha Fields of early and very new
paintings and process materials at Cal State Long Beach’s University Art Museum from January
30 – April 10; and “The Potato Eaters,” an ambitious painting and sculptural installation com-
pleted in 2013 but not shown in its entirety until its May 7 – July 24 run at Lancaster MOAH,
after which it travels to Brigham Young University Museum of Art in September.
While showing discrete bodies of work, and organized by three different curatorial teams, the
pronounced interactions that emerge between them—some of which even came as a revelation
to the artist herself—serve to highlight the evolution of both the conceptual and formal dynamics
underpinning the span of her entire practice. Taken together, the result is a thoroughgoing articu-
lation of who she is as an artist and as a woman, and of how her personal experience has come
to shape her public style over the course of, as she describes, a lifetime of figuring things out by
painting them. “Decorum, wit, and vagary posing as intellectual reserve,” states Campbell, “are
just not that interesting to me.”
Partly due to her willingness to experiment in public, and partly because complexity, contradic-
tion, paradox, and a gift for fusing chaos and control suit her tastes, Campbell’s stylistic gestalt is
hard to encapsulate. She is more than adept at a panoply of aesthetic modes from thick impasto
to silky-fine surface, precise realism and abstract expressionism, kaleidoscopic atmospherics,
and black-and-white reductivism. She is at her best when, as she frequently does, she deploys
several of these modes within a given singular composition, forcing dualities of mind and body,
emotion and intellect, allegory and formalism into uneasy, dynamic coexistence.
“Dig,” 2013
Oil on canvas, 80" x 80"
Photo: courtesy of the artist and LA Louver

In “Dreams of Another Time” at the UAM, curator Kristina Newhouse chose and what Samantha chose were so fundamentally different and
organized an utterly original two-person show with Campbell and her yet relatable as essential to our practices.” Campbell chose a social
contemporary, the equally accomplished and highly regarded Los An- situation and cultural institution that immediately conjure the human
geles painter Samantha Fields. One premise of the pairing is the idea (nude, female) figure, which is fundamental to her practice. While the
that while our imaginations and identities are formed early in life, they correlation between hurricanes and soft-core porn might not be obvi-
remain perennially available for revision and remediation. While ous in any other context, both artists commend Newhouse’s insight
Newhouse selected older pieces from each artist in support of the into the territory they do share—the allegorical coexistence of dark-
presentation of major new works, the core exercise of the show was ness and beauty, along with the formal concerns of advancing
in the construction of their almost mythological origin stories. Each abstraction within pictorial space.”
chose events culled from popular culture that happened in the year
they were born. Fields, whose landscape-based practice is known for As Newhouse writes in the catalogue, both artists employ “composi-
depicting natural disasters and urban inconveniences, chose the land- tional devices [which] serve to alert the viewer that any act of
fall of Hurricane Agnes in June 1972. Campbell chose the April 1971 painterly representation is always already an act of artifice and
issue of Playboy. consciously so.” For Fields, this has to do with faithfully representing
the distortions inherent in her photo-based image sourcing when
“I thought this was a truly fascinating starting point,” says Campbell, migrating to the canvas. For Campbell it’s the heavy trowelling and
“both in the collaboration but also in terms of speaking to our long- application of tape, whitewash, gold leaf, and glitter to perfectly fin-
term evolution as artists. I thought it was very telling that what I ished works, that both “obscures” and “re-fetishizes” the women

portrayed. In works like Miss April 1971, Glitter Girl, and Candy Another thing the two artists have in common is that Fields and
Darling (all 2015), Campbell creates a rainbow-pierced whiplash of Campbell both view photography as integral to process and germane
seduction and obstacle, desire and artifice, art history and empty calo- to subject. Fields takes her own road-trip pictures, while Rebecca fa-
ries, spectacle and interiority that speaks directly to her long-standing vors extant materials, but for both it’s still about personal experience
interest in notions of beauty, femininity, and sexuality and the people being tethered to the general zeitgeist. Fields’ relationship to photog-
and institutions that define those terms. “These are ideas I find raphy posits a version of realism that includes the reality that our
myself intensely drawn to and repelled by at the same time,” says perceptions and experiences are constantly, indelibly mediated.
Campbell. “Conversations going on now in feminism about intersec- “For me, photography often fails to capture the moment, and I’m in-
tionality, pragmatism, or even betrayal are very important to me. This terested in how the act of translating that photograph into a painting
confusing and exciting phenomena for me perfectly exemplifies the can imbue it with what’s missing. A camera lens can see more than
human condition of existing in multiplicity.” In this context, her deci- my eyes do. So what is reality?” Campbell describes her relationship
sion to include at least one drag icon in a presentation on constructing to photography as more mixed. “Like a paintbrush, it is a tool I use to
female identity makes perfect sense, as both a political and a make the object I’m interested in making. On the other hand, I have a
practical gesture. very formal relationship with photography. I’m interested in the way it
speaks to light and flatness and color blending. And finally there’s the
conceptual conundrum of photography. Is it performance? Is it
“Miss April 1971,” 2014 just outdated technology? Are photographs magical relics of bodies
Mixed media on paper, 111⁄2" x 23" moving in space that subversively rage against death? Well, yes,
Photo: Courtesy the artist and L.A. Louver, Venice yes, and yes.”
Iterations of photographs appear in different roles throughout bellion against authority, religiosity, and provincialism and the legacy
Campbell’s work, suitably reflective of this mixed relationship. In of that time in the formation of her character and life path. But be-
the operatic, captivating masterpiece Tangle, for example, a woman cause she is the artist that she is, every bit of that tumult finds
sleeps in her bed under a salon-style wall of small paintings and physical expression in the way paint sits on canvas. And in the way
framed photographs positioned in such a way as to read both as the light strikes the hefty sculptural installation made from hundreds of
woman’s memories and dreams. The large central canvas containing mason jars of canned yet slowly decaying fruit—part Light & Space,
this scene is flanked on either side by a number of small paintings part Damien Hirst, part country farm life. Though completed in 2013,
just like the ones on the wall inside the picture, except they have its juxtaposition of large-scale, multi-dextrous and florid works like
“On the other hand, I have a very formal relationship with photography. I’m interested in the way
it speaks to light and flatness and color blending. And finally there’s the conceptual conundrum of
photography. Is it performance? Is it just outdated technology? Are photographs magical relics
of bodies moving in space that subversively rage against death? Well, yes, yes, and yes.”
peeled off Pygmalion-like and become their own works existing in the Courbet-inspired Dig, with intimately scaled, often black-and-
the gallery space, as self-contained objects. Aside from the charming white snapshot-based works like Dad in Snow, Big Sister, and Little
conceit of this strategy for blurring boundaries between real and de- Brother prefigures the recombinant consciousness of the Tangle in-
picted space, it serves to remind the viewer that by the time you see stallation in ways both conceptual and formal.
the work it is always already modified by terms of art and operations
of consciousness. Meanwhile, “You are Here” at LA Louver presented a sort of snap-
shot of an ongoing project which is “definitely not done” to portray
Photographs used in the same way—as both source and content, the women populating her world—especially her art world. All the
object and document—are central to another of these shows: “The same size and all utilizing more or less the same constrained palette
Potato Eaters,” coming up at MOAH. Based on an archive of family of black, white and touches of dusty rose, rendered in an orchestra-
photographs, many dating back to her parents’ and grandparents’ tion of loose strokes and tender detail, the overall effect is both
youth, this series is one of the most literally autobiographical she has equalizing and individualized. Each one is a powerful single image,
undertaken. In considering her roots, Campbell seeks to examine and but presented in formation, it takes on the tenor and mantle of a
confront the tumult of rejection and acceptance contained in her re- movement. Although on the surface this undertaking might seem

like something of a departure from the intensely personal content of their exterior gaze.” Noting the fact that the older self-portraits are
the other projects, one quickly sees that it is both a feminist gesture actually alter-egos, both not herself and at the same time, “very
of social/personal/art historical rectification, addressing the untenable deeply me,” Campbell accepts that undertaking the artist portraits
marginalization of female artists in the art historical discourse, as well project now on some level says as much or more about her as it does
as an investigation of the current status of portraiture specifically about the sitters. “Narrative painting and personal content and, dare
within the contemporary painting conversation. In other words, I say autobiography, have been and always will be radical. It’s hard
vintage Campbell. “I foresee a much larger and more inclusive body and brave work and when it goes wrong it is a train wreck of epic
of work,” says the artist. “In the end my fantasy is to have a giant proportions, embarrassing the artist and audience. But when it goes
museum show with huge walls covered with images of amazing right it hits us exactly in the center of our humanity.” For Campbell,
women. They will be undeniable in their collective power.” it is definitely going right.
One of the most arresting moments in the Long Beach show was the
inclusion of a group of a dozen or so 1999 self-portraits, each one an
elaborately detailed alternate persona. They are the same size and
style as the new portraits, and were installed in direct reference to
Opposite:
the Louver configuration. Campbell characterizes the 1999 series
“Big Fish,” 2014
using now-familiar language, as an attempt to get to know herself
Oil on board, 33" x 40"
better, “to figure out who she was” politically, sexually, creatively, Photo: courtesy of the artist and LA Louver
and intellectually. The connections seem clear, yet Campbell was
not thinking at all of the connection between these two bodies of
work. She had already started the new series of artist portraits when Below Left to right:
Kristina came to her with a vague remembrance of them, sitting in Annie, Heather, Kristin, Patricia, Mpambo, Susan
a drawer at LA Louver for over a dozen years. Campbell immediately from the “You Are Here” series
came to “absolutely love the connection between these two series. 2015, acrylic on paper, all works 30" x 221⁄4"
The self-portraits with their interior gaze, and the artist portraits with As installed at LA Louver Gallery

