Your cart is currently empty!
Tag: High Desert Test Sites
-
SHOPTALK: LA Art News
Hammer Remodel, Art Fairs and MoreHello, Good-Bye: New Year for Hammer Museum
Was 2022 a blur? It feels like it went by very quickly, too quickly, as we transitioned into the New Normal. People have returned to indoor dining, theaters are open and museums and art fairs are back—though some museums still recommend reservations. The galleries are doing business, but many of them stayed open throughout—were they considered “essential” businesses? In any case, they were essential for me, as they gave me a chance to see art throughout the last two-plus years. Clearly, artists didn’t stop producing work, which is a good thing. Some had to move to different types of work or were inspired to do different kinds of projects.
New buildings or renovations give us a sense of progress and, after years of construction, the revamped Hammer Museum will finally be completed next March. The change has happened incrementally, so there have been no shutdowns, other than for COVID. The Hammer will have a better-defined entrance on the corner of Wilshire and Westwood, a new outdoor sculpture terrace and will make the entire ground floor along Wilshire added gallery space. From street side, the building will be more clearly an art museum. Sanford Biggers’ 25-foot-tall cast bronze Oracle, previously in New York’s Rockefeller Center, will highlight the sculpture terrace. In the last two decades a total of 40,000 square feet of additional space has been added, made possible by the 2015 acquisition by UCLA (the Hammer’s parent) of the adjoining building on the Glendon Avenue side.
All this allows more space to display the Hammer’s own collection: drawings, prints, photographs, artist books from the Grunwald Center Collection and the contemporary art it has been collecting recently. Several new sections are already open, including the spiffy new gift shop with windows overlooking the street and a dedicated space for prints and drawing, curated by Cynthia Burlingham and her staff at the Grunwald Center. (As mentioned in my last Shoptalk report, the inaugural show in that space, “Picasso Cut Paper,” was a gem, and what a beautiful installation.) The new restaurant Lulu is open, developed by one of America’s great chefs, Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse in Berkeley and one of the founders of the farm-to-table movement.
Many kudos to Hammer Director Ann Philbin, who’s had the vision and the drive to make this all happen!
Installation view of “Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971” at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. (Joshua White / JW Pictures / © Academy Museum Foundation). Art Fair Report
The stalwart LA Art Show returns to the LA Convention Center Feb. 15–19, with its educational division, DIVERSEartLA, presenting works that focus on the global climate crisis. There will be eight interdisciplinary projects including artist Alfredo De Stefano and The Italian Cultural Institute presenting artists Pietro Ruffo and Elia Pellegrini. The fair will continue its recent focus on Asia and will feature a new Japanese Pavilion with over 15 galleries, plus more South Korean galleries participating in their own section.
This year’s Frieze Los Angeles (Feb. 16–19) moves to the Santa Monica Airport, with some 120 galleries plying their wares. If you want to go, buy tickets NOW, especially as this year they’re selling tickets with timed entry, and I see that some slots are already sold out! You can also buy a parking pass at the same time, but these are timed also, so be sure to read the fine print. https://www.frieze.com/fairs/frieze-los-angeles/tickets.
In addition to that venue, we can enjoy Frieze Week in various parts of the city, starting February 13, at galleries, museums and other spaces. Highlights include “Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971” at The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures; “William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows” at The Broad; “Alicia Piller: Within and Strings of Desire” at Craft Contemporary; “Bridget Riley Drawings: from the Artist’s Studio” at the Hammer; “Milford Graves: Fundamental Frequency” at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; “Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952–1982” and “New Abstracts: Recent Acquisitions” at LACMA; “Henry Taylor: B Side” and “Simone Forti” at MOCA Grand. Well, that’s basically the terrific exhibitions we have on in Los Angeles now and upcoming! I highly recommend “Regeneration” at The Academy, and “Kentridge” at The Broad, both exhibitions rich in content and wonderful in presentation.
I have my own addition for those seeking art and inspiration—”Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts” (through March 27) at The Huntington in San Marino. This is a fascinating show, very much about the wonderful animators of the early Disney studio who brought life and wonder to furnishings, architecture and inanimate objects. Lots of concept and preparatory drawings, plus some of their inspirations in European porcelain and decorative arts.
An Ephemeral History of High Desert Test Sites: 2002-2015. Image courtesy of High Desert Test Sites. Desert News
Not long ago, artist Andrea Zittel said she was stepping back from High Desert Test Sites (HDTS), the biennial of desert-sited artworks and installations that I’ve always found a wonderful mix of experimentation and artistry, if a bit unecological for all the driving we had to do. She was letting HDTS and A-Z West, her studio complex, be run by a team. However, in November she sent out a public statement saying she would take back the reins of HDTS as artistic director. This isn’t too surprising, as HDTS and especially her studio A-Z seem to me to be so much a part of her. Not only did she set up the studio when she moved to the desert decades ago, but the design and development of the different components, and the art production that continues there, are part and parcel of her art practice.
Also, they will be turning away from the biennial model they’ve had for 20 years and cutting back to concentrate on their core projects. “I have formally assumed the role of
artistic director of HDTS,“ writes Zittel in the announcement, “both to oversee the grounds and artworks and to help ensure the long-term viability of A-Z West and HDTS. I also remain an active member of the HDTS Board.” New programming will be announced in the new year, but in the meantime they need to raise new funding. To that end, Zittel told me recently, they’ll be having their first fundraising event in Joshua Tree this spring.Welcome to the New Year, Everyone!
-
SHOPTALK: LA Art News
LA Gallery Migration, Museum Make-overs, and more.New York, New York!
