Lonnie Holley Visits LA

One of the best gallery shows this year was the self-taught artist Lonnie Holley’s solo show at Blum & Poe, and one of the hottest tickets was a recent Saturday afternoon talk between Holley and Jane Fonda. That may seem an odd pairing, but as the actor and activist explained at the start, “I lived in Atlanta for 20 years”—that is, when she was married to you-know-who. During that time she met Bill Arnett, a major art collector and supporter of what he called “vernacular art,” art by Black artists of the American South. Through him Fonda met a number of artists, including the Atlanta-based Holley.

Well-prepped of course, Fonda asked astute questions about Holley’s life and work. Holley, in his own elliptical way, often responded by addressing something bigger. He had had a tumultuous childhood, ending up at the notorious Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, where he was brutalized. Fortunately, his grandmother was able to get him out when he was 14. ”I think I was chosen to go through the whole nine yards to be a witness to the ways of life,” Holley said. Much of his work reflects the poverty and pain he has experienced and seen. Take the series of early sculpture made of a sandstone-like material he salvaged from a foundry; he began to use the material when he had to make a tombstone for his sister’s two young children killed tragically in a fire. Later he created figures of others he wanted to remember or commemorate, including mythical ones. Holley’s assemblage pieces touch on themes of slavery and inequity. “No Negro was given the title of artist,” he says, “but they were creating, creating… When do we get credit for being who we are?”

Holley is getting credit now, being repped by a major gallery (this is their first show of Holley’s work) and featured in The New York Times last year. However, he finds that the world has gotten into a perilous state. “It’s hell that we are facing,” he said. 

Lonnie Holley in conversation with Jane Fonda on the occasion of What Have They Done with America? at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2022
© Lonnie Holley / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

Tom of Finland Fest

For the first time the annual Tom of Finland Art & Culture Festival takes place both in Los Angeles and in London the same weekend (October 8–9), in Second Home workspaces in both cities. The festival brings together artists, galleries and patrons to network, and to buy and sell works of queer erotic art. Second Home Hollywood has a large garden and a pavilion for art installations, performances and presentations. Second Home Hollywood is located at 1370 N. Saint Andrews Place, while Second Home Spitalfields is at 68 Hanbury Street, London. Get your tickets for single days or the whole weekend at https://www.tomoffinland.org/artfair/

Tom of Finland, Untitled, 1987

Aspen ArtWeek

I never expected Aspen to be so beautiful—it’s a low-rise town lying in a verdant valley, though the rainy season lasts six to eight months here. It also happens to be booming with billionaires. This is fortunate for the Aspen Art Museum which holds an annual ArtWeek every August, a week punctuated with an art auction and gala to benefit the museum (ArtCrush); art talks, performances and tours; an art fair (Intersect Aspen); lots of cocktails and some very swanky dinners. The special honoree of ArtCrush this year was LA’s own Gary Simmons, and one of his paintings was part of the live auction, which took place during the August 5 gala. ArtCrush, the museum’s biggest fundraising event, raised over $4.3 million this year from both live and silent auctions.

The museum has been enjoying a major collaboration with Italian designer and artist Gaetano Pesce, whose vinyl rendition of sunrise in the mountains now covers the entrance side of its facade. There’s a gallery of his whimsical sculptural work inside, and a tabletop version of mountain peaks in different colors is for sale. 

Meanwhile, Aspen galleries have put on special shows to coincide, and one of the best things, especially if you come from LA’s urban sprawl, is that nearly everything is within walking distance. There is also some symbiotic overlap between museum and galleries: certain ArtCrush artists were also featured at galleries, where the art stays up much longer. Two of my favorite shows were Alison van Pelt at Casterline/Goodman Gallery and preparatory drawings by Christo and Jeanne-Claude at Hexton Gallery.

A Forest for the Trees installation, photo by Aaron Mendez

Immersed in Immersives

In my spare time, of which I have surprisingly little, I’ve been catching up with immersive exhibitions popping up all over town—the ones based on works by artists, such as the multimedia exhibitions of van Gogh, Klimt, Banksy and Glenn Kaino. Most of these exhibitions have you walking through very large rooms with 360 degree projections of artwork morphing into other artworks or graphics. The Kaino one is quite different—mostly installation, with sculpture and animatronics, and focused on environmental themes.

Often, there’s a lot of posted text—to give the experience an educational tone, I think. The Klimt immersive had about 20 panels of text before you entered the fun part, and I especially liked the excerpts of letters between Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo in the van Gogh lobby. The Banksy immersive was most like an exhibition, divided into thematic groupings of his work with intro panels like “Banksy and the World Artistic Culture.”

Some also have a VR component, where you fit a heavy helmet with goggles over your head. The one for Banksy was especially good—a joy ride going through a complex of abandoned warehouses, as if you were on a train. His artwork appeared on the left and right on walls, just as his street art does in real life.

Clare Rojas, The End of the Road at the Edge of the World, 2022

Comings and Goings

In July and early August, San Francisco gallerist Jessica Silverman tested the LA waters with a pop-up gallery on North Robertson featuring paintings by Clare Rojas. Some work delighted with pure geometrical abstraction, while others, like The End of the Road at the Edge of the World, 2022, seemed part of a fairy tale. Silverman is happy to report that the show nearly sold out. Will she be coming back to LA in one form or another? I hope so, as I’ve enjoyed my two visits to her SF gallery. Patricia Sweetow, another Bay-Area dealer, has made her move permanent, settling in the Santa Fe art complex shared with high-end galleries Vielmetter and Wilding Cran.

Sadly, Bridge Projects has closed its Melrose gallery, as of July 30. I saw some excellent work there, but it was never clear to me whether they were a profit or nonprofit, as they also showed some quite quirky and esoteric work. Turns out it was actually a commercial gallery, with some underwriting from a collector couple. The projects will continue though, and first up is a reiteration of a show that opened during the pandemic, “To Bough and to Bend.” Check it out at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, from now through March 26, 2023.