Introducing the MONSTER ROSTER
Out of the existential dread of postwar America, a group of Chicago artists founded
a loose movement that preceded Imagism, and laid the roots for the city’s signature style.
By James Yood
Contemporary art in Chicago has a Date Of Birth, and it’s February 24, “Marriage Chicago Style,” and “Chicago Antigua.” Artists such as
1966—so this year it hits the big 5-0! 2/24/66: that’s the day the first Roger Brown, Sarah Canright, Ed Flood, Philip Hanson, Ed Paschke,
of a several year sequence of exhibitions of young Chicago artists Christina Ramberg, Barbara Rossi, and more, had significant local
was held at the Hyde Park Art Center that would, in the aggregate, debuts in those latter exhibitions, and by the early1970s the roster
come to define Chicago Imagism. That first show—titled “The Hairy that would dominate art from Chicago for the next several decades
Who” (sounds like a groovy band, don’t you just love that 1960s up- was off and running.
beat insouciance? It’s all over their work too!)—was comprised of the
work of Jim Falconer, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Suellen Above:
Rocca and Karl Wirsum. The Hairy Who showed together a few more Installation view of “Monster Roster” at Smart Museum, Chicago
times over the next couple of years, and were joined at the HPAC by
a series of other group shows of young Chicagoans who called them- “Angel,” 1953, Theodore Halkin
selves, in turn, “The Nonplussed Some,” “The False Image,” Oil over gouache on board. Collection of the Illinois State Museum
Photos: courtesy Smart Museum
But something never comes from nothing. There was art and there Imagine you are, for example, Leon Golub. You’re born in Chicago in
were artists in Chicago before the advent of the Imagist generation, 1922, so when you’re a small boy, the economic system of the planet
and in several instances—Ivan Albright, for example—they achieved comes crashing down in the worst Depression of the century, and the
national recognition, and artists such as John Storrs, Archibald Mot- next decade seems an endless stream of unemployment lines mor-
ley, Richard Hunt, Gertrude Abercrombie and others enjoyed phing into soup lines, lean and mean. You’re so bright that you earn
significant careers. And there was a generation of artists working in your BA in 1942 at the age of 20 at the University of Chicago and then
Chicago throughout the 1950s, just before the rise of the Imagists, enlist, spending most of the next four years in Europe with the US
that also included participants who would achieve local and/or national Army. Then the war ends, but instead of the giddy flush of victory, it
stature (Robert Barnes, Dominick Di Meo, Leon Golub, Theodore all seems soiled, the horrors of the Holocaust are exposed all around
Halkin, June Leaf, Irving Petlin, Seymour Rosofsky, Nancy Spero, you in Europe, and your government drops atomic bombs on Japan-
Evelyn Statsinger, H. C. Westermann, etc.) This latter group, collec- ese cities. You return home to Chicago for study at the SAIC under
tively known as the “Monster Roster,” is currently receiving its first the GI Bill to a hard and tough blue-collar city (read Nelson Algren’s
large museum examination (through June 12) at the Smart Museum 1951 essay “Chicago: City on the Make”) and begin a marriage in
of Art, at the University of Chicago. Titled “Monster Roster: Existen- pretty dire poverty, just as the Cold War starts and nuclear annihilation
tialist Art in Postwar Chicago,” the show is curated by independent becomes a realistic concept. So, if you’re Leon Golub, you’re
curators and gallery owners John Corbett and Jim Dempsey along probably not going to paint two pears and an apple. And Golub didn’t.
with Smart Museum curators Richard A. Born and Jessica Moss.
And it wasn’t just Golub. As curator John Corbett notes, that very real
It’s an intriguing exhibition, a bit unwieldy (it has four curators and six sense of existential dread casts a shadow over much of the Roster’s
essayists), and to those fairly familiar with this material there was lit- output from its early days. “The aspect of the Monster Roster that
tle that seemed a game-changer here. But seeing the work together, was somewhat unexpected to us was the force that WWII exerted
as it so rarely was during its creation or since, is a valuable experi- on virtually all of the artists’ work,” he observes. “So the deep psycho-
ence. As the exhibition’s title indicates, the curators buy into—as I logical element, which of course also relates to all sorts of other
think they should—similar arguments made about Abstract Expres- things like Freudian psychoanalysis, Greek and Roman mythology,
sionism in New York during the same period: that this was a charged and existential philosophy, is rooted in a palpable sense of anxiety
moment in art history when existence and art-making seemed a mat- and dread. That portentousness germinated in the direct experience
ter of life and death, when the question on many lips was, “Should of the war for many of the artists, and in the terrifying fear of nuclear
I die or should I paint?” As Harold Rosenberg (who later taught at annihilation that was a prevalent part of American daily life in the ’50s.”
the University of Chicago) put it, “painting became the means of
confronting in daily practice the problematic nature of modern individ- above:
uality.” Note Rosenberg’s decisive word choice, not the “potentially “The Ischian Sphinx,” 1956, Leon Golub
problematic nature…” not the “sometimes problematic nature…” Oil and lacquer on canvas. Collection of Ulrich and Harriet Meyer
but straight out and blatant, modern individuality was problematic. Art © Estate of Leon Golub/Licensed by VAGA, New York
Art-making was serious stuff, a sensibility that permeated and
obsessed all these artists, formed in the dramatic crucible of the Right:
1930s and 1940s. “Man with a Dog,” c. 1950, George M. Cohen
Oil on board. Courtesy George Cohen Estate
Photos: courtesy Smart Museum
“Untitled,” 1958, Fred Berger figure as mistaken, and its pursuit of primordial instincts and
Oil on canvas. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago primitivism as a sham.
Gift of Robert and Mary Donley
Photo: courtesy Smart Museum Golub—and his work dominates this exhibition in number and scale—
brought his commitment to the figure to the studio every day, and
In contrast to AbEx, the work was also differentiated and defined in work after work here you see human existence as an unending
by its embrace of the human figure. The exhibition, more clearly in struggle against long odds, the body as a battered instrument of vic-
the catalogue than on the Smart’s walls, clearly indicates the figu- timization, with the urge to survive one of its few ongoing dignities.
rative nature of the Monster Roster (the name wasn’t coined until The canvas becomes something to scrape and scumble and attack,
late in its run, in 1959, by artist and critic Franz Schulze, who and as the 1950s proceeded, color becomes something dolloped out
would also later coin the term ‘Imagism’). And the figure was part so parsimoniously as to be conspicuous by its near absence; early
of its identity; it’s always been part of Chicago’s art identity, from works such as The Courtesans (c. 1950), or the later, monumental
Reclining Youth of 1959 exhibit his developing probing nature, the
“The aspect of the Monster Roster that was somewhat unexpected to us was the force that WWII
exerted on virtually all of the artists’ work,” says Corbett. “So the deep psychological element,
which of course also relates to all sorts of other things like Freudian psychoanalysis, Greek and
Roman mythology, and existential philosophy, is rooted in a palpable sense of anxiety and dread. That
portentousness germinated in the direct experience of the war for many of the artists, and in the
terrifying fear of nuclear annihilation that was a prevalent part of American daily life in the ’50s.”
Albright to Golub and onward, the human figure under stress
(variously psychological, sexual, emotional, comedic, and yes, earlier work a search through the sensuous tactility of paint, the latter
existential) is the touchstone of Chicago painting and sculpture. more a physical assault on canvas. Golub continues the several-thou-
In a 1955 article for the College Art Journal (“A Critique of Abstract sand-year-old tradition of the centrality of the human form, even if
Expressionism”), Golub had what must have seemed the provin- now it often appears concussed and bereft. The show also offers
cial audacity and disloyalty to throw a gauntlet at New York School several versions of the charnel house horrors of Cosmo Campoli’s still
abstraction, challenging New York’s abjuration of the human mesmerizing sculpture Birth of Death, (all c. 1950), and Nancy Spero’s
paintings were great to see, and among the surprises of the
Andy Berg, Oneiros, (detail ), 2 015, mixed media on panel, 24´´x 19´´
exhibition was how good and terrifically creepy Fred Berger’s
paintings are.
But was the Monster Roster an art movement? Or was it rather

just a shared vocabulary, as so often happens in a particular place
at a particular time: you know, ideas are floating around and different
artists pick them up for a bit. The curators acknowledge that this is
an open question. Unlike the Imagists, who did eventually regularly
exhibit together, almost universally shared a dealer (Phyllis Kind) and
had the support and attentions of a great critic and curator (Dennis
Adrian locally, and on the national scene, Walter Hopps), the Mon-
ster Roster had none of that. Even the movement wasn’t named
until it was practically over, and there are artists displayed here to-
gether who barely knew one another. But the curators convincingly
draw these artists together visually and philosophically, so if it
wasn’t a movement before, it now probably is.
One thing that did unite them perhaps, if only loosely, was a shared
attitude of fearlessness. “Working on the exhibition, we were struck
by how exploratory and even experimental the artists were,” says
Corbett. “Sometimes experimentation is cast as something exclu-
sive to abstraction, but in the context of a figurative practice, you
only need to consider Golub’s scraped and gnawed surfaces, the
unconventional plastic wood and pliable polymers used by Di Meo
and Halkin, and the washy near-monochrome black paintings of
Spero, to sense how fearless they were, from a formal, material,
and technical perspective.”
t hat was then
The Monster Roster ended by the artists moving on, some of them
physically—Golub and Spero moved to Paris in 1959, and then to THIS IS NOW
New York in 1964; Westermann headed for Connecticut in 1961,
Irving Petlin left before that, June Leaf too—and some of them
stylistically, setting in motion what Franz Schulze once called “the
Andy Berg
sorriest time in Chicago Art that I can remember, the early and mid
1960s,” identifying the period just before the Imagists began to Mark Villarreal
emerge. Schulze continues: “The energy of the 1950s had begun
April 2 3 - June 4, 2 016
to wane… and things began to die a little in the early 1960s.
People questioned whether there was such a thing as a ‘Chicago
Mark Villarreal, Venetian Painting No. 3, (detail ), 2015, oil on panel, 76.75´´ x 36´´
School’ at all.” Some of the artists in this exhibition too have passed
away, Evelyn Statsinger as recently as February 13 this year (there
are 16 artists on view, a few just by a single work; 7 are living).
But that would end with the events of 50 years ago. At the end
of this Monster Roster exhibition, the Smart Museum installed
a room of Chicago Imagism from its permanent collection, with
works by Roger Brown, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Ed Paschke,
Christina Ramberg and Suellen Rocca. All these also exhibit the
human figure under stress, but it’s a kind of Pop and electric
stress, funny, upbeat, rich in vernacular culture references, with
not a whiff of the charnel house or existential despair, tongue in
cheek instead of knife in heart. Walking from the Monster Roster
into the Imagists you get that brightening feeling you experience
when you walk through an encyclopedic museum and transition
from, say, the 1970s into the 1980s, that you’re moving from the
modern to the contemporary. But before they dispersed for good,
the figures of the Monster Roster had, in channeling an anxious
zeitgeist, laid the seeds for what was to come. Looking back to
see these diverse young artists grappling so urgently with the
anxieties of the age, reminds us of how dark it was before that
light appeared.
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: dialogue
CERAMICS IN THE 21st CENTURY