The art market is back, and here in SoCal we’re seeing it with a slew of New York galleries moving in. Pace’s “mergence” with Kayne Griffin is official, and I hear the new signage now bears the Pace name. Sean Kelly gallery is occupying a 10,000-square-foot space on N. Highland—to open anytime now. Looking ahead, another New York mega, David Zwirner, is planning on a three-building complex at 606 N. Western, slated to open next January. Two pre-existing buildings will be renovated, with a completely new one built from ground up. They have already announced the opening exhibition—a solo by LA-based Njideka Akunyili Crosby, whom they started repping in 2018. All this will be a real game changer for LA, and maybe now collectors won’t feel the need to seasonally jet off to New York to get their art shopping in.
One gallery is actually jumping across the pond and the continent to get to us—the influential New York and
London-based gallery, Lisson, is set to open in the fall in the Sycamore District of Los Angeles in a two-story building with over 8000 sq. ft., including outdoor patio, near a number of other existing galleries. Their opening show is Carmen Herrera’s “Days of the Week.”Meanwhile our own homegrown David Kordansky Gallery is expanding east, with a New York space opening May 6, featuring an exhibition of new work by LA-based artist Lauren Halsey. “Opening David Kordansky Gallery in New York has always been part of the dream, for both me and our artists,” said Kordansky in his announcement. “I’m excited to provide a new platform for our growing program and to merge our sensibilities with the rich history and cultural trajectories of New York.” The new gallery will be located on W. 20th Street in Chelsea.
Post-renovation façade of MCASD, photo by Maha Bazzari La Jolla Museum Redux
Over the years I’ve enjoyed visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) in La Jolla, but always felt there was a problem with the choppy flow. The building was born as a private home in 1916, became an art center in 1941, and went through various remodels over the decades. This time they hired world-class architect Annabelle Selldorf, currently overseeing the expansion and renovation of The Frick Collection in New York, and acquired an adjoining building to quadruple exhibition space. The result, unveiled in early April, is glorious, a contemporary art museum that feels comfortable to stroll through, designed in a way you can see everything without getting lost.
The latter is partly accomplished by a number of windows opening to the local landscapes. From the lobby you can see Prospect Street and other parts of town, from side windows you can see old bungalows, and in the rear there are many views of the seaside walk and the churning Pacific. “We decided to embrace our spectacular location on the edge of the Pacific Ocean,” said museum Director Kathryn Kanjo during the preview. “We were thrilled to take it all in,” said Selldorf. “We don’t think the windows are a distraction. It’s good to look out and be oriented.” Petite and soft-spoken, Selldorf is constantly thanking her collaborators, a refreshing departure from the egoism of many starchitects.
The elegantly spare design helps you appreciate the art, and for the first time I see what a really superb collection MCASD has. That includes the multicolor polka-dotted Kusama Yayoi pumpkin in the entrance, John Baldessari’s deadpan painting Terms Most Useful In Describing Creative Works Of Art, and Charles Gaines’ Airplanecrash Clock.
The special exhibition is “Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s” (through July 17), and it was a revelation. I knew of her early “shooting paintings” and of her colorful “Nana” sculptures—one of which is dancing in the center of a lower gallery. However, I was unaware of her assemblage and multi-media paintings of this period which often showed grim skyscrapers, sometimes being attacked by fighter jets and Godzilla-like creatures, and often on fire. Also included are several results of the “shooting paintings.” This is a show you may never see again, since much has been borrowed from European collections and some works are very fragile. Major kudos to the curators—Michelle White, senior curator at The Menil Collection, and Jill Dawson, curator of MCASD.
Jack Pierson, The End of the World, Twentynine Palms, High Desert Test Sites. Desert News
You know how I love an excuse to drive through the desert, and High Desert Test Sites (HDTS) has finally returned. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this latest iteration, “The Searchers” (through May 22), features nine art installations dotting the high desert region around Joshua Tree and Coachella Valley. The curator is Iwona Blazwick, director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, who brought six artists from the East Coast and abroad, to add to the three regional artists in the mix.
Here are a few highlights, and the fact that they have stuck in my mind a week later is testament to the smart thinking that has gone into curating HDTS 2022. A work that injects some black humor into its commentary is Jack Pierson’s The End of the World, gigantic all-cap letters that loom large in the desert behind The Palms Restaurant in Twentynine Palms. They’re constructed of chipboard and painted silver, and make a great Insta grab. I have always thought that deliberately divey bar had an end-of-the-world feeling, a great place to grab a few drinks and have a few laughs before The Bomb goes off.
The two videos are really really good ones, by the way, and worth driving down some uneven dusty roads. In Harese, Erkan Özgen worked with Marine vets from the Corps’ nearby training base for a film short in which they slap their bodies, ready rifles, and flick bullet shells to a hypnotic beat. In Other Dessert Landscapes, Dana Sherwood worked with Joey’s Home Animal Rescue in Yucca Valley to provide horses for her dreamlike video, in which they nibble on lavish desserts set on outdoor tables, with a shot of humans thrown in now and then. It was captured with an infrared camera and it’s surreal—I’m still thinking about it.
Stop by Kate Lee Short’s Respite, a small building partly sunken into the ground. If you go on a day when the wind is blowing, you’ll hear a little concert, because there are pipes built into the roofline. This, like Rachel Whiteread’s cement-cast Shack I and Shack II, are pre-existing structures, but generally aren’t open to the public outside of HDTS. Other artists in the event are Dineo Seshee Bopape, Alice Channer, Gerald Clarke Jr and Paloma Varga Weisz.