What does it mean to be a ceramic artist in the 21st century? It’s a good question, and one big enough that we didn’t feel
we could answer it ourselves. So for this special, ceramic-themed Dialogue, art ltd. approached five figures deeply com-
mitted to the field of ceramic art: three leading artist/educators who run ceramic programs in Los Angeles, San Francisco
and Chicago, a curator from Tempe, AZ, and a museum founder in Pomona, CA. We asked: what do you think of the state
of contemporary ceramics? How is the field changing, and how is your own program and practice reflecting that reality?
What does it mean to work in ceramics in the 21st century?
Nathan Lynch (Chair, Ceramics, California Tony Marsh (Program Head, Ceramic Arts,
College of the Arts, San Francisco) California State University, Long Beach)
It’s an energetic, magical and chaotic time for ceramics. Everything is Much of the ceramic art created in the 21st century being celebrated
open. There’s no distinction for an artist between art and craft, unless widely is made by artists who were not trained in the field. Artists
they find that language useful in defining their territory. There’s no using clay today no longer need to reference the history of ceramics
problem making sculpture and making pots or making pots as sculp- or to run all of their ideas through one material, the way we did much
ture or writing a story about the shards. Everybody and their mother more routinely in the 20th century. Artists whose work is based in
want to pinch their own coffee cup now. It’s a two-part phenome- socially relevant themes can see that ceramics is a loaded device
non—one part is the back-to-the-hand movement (see knitting nation with a deep cultural history to draw on. Clay is simply a unique mate-
and handcrafted whiskey). The second part is that the art world loves rial that records beautifully and possess its own, very unique
clay. I like that Sterling Ruby, Shio Kusaka and John Mason were all in aesthetic language, making it a very attractive material.
the Whitney together. Why? It complicates the visual field for this ma-
terial. I am proud Ron Nagle took his tiny wonders and dominated the De-skilling is a strategy employed by some working with clay to
big space at Matthew Marks. I want ceramics to be as wide open, remove the look of care, to shift the discussion and the price tag that
strange and far reaching as possible. is frequently associated with Craft. To be a crafter is to pursue the
betterment of culture, to look back lovingly and to reassure. To make
At California College of the Arts (CCA) we take the West Coast tradition art is to critique, subvert, question, to create doubt and move for-
of rule breaking seriously, crafting a distinctive ceramics program that is ward. These two forces at play in our expanding field are often being
often more experimental, interdisciplinary and performative than oth- engaged side by side, with similar materials, processes and equip-
ers. As the most intellectually promiscuous program at the college, we ment in the same studio, where they frequently crossover.
will partner or collaborate with everyone—the painters, sculptors, so-
cial-practicers, architects, designers, geologists and writers. We The field of ceramic art is not widely practiced as a highly intellectual
welcome them all into the studio to pinch and tell stories and reframe artistic pursuit. Many people are drawn to working with clay because
the field. I am currently most excited by work from Matt Wedel, Julia it offers a physical, sensual experience. It is both a natural and
Haft-Candell, Michael Rey, Ehren Tool and Del Harrow, but there is mysterious transformational art-making material.
plenty of other work that is equally strange and wonderful. For East
Coast love, dig into the exhibition program at Greenwich House Pottery The Ceramic Arts Program at CSULB is a beehive. Faculty, students
including shows by Paul Sacaridiz, Mathew McConnell and Linda and professional artists all come together to create within the foot-
Lopez. I have deep gratitude for my mentors Ken Price and Ron Nagle, print of our facility. We help each other. Altogether, it models assorted
but also to my contemporaries Theaster Gates and Michael Swaine artistic behaviors for our students in real time—all teach, all learn.
who stretch us, stretch ceramics in a whole new direction. I know we
are doing well when someone says, “That is not ceramics.”

Katherine Ross (Professor/Chair, Ceramics, Peter Held (Former Curator of Ceramics,
School of the Art Institute of Chicago) Arizona State University Art Museum)
The boundaries of ceramics in the 21st century are permeable and As artists strive to make sense of an increasingly complex world, con-
fluid, equal to, influencing, and influenced by all other forms of art. temporary ceramists have increasingly engaged with the wider world.
Many young ceramic artists are letting go of the traditions (rules) of Globalization, coupled with economic and political upheavals, cannot
Craft and taste: perhaps out of boredom, but often irreverently and help but influence today’s cultural landscape. These factors force the
boldly embracing humor, materiality, or color, and taking cues from artist to redefine the role of the studio ceramic artist in the 21st cen-
everything around them. These new artists no longer hesitate at tury. Younger generations of clay artists are tech savvy; they control
challenging the boundaries of content, discipline or media. their markets by promoting their art through websites, social media,
and crowdsourcing. They erect their own structures of communica-
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has never required study tion and distribution, with horizontal rather than vertical hierarchies.
majors. Ceramics students have always and often combined disci- Many seek connectedness through working with collectives, DIY
plines. Recently, many painters, sculptors, performance artists, and communities, and alternative sales outlets.
film/video/new media artists have heavily involved ceramics in their
practice. New interests in ceramics examine the failures of poorly During the last decade, the world of ceramics has expanded at warp
functioning vessels as content. Social practice and site-specific work speed. Increasingly it escapes the rigid boundaries of Craft. The field
address the histories of place and allow others to find a voice through is being redefined and engaged with the wider worlds of visual arts
the use of clay. Ceramic artists are using color conceptually as and design. The medium of clay has witnessed dramatic swings in
developed in the painting traditions. studio practice, the marketplace, academia, collecting, and presenting
since the advent of the postwar craft movement. We have valued
Artists commonly question taste, the art market, skill, and even how our histories and embraced our successes. But with each successive
we see and accept objects in our world. For example, Sterling Ruby generation of artists, new ideas and technologies rewrite our future.
has introduced a level of rudeness in ceramics that challenges craft Amidst innumerable challenges and opportunities, artists awaken
tradition. Ben DeMott’s work questions both taste and permanence, paths towards new discoveries, foreshadowing increased individual
while Nicole Seisler and Charlie Schneider embrace the social and cul- and collective stability.
tural implications of memory and place. My own work incorporates
a comparison of the psychological and behavioral function of objects Artists’ sensitivity towards clay, infused with intellectual substance,
within our social construct to the survival behaviors of animals, such allows them to become effective communicators who shed light on
as a mule, when confronting ceramic objects. The traditional ceramic our past, present and future. The trajectory of their forward path is
process, its form and function, appears to be less important to many inextricably woven into their lives outside the studio. Although in a
current ceramic artists than the materiality of the earth-borne mate- state of flux, often thrown off-center, the ceramics field resides in
rial, and its poetic, subconscious, or overt psychological relevance. a fertile moment. What is it about this material that bonds us all
today, with all its historical and cultural connotations and closeness
to our everyday lives? It is bewitching, revealing itself in many guises.
The medium, with its manifest historical and cultural connotations is
David Armstrong (Founder, American transformative. Unencumbered by language, reaching across civiliza-
Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA) tions, clay reveals to me the possibility of a more linked humanity.
Recognition of ceramics in the field of fine art in the United States

has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. A major influence to
this change took place in the latter half of the 20th century, when the
medium of ceramics was chosen by a few artists as a vehicle for fine
art expression. Peter Voulkos and Robert Arneson were two of the
American artists that pioneered the field, and carried ceramics beyond
Craft, into the realm of fine art. Today, artists who express them-
selves using ceramics as their chosen art medium can work in a field
that is more broadly entwined with other fine art fields than ever Previous page, clockwise top left:
before. At the same time, more and more museums throughout the
Installation view, “MUCK: Accumulations, Accretions and Aggrega-
United States are now recognizing that ceramics can be used as a
tions,” ASU Art Museum, curated by Peter Held. The 2014 exhibition
legitimate art medium. Most of these museums have very nice collec-
featured ceramic sculpture by Susan Beiner, Nathan Craven, Michael
tions of ceramics, but unfortunately many of these collections are Fujita, David Hicks, Annabeth Rosen, Meghan Smythe and Matt Wedel
stored away and, in the past, were very seldom put on view. Now Photo: Craig Smith
that lack of recognition is changing and many of our country’s muse-
ums are bringing out their collections of ceramics for the public to “Some Guests are Better Than Others,” 2014, Nathan Lynch
enjoy, embracing them both for their own traditions and as part of Ceramic, glaze, charcoal, 20" x 18" x 14"
a broader cultural discourse. Photo: John Janca courtesy Rena Bransten Projects
The American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, California, is dedi- “The Subjective Meadow,” 2014, Katherine Ross
cated to the exhibition, preservation and creation of ceramic art. Since Video still
its opening 11 years ago, the museum has used its programming to
“Radiance & Abundance series,” 2012, Tony Marsh
examine the range of practices that make up this ever-evolving fine
Earthenware, 23" across
art medium. In exhibitions of artists such as Paul Soldner, Don Reitz,
Robert Sperry and Patti Warashina, AMOCA has highlighted the artis- “Untitled Platters,” 1980, Robert Sperry
tic talents of some of the many artists who are pushing the field Ceramic
forward, contributing to the medium’s diversity. Truly, ceramics has Collection of David Armstrong and Randall Welty
become a significant fine art medium for artists of the 21st century, as seen in the current show at AMOCA, “Lineage: Mentorship & Learning”
pushing it to new inspiring and unexpected directions. Photo: courtesy AMOCA

Christina Winograd
Good Morning, 2015
Photo: courtesy the artist
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CRITIC’S PICKS: DALLAS
By John Zotos
Jeff Zilm is an abstract painter and a veritable film
addict; his show at the relatively new ANDNOW
Gallery will showcase this obsession with celluloid.
Zilm uses 8, 16, and 35mm film stock as a starting
point, subsequently breaking the material down with
detergent in order to liquefy the emulsion and mix it
with acrylic paint. This new medium is then used to
paint large-scale abstract monochromes that have
a moody and sublime character. He both sprays and
brushes the emulsion onto canvas, forming an alter-
nating surface texture that reveals hints of depth and
layering. He reserves the material culled from a single
reel to make one unique painting, this conceptually
transforms the entire film into a new creation. In
a way the painting is the movie, but in a new form.
Something almost alchemical is at work here in the
transformation from a perishable and fragile medium
like film, which fades with time, into a painting that
will survive for centuries assuming the proper condi-
tions are maintained. Zilm undoubtedly wants the
viewer to ponder the impending loss of countless
films languishing in studio vaults that will never go
through restoration and digital preservation; as such,
his art signifies an intervention in film history.
Jeff Zilm’s new work will be on view at ANDNOW gallery,

April 16 – May 21, 2016.
“The Kleptomaniac,” 2014

Jeff Zilm
Acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion on canvas
72" x 54"
Photo: courtesy ANDNOW
Words like ponderous and visually immersive aptly

describe Natasha Bowdoin’s site-specific sculpture,
which will be featured in an upcoming show at Talley
Dunn Gallery. Her colorful wall sculptures composed
of cut paper and latex have the power to pull the
viewer down the rabbit hole, much like Alice, in Lewis
Carroll’s story. His texts, among other writers’, have
actually inspired previous pieces, as Bowdoin draws
inspiration from literary works and seeks to explore
their intersection with the visual realm. Her massive
installations, verging on the abstract, will share the
gallery with the intimate bronze sculptures of Linda
Ridgway, whose art deals in memory and depictions
of nature, and also finds inspiration in literature. Her
unique cast bronze pieces are delicate, intricate
formations derived from leaves, branches and reeds.
“Bloom,” 2015
Natasha Bowdoin
Site-specific sculptural installation
Savannah College of Art and Design
Photo: courtesy of the artist and Talley Dunn Gallery
Wall-mounted, these works often evoke emotional states,
sometimes directly quoting the poetry of Robert Frost, for
example. Where Ridgway’s influence can be found in mod-
ernist sculpture, specifically Giacometti, Bowdoin’s practice
and techniques flow from the historical avant-garde’s desire
to deconstruct language and uncover new contexts. As her
work has expanded in scope in recent years, the literary text
shows up less and less directly, suggesting the clear pre-
dominance of the visual; this is a show not to be missed.
“Natasha Bowdoin: Spelboken” and “Linda Ridgway:

The Sound of Trees,” can be seen at Talley Dunn Gallery,
April 1 – May 14, 2016.
For an experience of brilliant color in three dimensions, look no further than Lil-
iana Bloch Gallery, in the design district, where the sculpture of Lynne Harlow
will be on view this April. Harlow arrives at her minimal and spare visual vocab-
ulary through a process of reduction that suggests a kind of “less is more”
sensibility. She considers her sculptures as both objects in themselves and
as architectural interventions, in this case using the exterior wall of the gallery
as the platform to install a site-specific design. At once colorful and spare, her
pieces are intended to attract the eye in the formation of a visual dialogue that
includes the interaction of light with the pieces and the spaces they occupy.
Through the use of fluorescent plexiglass, vinyl, acrylic paint, and anodized
aluminum, Harlow designs stunning installations that channel some elements
of Minimalism and the interactive aspect of Op and Kinetic art. Visitors will
"Little Bear", 2015, Linda Ridgway
experience a visual sensation that proceeds beyond the merely static one-point
Bronze in two parts, unique, 18" x 21" x 91⁄2"
Photo: courtesy of the artist and Talley Dunn Gallery
perspective in viewing art that demands to be seen through multiple lines of
site. Perhaps this may include not only walking around a particular piece, but
also inside or through it. Here, visitors to the gallery participate in a way that
completes Harlow’s project.
Lynne Harlow, “Hey Sunshine,” will be on view at Liliana Bloch Gallery,

April 2 – May 7, 2016.
A challenging exhibition that sets off the interplay between art and ideas
resides in the work of Sybren Renema at Cydonia Gallery, also in the design
district. This young gallery has logged a steady track record of mounting cut-
ting edge shows by talented artists on an international scale. Renema, born
in the Netherlands, now lives and works in Glasgow; he definitely fits the
definition of a multi-disciplinary artist whose painting, drawing, video, and
installation pieces tackle historical constructs like institutions, museums,
science, and travel, through an obsession with the romantic century. Themes
drawn from 19th-century Romanticism, like dream states, ruins, decay,
hallucinogens, passion, and the bittersweet passing of time are Renema’s
playground. For this exhibition he ruminates on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem
Kubla Khan (completed in 1797, published 1816) and the associated use of opium
that played a part in its creation. Through casting 800-1000 life-size ceramic
poppies he puts his obsession with the literature into action through large-scale
installation, sculpture, and multiples. As a whole the exhibition has an open-ended
aspect suggestive of incompletion—a reference to Coleridge’s failure to finish the
poem. Dualities are firmly at play in that the beauty of the ceramic poppies repre-
sents their promise of seductive dreams tinged with addiction and mortality.
“Sybren Renema: The Harvest of Leisure,”

runs April 9 – June 4, 2016 at Cydonia Gallery.
Above:
“Looking at the Sun,” 2016, Lynne Harlow
Acrylic paint on Plexiglas,111⁄2" x 18" x 1⁄2"
Photo: courtesy Liliana Bloch Gallery
Left:
“Mountain 119,” 2014, Sybren Renema
Collage, 161⁄2" x 23"
Photo: courtesy of the Artist and CYDONIA
Mechanical objects, movement, and how
they play off of the natural world captivate
Juan Fontanive. Profoundly interested in
the place where these ideas interact as art,
the Brooklyn-based artist creates kinetic
installations of ceiling-mounted mobiles, pro-
pelled into motion with visible cables, pulleys
and engines. Even better, he also puts the
machines to work by applying the motion
to images that change on a rotating basis:
these “flipbooks,” as he calls them, will be
on view in his solo show at Conduit Gallery.
In the Ornithology flipbook series, his subject
is the flying motion of colorful birds as their
wings flutter. Fontanive designs and con-
structs these diorama-like contraptions by
using old-fashioned analog technology. The
works are housed in a stainless steel casing
fitted with a motor and electronics that rotate
four-color screen prints, simulating motion,
not unlike animated cartoons. More directly,
they reference film projection in both their
sound and the way the images flow verti-
cally. In this case, though, the point is to
make sure the viewer sees and enjoys the
obviousness of the operation. If it were too
polished and seamless the effect would be
ruined. These works are fascinating expres-
sions of kinetic art that animates the
mechanically produced screen prints of a
creature of nature—quite an interaction.
“Juan Fontanive: Colorthings”

will be on display at Conduit Gallery
from April 2 – May 7, 2016.
“Ornithology I,” 2016, Juan Fontanive

4-color screen print on Bristol paper,
stainless steel, motor and electronics
41⁄4" x 5" x 33⁄4"
Photo: courtesy Conduit Gallery
For a heady dose of process and pattern, new work by Linnea Glatt at Barry Whistler Gallery delivers the goods. Her line-driven works on
paper in various sizes channel Minimalism and may resemble the work of Agnes Martin. Martin often drew with graphite; by contrast, Glatt
achieves her composition with the use of colored thread woven into the paper. These pieces are beautifully executed, full of texture, and
resonate with moods that range from the tranquil to the cosmic, nearly catapulting the viewer into the infinite. When installed in groups, the
delicate serial imagery is repetitive and soothing. Usually they are executed in neutral monochromatic colors; every so often she surprises
with blue or red, never really mixing different colors together. Her threads form different shapes and patterns that evoke quiet contemplation.
From a distance, what looks like a point reveals itself as a line on the surface. In some pieces, Glatt intensifies the concentration of line and
thread to create volume. This allows her to investigate how her thread measures up to, and contends with, the flat surface of the paper.
Through her art, Glatt proposes an alternative to current trends that depend on digital, flashy and tedious techniques. Slow down and take
the time to breathe it in.
At Barry Whistler Gallery, from April 9 – May 28, 2016.
“Increase/Decrease,” 2016, Linnea Glatt

Thread, 11 units each measuring 71⁄2"
Photo: Kevin Todora
Courtesy the artist and Barry Whistler Gallery

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March /April 2016 - art ltd 63

: spotlight
KANSAS CITY
NCECA celebrates its 50th anniversary
by bringing a veritable festival of ceramics to KC.
Whether it’s high art sculpture, cups and plates, or hipster bongs, south and over a sunken highway interchange. On top of the conven-
Kansas City is about to become the national destination for ceramic tion center are four giant metal and concrete pylons, each adorned
art of any variety. The National Council on Education for the Ceramic with modernist aluminum sculptures by R.M. Fischer, titled “Sky
Arts (NCECA) is hosting its 50th Anniversary Conference in KC this Stations.” In the 20 years since the sculptures were installed, KC
March, and with it dozens of events and thousands of artists, educa- has recast itself as an art city. Looking at these enormous and
tors, collectors and enthusiasts. In addition to four days of conference unnecessary spires jutting out of Bartle Hall, you immediately get
events at Bartle Hall Convention Center, from March 16-19, there are the message: Kansas City is a modern metropolis and it has the art
about 40 galleries, museums, colleges, non-profits and other groups to prove it.
hosting over 60 different exhibitions of ceramic art and there are an-
other 11 exhibitions in the nearby city of Lawrence, Kansas. But that’s NCECA would seem to agree. When asked about why they picked
just the NCECA approved programming. Plenty of other galleries, Kansas City, conference organizers explained, “NCECA chose Kansas
studios and groups will be jumping on board with their own City because of its important place in the American studio ceramics
unsanctioned events. movement especially since the end of WWII,” and that “The region
remains rich with some of the best public and private collections of
Liz Lerman will give the conference’s keynote address. An unusual ceramic art and high caliber educational programs that continue to
choice, Lerman is not a ceramicist, but instead a dancer, choreogra- draw talent and encourage it to establish a base of creative production.”
pher, educator and writer. Lerman’s address will explain her
educational theory called “Critical Response Process,” followed by
a participatory event where attendees will try out her ideas. Building Above:
on the keynote address, there will be dozens of other lectures with “NASA Chawan,” 2012, Tom Sachs
titles like “Digital Applications in Ceramic Pedagogy,” “Mini-Heat: Porcelain with engobe inlay, 21⁄2" x 31⁄2" x 31⁄2"
Photo: courtesy of Baldwin Gallery
a small-scale, fast fire wood kiln,” and “Who Am I?”
“White Cut Charger,” 2015
The conference itself will take place at Bartle Hall in downtown Jeremy Briddell
Kansas City, Missouri. A KC landmark, Bartle Hall is an unusual mod- Ceramic, 27" diameter
ernist building, roughly eight football fields in length, it spans north to Photo: Courtesy Haw Contemporary
Most of those collections, studios, schools and galleries are just south
of the Bartle Hall in the Crossroads Arts District, and almost all of them
are getting involved in the NCECA conference. At the Belger Arts Cen-
ter and Belger Crane Yard Studios, there will be numerous exhibitions
of artwork by resident artists and alumni. The Crane Yard will have an
exhibition by renowned local painter, sculptor and entrepreneur Pere-
grine Honig, along with Beth Cavener, Jenny Kindler and Lindsay
Pichaske. Called “Objectify,” the exhibition features sculptures that
use animals as social, political and environmental metaphors.
Some of KC’s biggest and oldest galleries will be hosting official

NCECA events. The Charlotte Street Foundation’s La Esquina will
have “Across the Table, Across the Land,” featuring artists engaging
in socially oriented art projects on the topics of food, community
and activism. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Kansas City Artists
Coalition will host “Aesthetic Influence: The Art of Chinese Scholar
Rocks” with a ceramic interpretation of the ornamental rocks’
thousand-plus-year legacy.
The Leedy-Voulkos Art Center will host three official NCECA exhibi-
tions: the “NCECA 2016 Emerging Artist Exhibition,” the “National
Student Juried Exhibition,” and the “Shapers of the Field: NCECA
Honors and Fellows” which will include artwork by the venerable
85-year-old ceramic artist Jim Leedy himself. “He’s the last of a gener-
ation of abstract sculptors who really pushed the boundaries of clay,”
says his daughter and gallery director, Stephanie Leedy. “He and his
generation really laid the groundwork for ceramics studio art in America.”
As a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) for over 40

years, and a one-time honorary NCECA member, it makes sense to
host exhibitions of both veteran and student artwork at the space
Leedy founded. Though, having the largest floor plan of any KC gallery
also helps. Founded 31 years ago in the old Folgers Coffee factory,
the gallery was named after Leedy’s friend and fellow ceramics pio-
neer Peter Voulkos. The space contains both galleries and private
live/work spaces on the top floor, studios coveted by emerging
and veteran KC artists.
“They call him the godfather of the Crossroads,” says the artist’s
granddaughter and Leedy-Voulkos gallery manager Erin Woodworth.
“Before my grandfather created this gallery, so many of his students
would graduate and leave for New York or LA. Before the city offi-
cially renamed this neighborhood the Crossroads, everyone just
called it Leedyville.”
Further south of the Crossroads and Leedyville is Midtown, home to

KC’s oldest art institutions. The Kansas City Art Institute will be holding
exhibitions of student and alumni artwork across many of its campuses
galleries. The school’s associated gallery, the H&R Block Artspace, will
be exhibiting Simone Leigh’s ceramic and video installations in “I ran to
the rock to hide my face the rock cried out no hiding place,” addressing
topics in African art, ethnography, folk art, and the female body.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, an enormous public collection

of ancient, classical, modern and contemporary art, is exhibiting the
“NCECA 2016 Invitational: Unconventional Clay: Engaged in Change.”
Top Left to bottom:
“Kept (Variation in Smoke),” 2015, Beth Cavener

Resin infused refractory material, paint, rope, wooden base
24" x 12" x 28"
Photo: courtesy of the artist
“Collective Identity—The Legacy of Apprenticeship

Under Toshiko Takaezu” at Haw Contemporary, Geoff Booras
“Gone A,” 2013, Arlene Shechet

Glazed ceramic, glazed kiln shelf, steel base
591⁄4" x 201⁄4" x 201⁄2"
Photo: Alan Wiener
Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York,
© Arlene Shechet

Curated collaboratively by NCECA members and museum curators,
the show will feature a variety of experimental multimedia artists who
use clay, alongside video, installation, 3D modeling and social activism.
Nearby, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art will be hosting “A
Whisper of Where It Came From,” a six-person exhibition featuring
luminaries Sterling Ruby and Arlene Shechet, exploring contemporary
multi-media practices that push the medium far beyond traditional as-
sociations. Further south, the eccentric National Museum of Toys and
Miniatures, will be exhibiting works from the largest collection of fine-
scale, aka very tiny, miniatures, including ceramics and ceramic toys.
In addition to the city’s institutions and nonprofits, a range of the city’s

galleries will also hold NCECA-related programming. Garcia Squared,
established by Israel Garcia in 2011 to introduce the work of national
and international Latino artists to the Kansas City scene, will present
“From the Wheel to the Wall,” organized by Robert Lugo, exploring
the unlikely intersection of graffiti and ceramics. Down in the West
Bottoms, an old industrial railyard district, collaborative venue Plug
Projects will be showing Atlanta-based Christina West’s jarring poly-
chromatic figurative works juxtaposed with works by Joey Watson,
a graduate of KCAI who incorporates newer technologies into his
fabrication strategies. About a block east, Haw Contemporary pro-
motes two shows highlighting the legacy of iconic figures Toshiko
Takaezu and Ken Ferguson through the work of their associates and
mentees. The work and legacy of Ferguson in particular, a founding
member of NCECA who served as chairman of the ceramics depart-
ment at KCAI for over 30 years, will be a unifying theme throughout
the NCECA exhibitions, with works on view at Leedy-Voulkos, Belger,
KCAI, Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, Bracker’s Good Earth Clays, and The
Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, in Sedalia, MO.
In addition to these larger, scheduled shows, many of Kansas City’s

younger artists will be hosting their own unsanctioned events, show-
casing underground counterculture artists and the city’s DIY
movement. One such event, “Objet Weed-Craft Pop Up” will feature
the work of the Objet collective, including event organizer Dean
Roper’s ceramic bongs and pipes in the shape of Cheetos, Pokémon,
and other pop symbols. “The NCECA conference itself is not impor-
tant to me at all,” laughs Roper. “I am really interested in stirring
up some ideas about what ceramics can be, and to inform people
of some really amazing artists using clay that operate outside of the
ceramics community.”
In short, NCECA will be a big mess of contradictions. The conference

lectures will attract teachers and theorists debating the future of art
education, the galleries and bus tours will gather hundreds of wealthy
and casual collectors, events like “Across the Table, Across the Land”
will bring in more socially minded activists and organizers and every-
where there will be ceramicists, young and old, traditional and
experimental, who want to share their work with the public.
“This will likely be the biggest art event that has ever happened in
Kansas City,” says Stephanie Leedy. “Ceramics has always had a
foothold in Kansas City, primarily because of the Art Institute and all
the prominent artists, teachers and students that have passed through
it. We have such venues, so many art spaces, so close together.
There isn’t a better place to hold a national meeting of ceramicists.”
—NEIL THRUN
Top to bottom:
“Untitled (Conversation Piece: Lips & Legs),” 2015
Dustin Yager
Ceramic
Photo: Peter Lee, courtesy of the artist
“Ritual Implements for Two,” 2014, Joey Watson

Colored porcelain, 3D printed ABS plastic, cast glass,
melamine, seat foam, electro-luminescent wire and prismatic plastic
30"x 30"x 20"
Photo: EG Schempf, courtesy Plug Projects
“Noir Buisson,” 2015, Rain Harris

Black clay, wood, resin, metal, 101⁄2" x 101⁄2" x 131⁄2"
Photo: Ross Redmon, courtesy Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art
NCECA - selected exhibitions
“Contemporary Confluence” at Fine Folk “Foundations: work by founding members of “Middle Ground” at The Warehouse
NCECA” at Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, Topeka, KS
nceca: north shuttle route MAR 15 - 19 MAR 4 - APR 30

WHAT: A series of exhibitions exploring the impact WHAT: “From the Wheel to the Wall” a group
MAR 16 - APR 23 of mentors, makers and generational collaborations. exhibition exploring the intersection between
WHAT: “Across the Table, Across the Land” WHERE: Bredin-Lee Gallery ceramics and graffiti.
explores clay’s association with food and community. INFO: www.nceca.net WHERE: Garcia Squared
Curated by Michael Strand and Namita Wiggers. INFO: www.garciasquared.com
WHERE: Charlotte Street Foundation, La Esquina MAR 16 - MAY 21
INFO: www.charlottestreet.org WHAT: “Measured Space” a three-person show MAR 16 - 19
with works by Brian Caponi, Shawn Murray, and WHAT: “InCiteful Clay” curated by Judith Scwartz
MAR 11 - APR 16 Thomas Schmidt that explore the materiality a group exhibition of artists who use ceramic as
WHAT: “Legacy of an Icon - Ken Ferguson” one and construction techniques of clay. a medium to critique contemporary issues.
of two NCECA-related exhibitions, this group show WHERE: Kansas City Public Library WHERE: Mid-America Arts Alliance, Culture Lab
consists of eight artists influenced by their rela- INFO: www.kclibrary.org INFO: www.maaa.org
tionship with the celebrated Kansas City-based
ceramic artist. Also on view, March 15 - 19,
“Collective Identity: The Legacy of Aprrenticeship nceca: central shuttle route MAR 4 - APR 30
WHAT: “Image as Metaphor” with large-scale
Under Toshiko Takaezu.” works by Ole Lislerud alongside Jim Leedy,
WHERE: Haw Contemporary MAR 4 - APR 30 / MAR 4 - 26 / MAR 4 - 26 Mac McClanahan, and Steve Pistone.
INFO: www.hawcontemporary.com WHAT: NCECA’s 2016 Exhibitions: “2016 National WHERE: Todd Weiner Gallery
Student Juried Exhibition,” “Shapers of the Field: INFO: www.toddweinergallery.com
MAR 15 - MAY 21 NCECA Honors and Fellows,” and “NCECA 2016
WHAT: Christina West blurs notions of public Emerging Artists Exhibition.” MAR 15 - 19
and private through large-scale figurative WHERE: Leedy-Voulkos Art Center WHAT: “Materiality, Methodology, Metamorphosis”
works in the exhibition titled, “Stay Asleep.” INFO: www.leedy-voulkos.com a group show exploring the influence of form and
Also on view:“Joey Watson: Lifted” materiality on content, with Julia Haft-Candell
WHERE: Plug Projects MAR 12 - 20 (featured in the profiles section). Also showing,
INFO: www.plugprojects.com WHAT: “Contemporary Confluence” artists partici- “Ghosts + Stooges” and “Standing Wave.”
pating in a dialogue and exchange in ceramics WHERE: The Studios Inc
MAR 16 - MAY 15 between Foshan, China and Kansas City, USA. INFO: www.thestudiosinc.org
WHAT: “50 Women: A Celebration of Women’s WHERE: Fine Folk
Contributions to Ceramics” curated by Alex Kraft INFO: www.finefolk.com
and Anthony Merino.
WHERE: American Jazz Museum
INFO: www.americanjazzmuseum.org
DATES RANGE THRU MAY 21

WHAT: A series of exhibitions showcasing the
broad range of techniques and conceptual strate-
gies employed by contemporary ceramic artists
to engage a range of socio-political and eviron-
mental themes. Also on view, a trio of exhibitions
highlight the legacies of ceramic programs
including Red Star Studios and the Archie Bray
Foundation.
WHERE: Belger Crane Yard Studios
INFO: www.craneyardstudios.org “Across the Table, Across the Land”
nceca: south shuttle route
MAR 15 - 19
WHAT: “Middle Ground” examinations of place and
landscape as an exploration of personal identity.
WHERE: The Warehouse, Kansas City Art Institute
INFO: www.kcai.edu
MAR 11 - AUG 14
WHAT: “A Whisper of Where It Came From”
six leading contemporary artists pushing
beyond the traditional notions of ceramic art,
including Huma Bhabha, Nicole Cherubini,
Mark Cooper, Jiha Moon, Sterling Ruby
and Arlene Shechet.
WHERE: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
INFO: www.kemperart.org
THRU MAY 8
WHAT: “Unconventional Clay: Engaged in Change”
NCECA’s 2016 invitational exhibition
WHERE: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
INFO: www.nelson-atkins.org
nceca: greater kc area

THRU MAY 29
WHAT: Two NCECA-related exhibitions currently
on view: Christopher Russell: Ceramics” and
“Recent American Ceramics from the Collection”
curated by Thomas Piché Jr.
WHERE: Daum Museum of Contemporary Art,
Sedalia, MO
INFO: www.daummuseum.org
“Continuous Exchange” at Epsten Gallery
THRU APR 10
WHAT: “Continuous Exchange” Site-specific
works by Nathan Craven, Margaret Kinkeade
and Casey Whittier.
WHERE: Epsten Gallery, Overland Park, KS
INFO: www.epstengallery.org
THRU MAY 1
WHAT: “Foundations: work by founding members
of NCECA” including Paul Soldner, Peter Voulkos,
Don Reitz, Ken Ferguson and others (pictured).
WHERE: Alice C. Sabatini Gallery, Topeka, KS
INFO: https://tscpl.org/gallery
MAR 12 - MAY 14
WHAT: “Now & Then” contemporary ceramic
works that offer a means to investigate the inter-
sections between art, culture, and daily life.
WHERE: Kansas City Museum, Kansas City
INFO: http://kcmo.gov/kansascitymuseum/

: artist profile julia haft-candell
In person in her Glassell Park studio, LA artist Julia

Haft-Candell is an affable guide, walking casually
among her variously scaled works-in-progress to
make a point. But outside the studio, she is casting
an increasingly large shadow these days as a ce-
ramic artist. A few days earlier, she attended the
opening of the 2016 Scripps College 72nd Ceramic
Annual, for which she installed a large, wall-
mounted work. Her stint at Scripps marked the tail
end of a three-year teaching fellowship on campus,
and the second year in a row that she’s been in-
volved with the influential Ceramic Annual; in 2015
she curated the exhibition. This winter she had
a show at Ochi Projects, an ambitious new LA gallery near Mid-City. Meanwhile,
a visitor to the Art LA Contemporary fair could see two more large works by her
on display. Luckily, that sort of multi-tasking seems to come naturally to the prolific
artist. “I’m always working on more than one thing at one time,” she says. “I like
to keep myself busy, so there’s always something to rotate around to do.”
Assessing the off-kilter convocation in her studio of creations suggesting knots,

ropes, combs, stalagmites, and other less discernable forms, Haft-Candell admits
an attraction to “things that look a little strange, but in a good way.” Indeed, one
of her more identifiable traits is the works’ willful indeterminacy, its ability to stake
out indefinite, murky, or liminal areas between the abstract, the familiar and the
weird. Referring to one of the works in her studio, she explains: “That one, I don’t
know what it is, I call it Three-Legged Blob With Vase. I feel the work is stronger
when I balance it: something known with something not known,” she adds.
Raised in Oakland, Haft-Candell got her start with ceramics as an undergraduate at

UC Davis, studying under Annabeth Rosen, whom she cites as an influence. For her
MFA, she joined the highly regarded ceramics program at CSU Long Beach, just as
Kristen Morgin was leaving and Tony Marsh took over, both of whom she also notes
appreciatively. Which perhaps goes to one of the many appealing dichotomies in her
work: as quirky and individualistic as her works tend to be, they are clearly rooted in
a profound appreciation of the medium and its more adventurous practitioners. She
still speaks admiringly of the pioneers who shaped the field in the mid-late 20th cen-
tury: Peter Voulkos, John Mason and Ken Price, drawing a distinction between
today’s more conceptual ceramic artists, who aren’t necessarily trained in the
medium, who just enjoy the clay for what it is, and those ceramic artists who really
have a desire to push the material forward: a need to push the limits of the medium.
Clearly, it’s an impulse she identifies with. Her experiential approach to clay deliber-
ately allows for various flaws, imperfections and discoveries, then she invites those
elements to transform the whole, following an intuitive path. Of the 2015 Ceramic
Annual, she wrote, curating the show was “analogous to how I engage with my
own sculptural practice: I bring together parts, that when assembled, merge into
a complex whole... Sections may support, anchor, complement or contradict one
another, but all are necessary to complete the composition.”
For her show at Ochi Projects, she presented two large works, both determinedly
twisty and linear in form. The first featured a gourd-like, swollen blue base suggesting
a cartoony raised shoulder with two arms, which rose on each side to a white, knot-
like element set on top. The other, also blue and white, lay sprawled across the floor,
with flat colors and a pattern recalling diagonally joined bricks, its shape resembling
a loosely knotted rope, or coiled snake, or pair of languid legs. While the vertical piece
was in two halves, this one was in parts, which meshed unevenly, like ill-fitting puzzle
pieces. Her Scripps piece, titled Pretzel, also features a bowlike, fragmentary knot;
mounted on the wall, it flaunted a grid-like pattern of black and white.
Top:
“Three-Legged Blob with Vase,” 2016
with other works in progress at artist’s studio
Below:
“Forward Lunge Knot,” 2016, Ceramic, 45" x 27" x 13"
Photo: courtesy Ochi Projects
For all their obvious heft, all these works betray
Haft-Candell’s fascination with linear form. “I’ve
been very interested in the idea of making clay
look like a knot. But I find it really hard to draw
it in two dimensions,” she says. So the built
work becomes a form of problem solving, of
translating the immediacy of drawing into clay.
“The works have a snake feel, they still have
this movement, in contrast with its heavy and
static material,” she notes approvingly. For the
floor piece, “I wanted to sculpt, not just a knot,
a braided knot… But it all had to be hollow so
it’s just sort of an illusion.”
Ultimately, her works are doggedly authentic

to their own materials and process, including
all the scars and flaws that occur along the
way. “My hand is always in all the work, I’m
not trying to erase my touch on material,” she
states. “The process, the chinks that happen,
the struggle, I like revealing that. I think it
makes the work a little funny, and more per-
sonal, and relatable… They reveal some, but
there’s still a lot of questions about them.”
While the fragmentary nature of her pieces
helps inform their open-ended, comparative
process, it also serves another purpose. “I’m
really interested in making large things in
pieces, it gives me more freedom. In that I
can lift them by myself, transport them, I can
fire them in a small kiln if I want to, I’m not
reliant on other people. It’s kind of liberating.”
Also noteworthy is the artist’s subtle engage-

ment with issues of gender. “In my view,
the men are the ones making the big, heavy
things, so I want to challenge that, add a femi-
nine perspective to that,” she says. “In the
Ochi show, that braid, it felt like something
girls do, something traditionally feminine, but Hanging Sculpture by
done on a scale not traditionally feminine.”
While she is clearly comfortable working in

large-scale, those bulky pieces are just part J EAN SM ITH
of the story; in the studio, they are arranged
along the wall like characters in a ceramic line-
up, while a myriad of small, fist-sized, even
more experimental works peer down from
shelves. “I think it’s really important for me
to [work on] really different scales, from tiny
to large... I think they have a very different featured in
feeling in relation to the body. Small could be
monumental, and large could be precious and Art Angels: 7th Heaven
cute, all those things we associate with some-
thing miniature.” Standing amid her works,
she adds cheerfully, “I’m not convinced by
the mid-sized.” 4/28 thru 5/21
—GEORGE MELROD
Ice Cube Gallery

“Julia Haft-Candell: Double Knot” was on 3320 Walnut St
display at Ochi Projects in Los Angeles.
January 16 – February 20, 2016. Denver, CO 80205
www.ochiprojects.com
Her work is also featured in “Beyond the

Object: the 72nd Scripps Ceramic Annual,” at
Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps
College, in Claremont, CA. January 23 – April www.jeanbsmith.com
3, 2016. rcwg.scrippscollege.edu

: artist profile george rodriguez
The transition from living as part global travel fellowship from the UW in 2010. During that span, he
of an ethnic majority in El Paso, visited 26 countries on three continents.
Texas, to becoming part of a
Hispanic minority in the “Some of my original inspirations will continue because I’m talking
Pacific Northwest has offered about personal experiences,” the former Bonderman Travel Fellow
both a challenge and an inspira- observes, speaking from his home in the White Center neighborhood
tion for ceramic sculptor George of Seattle. “For example, my mother was a seamstress, so I make
Rodriguez. With a new body of dress sculptures. But now, after my trips to Bali, Taiwan and Thailand,
work on view at Foster/White I want to acknowledge cultures I am not a part of. I would love to
Gallery in Seattle this spring, and show how I bring in those sensibilities to trace the difference
a lecture demonstration later in between conquering them and honoring them.”
mid-March at the annual NCECA
(National Council on Education Although Rodriguez is still processing the Bonderman trip, there
for the Ceramic Arts) conference are already signs of his neo-multicultural approach. For example,
in Kansas City, Missouri, the 33- in a series of tableware objects shown at Kobo Gallery in Seattle
year-old graduate of University in 2011, Japanese lotus blossoms ornamented a gravy boat. Else-
of Texas, El Paso and the Univer- where, a Buddhist monastic top-knot became the artist’s hair-do in
sity of Washington (MFA, 2009) another self-portrait, Guardian (2014). Calavera (2014) applies skele-
is clearly on a roll. ton “make-up” to the artist’s face, recalling Mexican Day of the
Dead skulls, while also suggesting tribal face painting from New
Rodriguez’s early work was Guinea and parts of Africa. Considering his own artistic influences,
characterized by large-scale, multi-figure sculptural installations, Rodriguez acknowledges in particular the late Robert Arneson,
such as Instrumental Divide (2009); in subsequent years, these godfather of West Coast figurative ceramics. “Arneson used the
pieces have been joined by individual life-size figures and self-portraits mold of his own head for his self-portraits, and then altered them
like Wanderer (2011), along with various forays into table-top floral for many other figures, like Jackson Pollock. I did a similar thing
assemblages and functional tableware. Far from his West Texas with my ‘George’ series,” he explains. “Instead of just me, I
roots, Rodriguez has adapted them by focusing on subjects drawn created many other Georges: George Washington, George Sand,
from his Chicano heritage, such as ceremonies, rituals and presenta- and a Curious George.”
tions, filtering in other inspirations gained as a result of a 10-month

Among the revelations from his wanderjahr
was the primacy of ceramics in other coun-
tries’ artistic culture. “There is a higher
consciousness about clay in Asia than in the
US,” Rodriguez says. “It is everywhere. You
can feel it. It is a connection point without
the lower status.” At the same time, he
concedes that such traditions can be unduly
binding, too. “Tradition is something you
need to respect; you learn it, but then move
on, lift it, and alter it,” he continues. “Imag-
ine a ceremonial object. You have it usable
for, say, a procession. It could be for a
smaller, everyday ceremony, not just a grand
event. After all the treasures in museums
that I saw, I’m more attached to the idea
of ‘What’s behind the object?’”
Commenting on identity, he observes, “It’s

like when I was traveling, my appearances
and ethnic identity were so fluid. Because
I am fluent in Spanish, I could blend into
Peru. At the Trujillo Museum north of Lima,
the guard spoke to me and let me see the
hidden erotic [Pre-Columbian] pieces. When
I was in Asia, they thought I was Filipino
or something, so I went along with that.”
Besides his Foster/White exhibition,

Seattle area viewers will have another
chance to observe Rodriguez’s ample skills
at the important group show, “Beyond
Aztlán: Mexican, Chicano and Chicana
Artists in the Northwest,” at Museum of
Northwest Art (March 26 – June 12, 2016).
Yet Rodriguez’s vision is distinct enough that
it transcends its subject matter, despite its
seeming wit and keen observation. “The
sculptures can be like a journal,” he says.
“I know humor catches people and then
draws them in. I don’t want to make a joke
[like Arneson], I want to make it more than
a joke. I think a lot about political and social
commentary when I am working, but I think
there’s enough of it in other people’s work,
so I don’t need to include it in mine.”
—MATTHEW KANGAS
“Beneath the Surface,” a show of works by

George Rodriguez, will be on view at Fos-
ter/White Gallery in Seattle, from April 6 - 30,
2016. www.fosterwhite.com
He will also be part of the group show,

“Beyond Aztlán: Mexican & Chicana/o Artists
in the Northwest,” at Museum of Northwest
Art, in La Conner, WA.
March 26 – June 12, 2016.
http://monamuseum.org
Opposite:
George Rodriguez
Left to righ:
“George with Flowers,” 2011
Ceramic with glaze, 21" x 13" x 16"
“Calavera,” 2014
Ceramic with glaze, 181⁄2" x 15" x 13"
Photos: courtesy Foster / White Gallery

: book reviews
“My Ogre Book, Shadow Theater, Midnight”

Marcel Broodthaers, (Siglio Press)
Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers managed to excavate a unique poetic space within the
realm of institutional critique, in a voice that was at once facile and sincere, and distinctly his
own. Best known for his project Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles (Museum
of Modern Art, Department of Eagles) from 1968-1973, he helped set the stage for installa-
tion art. Rooted in a fascination with text, film and collage, blending words, found images
and objects with a healthy dose of Surrealism, he was at once of his time and so ahead of
it that it is easy to forget that he died in 1976. This winter (through May 15, 2016), the
actual Museum of Modern Art in New York is giving the under-recognized artist his due
with a much-anticipated retrospective. The modest but lovely book “My Ogre Book, Shadow
Theater, Midnight,” by LA’s Siglio Press, is not meant to be a substitute for that sprawling
exhibition, but can be savored on its own terms. The tidy hardbound volume gathers three
bodies of work: two sets of Broodthaers’ poems (until 1964, he was primarily a poet), and
“Shadow Theater,” a set of 80 slide images from 1973-74, that he used in his Projections.
Drawing from such disparate sources as comic books, old prints, hand shadows, and snip-
pets of text, (the found images veering from spewing volcanoes and other menacing natural
phenomena to war, astronomy and scientific observation), the series is both haunting and
amusing, and obliquely reflects themes from the earlier poems. Set together, they read like
a cryptic storybook fable for adults, steeped in an almost Victorian sense of etiquette.
Considering his interest in staking out a new vocabulary between idea and image, between
cinematic and aesthetic space, the volume gives a nifty glimpse into the making of this
influential artist’s singular perceptual alphabet. —GM
“Both Sides of Sunset:

Photographing Los Angeles”
Edited by Jane Brown and Marla Hamburg
Kennedy, (Metropolis Books)
Los Angeles is a city that seems often defined by its

elusiveness. Beyond the iconic sites that beckon
tourists, it fragments into a kaleidoscope of unlikely
juxtapositions—a mirage of promise endlessly reced-
ing into a parade of palm trees and ticky-tack, studios
and mini-malls, sunshine and noir, glitz and glare.
“Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles”
thus defies expectations in capturing the texture of
this vast suburban metropolis. Edited by Jane Brown
and Marla Hamburg Kennedy, its ample pages feature
imagery from over 125 photographers of diverse
styles (and generations), along with knowing essays
by artist Ed Ruscha, who once chronicled every build-
ing on the Sunset Strip, and writer David L. Ulin, “to
evoke LA in all its contradictory glory.” LA is a city of a
thousand different neighborhoods and moods, and the
book wisely echoes that non-hierarchical layout. The
early years are evoked by figures such as Julius Shul-
man, Marvin Rand, Denise Scott Brown, and Dennis
Hopper, while contemporary artists such as Zoe
Crosher, Todd Hido, Mark Ruwedel, and Amir Zaki lend
their own eerie spin to today’s familiar vistas. We get
acrid street riots and desolate palaces. Garage doors by John Divola, signage by John Humble. A patterned concrete wall by James Welling.
A wizened Chet Baker, a glowing Eva Mendes; Venice beach bums and Hollywood wanna-bes. Trees grasping at sunlight in various improbable
forms. Whether it’s a lone cougar stalking the Hollywood Hills, or the 1967 picture of Dr. Zaius from “Planet of the Apes” seated at a bus stop
amid Googie architecture with a looming rocket and a giant donut, the volume palpably documents the banal but haunting Surrealism that
permeates this Southern California dream capital. By the time the city recedes into the smog at the book’s end, numerous shots will
linger long afterward. —GM

Catherine Opie: “700 Nimes Road”
(Delmonico Books/Prestel)
There’s a hint of voyeurism à la “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” and

the slightly self-conscious tenor of an ultra-cool Instagram feed in Catherine
Opie’s new book—129 sumptuous full-page plates set in a simple, clean
design in which all the lavishness is reserved for the contents of images
themselves. Which is to say, all the contents of Elizabeth Taylor’s house.
It is an exercise in portraiture by other means, what Hilton Als calls in his
essay for the book, “totems to aura.” Taylor died mid-way through the six-
month project; the women never met. Inspired by William Eggleston’s
Graceland photos taken a few years after the singer’s death, Opie’s prem-
ise was straightforward: to create an intimate, accurate portrait of a person
through their home and possessions. As a portraitist, the iconically frank
style Opie favors doesn’t work quite as well without a physiognomy to
read; and despite the close-ups, tilt shifts, and the play of texture and ambi-
ent light, a book like this will always feel like an inventory. Yet there’s a
resonant personal charm to these intuitively culled details: pink satin pil-
lows, Michael Jackson’s photo on a bedside table, Taylor’s Warhol portrait,
scarves, purses, Oscars. An array of kitsch and elegance, random souvenirs
and ballet shoes; endless white shag carpet and lights in the trees, and so
very, very many diamonds. Selections are on view at MOCA/PDC through
May 8, but as far more than a catalogue, this project lends itself to book
form, where it can be seen in its entirety and less dramatic images can
create an atmosphere of nuance. As Ingrid Sischy notes in her essay,
there is no hierarchy among objects on either Taylor or Opie’s part; enacting what Opie calls “a democracy of glamour.” In other words, it
looked like anyone’s house would, after being lived in for decades—which is ultimately the humanistic and conceptual success of the project.
It’s just that Taylor’s stuff was better. —SND
“George Herms: The River Book”

(Hamilton Press)
One of the most seminal California assemblage

artists, George Herms is known as much for his
persona as for any specific artworks. To a younger
generation, he may be best recognized as that older,
beatnik-type dude who does outlandish musical per-
formances; in 2011, invited to help usher in the
six-month panoply of Getty-sponsored PST exhibi-
tions, Herms ascended the stage with cardboard
guitar, chimes and horn to lend his oracular invoca-
tion. So a rediscovery of Herms is probably past due.
The hefty two-volume set titled “George Herms: The
River Book,” published by Hamilton Press, amply fits
the bill. Comprehensive in scope and handsomely
produced, with a fond intro essay by Dave Hickey, no
less, the slip-cased, hardbound set offers an immer-
sion into Herms’ world. The plentiful B&W and color
images of Herms’ works are a revelation, accentuat-
ing their every scavenged nuance and frayed surface.
Although sculptural in form, Hickey places Herms’ oeuvre at the junction of jazz and poetry; curator Walter Hopps put him in league with
Schwitters and Duchamp. But it is the wealth of personal, archival imagery that sets the project apart. Friends and at times collaborators with
Wallace Berman, Robert Alexander, Diane di Prima, poet Michael McClure, dancer Fred Herko, and others, Herms traversed California from
San Francisco and Larkspur up north, to Hermosa Beach and Topanga Canyon down south, bringing his Beat sensibility to LA. The trove of
photos presents Herms in his Pan-like element, amid burbling streams and tall grasses, among playful friends and shaggy kids and pregnant
lovers, offering a window into the lifestyle that engendered his creative muse. As Hickey notes, Herms remains “a willing participant in that
fraternity of kindred spirits and poetic optimists whose ebullience has defined ground zero for artists in California for the last half century.”
That California, too, has long since lost its innocence, but for a few True Believers like Herms; this lovingly assembled tribute makes the
case for its staying power. —GM

: pulse
MAR 3 – APR 16
WHAT: SLATE contemporary gallery may
be best known for colorful abstract expres-
sionism, but its “minimal” exhibition is an
expression of an expansive sense of time
and space. It is challenging too because
we are so used to the constant onslaught of
stimulating images that we are ill-equipped
to simply stand in front of a white picture
and wait to see what emerges. Works by
Edith Bresnahan, Jane Grimm, Sylvia Poloto,
APR 17 – AUG 28 Tressa Pack, and Lucky Rapp present shifts
WHAT: “Puja and Piety: Hindu, Jain, in tone that are so subtle that they can only
and Buddhist Art from the Indian Sub- be seen, much less appreciated, in person
continent” is the first exhibition by standing in front of the art object.
in North America to celebrate WHERE: SLATE contemporary, Oakland
the diversity of South Asian art INFO: www.slatecontemporary.com
by examining the relationship be-
tween aesthetic expression and
the devotional practice, or puja,
in the three native religions of THRU MARCH
the Indian subcontinent. Drawn WHAT: “Bones: New Works
primarily from SBMA’s perma- by Ralph Ziman”
nent collection and augmented Ziman’s second solo exhibition with the
by loans from regional, private gallery, Bones will feature a series of
lenders, the exhibition presents photographs and sculptures that directly
more than 160 objects of diverse respond to the current state of trophy
medium created over the past hunting in South Africa and the resultant
two millennia for temples, commercial exchange that occurs
home worship, festivals, between South Africa and America.
and roadside shrines. WHERE: C.A.V.E. Gallery, Venice, CA
WHERE: Santa Barbara INFO: www.cavegallery.net
Museum of Art
INFO: www.sbma.net
MAR 3 – APR 2
WHAT: Victor Hugo Zayas
in "El Rio" features paint-
ings from his “L.A. River”
series which document
the changing landscape
of the L.A. River over a
period of 30 years plus
the “Grid” series which
addresses the intercon-
nection among people
and the overlapping paths
that remain behind
like scent trails.
WHERE: Abmeyer + Wood
Fine Art, Seattle THRU APR 23
INFO: WHAT: A trio of exhibitions featuring works by renowned figura-
www.abmeyerwood.com tive artist Alex Katz: "Present Tense," a survey of sixty years of
master drawings on view at Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago
and New York, as well as The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York (thru Jun 26).
WHERE: Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago/New York
INFO: www.richardgraygallery.com

THRU APR 2
WHAT: Bruce Cohen's “Recent Paintings” of
interiors and still lifes are in a word: captivat-
ing. Using slick oil and crisp imagery, his
paintings toe the line between being pleas-
ant and surreal. There is always something
more than meets the eye; sometimes it's omi-
nous thunderclouds serving as a backdrop to
wholesome pink tulips, or flowers resting cu-
riously on the floor while a 3/4-full glass of
water occupies an otherwise empty table -
suggestive of the human presence, yet a
figure never graces his scenes.
WHERE: Leslie Sacks Gallery, Santa Monica
INFO: www.lesliesacks.com
MAR 1 – APR 2
WHAT: Tom Prochaska in “Balumes” engages in playful
abstraction through liftground etching, creating ambigu-
ous, earthy Rorschach-like blots ripe with emergent
imagery. Sarah Horowitz in “Lepidoptera” calls attention
to the striking aesthetic and behavioral traits of a variety
of moth species in delicate line etchings.
WHERE: Froelick Gallery, Portland
INFO: www.froelickgallery.com
THRU MAR 26
WHAT: For more than a decade, Ross
Sawyers has produced photographs that
focus on subtle and important aspects of
urban architecture. His last exhibition at
Platform referenced interior spaces. The
latest body of work “The Jungle” focuses on
exteriors, some seemingly constructed with
materials at hand, some perhaps existing
structures that have been altered; more sym-
bols of habitats than anything inhabitable. THRU JUL 10
WHERE: Platform Gallery, Seattle WHAT: “Into the Night: Modern and Contempo-
INFO: www.platformgallery.com rary Art and the Nocturne Tradition” examines
the long tradition of the nocturne in art and how
that tradition has expanded to encompass various
ways that contemporary artists consider the
enigmatic notion of the night. This exhibition is
comprised of paintings, photographs, and works
on paper that investigate the psychological
concepts of darkness, the dreamscape and its
connection to the night, and the inter-connected-
ness of the environment with cultural and
artistic discourse.
WHERE: Tucson Museum of Art
INFO: www.tucsonmuseumofart.org
MAR 18 – APR 30
WHAT: “Metagalactic” brings together a body of work
that relies on the aesthetics of outer space to explore
THRU MAY 1 themes about vastness, infinitude, mystery, relationship
WHAT: Internationally acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei’s with and exploration into the unknown. Artists
“Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” bronze series include Michelle Blade, Ala Ebtekar, Tobias Fike,
reinterprets the sculptures that once adorned the Cameron Gainer, Paul Jacobsen, Becca Mann, Chris
famed 18th-century fountain-clock of the Yuanming Oatey, and DJ Spooky.
Yuan (Old Summer Palace), an imperial retreat out- WHERE: David B. Smith Gallery, Denver
side Beijing. The heads were pillaged when the INFO: www.davidbsmithgallery.com
place was ransacked by French and British troops
in 1860. Ai Weiwei focuses attention on issues of
repatriation while extending his ongoing explo-
ration of what constitutes Chinese art and identity.
WHERE: Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
INFO: www.crockerartmuseum.org

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2015 TOP TENS
art ltd. magazine brings you the finest commentary and

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to the Midwestern States. Every issue offers feature arti- TERRELL JAMES
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reer artists, plus reviews of leading gallery and museum APRIL 15 – APRIL 17, 2016
exhibitions from our team of well-respected art writers
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COMING IN THE NEXT ISSUE
MAY/JUN 2016
DAVID IRELAND
The reopening of the David Ireland House at 500 Capp Street casts a spotlight on the life and
practice of this pivotal SF figure who made an art form out of ordinary, everyday processes.
HELEN LUNDEBERG
A founder of the post-Surrealist movement along with husband Lorser Feitelson, the SoCal
painter was closely affiliated with Hard Edge abstraction, and a major figure in her own right.
ART + TECHNOLOGY
Pace launches its new Art + Technology space in Menlo Park, CA with the Japanese collective
teamLab, whose immersive artwork explores the confluence of technology, design and nature.
ALSO:
SFMOMA; Houston Fotofest; Artist Profiles; Reviews; Reports; Book Reviews; Pulse;
and much more…
“The Red Planet,” 1934, Helen Lundeberg

Oil on Celotex, 30" x 24"
Collection of Rick Silver and Robert Hayden III
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Andrea Schwartz Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art Minnesota Street Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Artamo Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 at Pepperdine University . . .Inside Front Cover Museum of Art & History, Lancaster . . . . . . . . .2
Art Expo New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 G. Gibson Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 PULSE New York Contemporary Art Fair . . . .59
Art Market San Francisco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Goodwin Fine Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 Santa Monica Auctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
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Barry Whistler Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 Heard Museum Shops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 Smart Museum of Art, Univ. of Chicago . . . . .37
Benjamin Guffee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Hooks-Epstein Galleries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Spectrum Indian Wells Art Show . . . . . . . . . .16
Bert Green Fine Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 Hotel Valley Ho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 TAG Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39
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City of Palm Desert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Jean B. Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Transmission Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
City of San Jose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Jonn Izzik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 V Vorres Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
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February 25 - April 2, 2016
Norman Lundin
Spaces: Inside and Outside
Norman Lundin, KITCHEN WITH GREEN CHAIR, 2015, oil on canvas, 40 x 48 inches
GREG 212 THIRD AVENUE S

SEATTLE, WA 98104
KUCERA 206.624.0770
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99 Mar/Apr 2016 REBECCA CAMPBELL

CREATE : CONNECT : SAN JOSE

Byzantine Madonna, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”

March 11 - April 1, 2016

652 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 |505-955-8513 | www.tanseycontemporary.com

March 3 – April 2, 2016

Market (detail) oil on canvas 72” x 60”

Reception, March 12, 5-7pm

Artist Gallery Talk — April 28, 6pm

805.385.8157 / 8158 C A RN EG I E A R T M U S E U M carnegieam.org

APPLY TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR VIP STATUS: WWW.ARTNYFAIR.COM

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 21

Remember What We Came For

3681 Sacramento Street, SF, CA 94118

ARTIN THE CITY

ll WEST ANAPAMU STREET · SANTA BARBARA · CA 9310l

INFO @ ARTAMOGALLERY.COM · WWW.ARTAMOGALLERY.COM

PHONE 805.568.1400 · TUESDAY– SUNDAY 12:00 – 5:00 PM

Two of the more dramatic, and wryly subversive, participants also

In all these works, the use of ceramic objects or materials as con-

24 art ltd - March / April 2016

“Over the Falls,” 2015, Chris Ballantyne

But this show (called “Redux” as it is a

“Abstract Browsing,” 2016, Rafaël Rozendaal

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 27

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 29

“Ruin and cosmic dust,” 2015

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 33

Redwood Media Group recently announced

After serving 10 years as the founder

Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Naima Keith, formerly Associate Curator

The Corning Museum of Glass announced

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 35

36 art ltd - March / April 2016

Fichtenbaum travelled widely and often

In addition to her collection, Fichtenbaum leaves

Opposite left to right:

Gelede headdress (ere Gelede), THROUGH JUNE 12, 2016

38 art ltd - March / April 2016

The building also succeeds in melding the museum’s two distinct

For the first exhibition, Rinder chose, appropriately, to focus on

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 39

In a state abounding with natural resources—the Cascade mountain

To take even a cursory snapshot of the printmaking scene in Oregon,

Another Portland print-community milestone came a year after

For his part, Wyckoff believes that economic necessities tend to

“We have an ecosystem here that supports prints: makers,

Community, infrastructure, and an affinity between landscape,

Opposite top to bottom:

Studio Shot, Midwest Pressed, featured at the SGCI

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 41

42 art ltd - March / April 2016

44 art ltd - March / April 2016

46 art ltd - March / April 2016

March / Apri 2016 - art ltd 47

But was the Monster Roster an art movement? Or was it rather

1255 De laware St., Denver, CO 8 0 2 04