southern california painting, 1970s

Publication: Journal Santa Fe Section; Date: Jul 15, 2011; Section: Gallery Guide; Page: S8

CALIFORNIA STATE OF MIND Unique conditions of space, light made Los Angeles art different Art Issues

MALIN WILSONPOWELL

For the Journal

For the second year in a row, David Richard Contemporary is acting like a big-city gallery or art museumby presenting a curated exhibition of the multifaceted and dynamic innovations of contemporary art afterWorld War II. “Southern California Painting, 1970s: Painting Per Se” follows last year’s “1960s Revisited”show of paintings from both East and West coasts. But this year is 2011, and it is the year for SouthernCalifornia art. Unless you have just emerged from five or so years completely unplugged from the artworld, you are sure to have heard about the upcoming Gettyfunded initiative that includes over 40concurrent exhibitions under the rubric “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980.”

Most major institutions are coordinating their programs to open Oct. 1. The work of many influentialartists of the era, including many who have made their homes in New Mexico, will be featured in multipleexhibitions. Among these are Larry Bell, Judy Chicago, John McCracken, Bruce Nauman, and Ken Price.

The purpose of all these exhibitions, as well as the very eclectic and provocative exhibition at DavidRichard, is thoroughly revisionist. They intend to document the emergence of Los Angeles as aninternational nexus of contemporary art after the war and to rewrite a history that for decades hasclaimed New York as its center. With Getty taking the lead and providing support, scholars andinstitutions are fleshing out previously unexplored histories, and showcasing an overwhelming cascade ofart that has not seen the light of day in the decades since it was made. Shows have been organizedaround such diverse themes as activist art collectives, black artists, Chicano artists, Chinese-Americanarchitects, crafts movements, Japanese-American artists and designers, photographers, video pioneers,and women artists.

The 1970s was known as the “Pluralist Decade,” and the show at David Richard is an enticing advancesampling of the wide-open nature of painting in L.A. then. Co-curator Peter Frank contends in his essaythat since L.A. was not a “painting town” –– unlike New York, London, Berlin, and even San Francisco ––and, that with its abundance of art schools and art departments, L.A. was a place for exploration. Heargues that there was an unusual degree of tolerance and “no blanket condemnation of any particularpractice on the basis of any aesthetic ideology. ... More than most places, Los Angeles fostered an artisticcommunity whose artists produced for one another rather than for cadres of collectors, curators, critics,or dealers.”

This seems right as far as it goes, but in a more fundamental way it was the ambiance of Los Angelesand New York that made for the most visibly evident differences. Popular television police shows areperfect examples of these hidden-in-plainsight essential differences. For example, New York cop shopsare close-knit third generation insiders in a city where people live on top of one another, and L.A. copshops are multiracial teams that cover a 350-square-mile mosaic of distinct geographies and

CALIFORNIA STATE OF MIND http://epaper.abqjournal.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=Ol...

1 of 6 7/22/11 10:11 AM

communities.

Just look at two large-scale Judy Chicago pastel grid pieces from 1971 made by spraying acrylic onacrylic. They are unabashedly about the beautiful soft light in a place she nostalgically remembers as awarm and welcoming paradise, where an artist could live at the beach for $60 per month. Another realtreat is also an exercise in beauty titled “Lavender Twins” from 1977 by Merion Estes, constructed oflarge, woozy, softly colored spheres painted on multiple sheets of clear vinyl draped in front of the wall.With a knowing nod to Jackson Pollock’s famous “Lavender Mist” action painting, the action in Estes’painting is not about the process of flinging the paint but is the action of light and the phenomenology ofperceiving the properties of this entirely new material object. Like Judy Chicago, Estes was among thefirst generation of artists who energized the feminist movement in this country and in L.A.’s Woman’sBuilding in particular. Also on view are elegant works by artist Helen Lundberg from an earlier generation,along with the always unexpected, consciously altered sensibilities of Karen Carson and Margaret Nielsen.

The mural-sized squeegee painting in saturated sunset colors by Jerry Burchman titled “Spectrum,” wasalso a reaction to Jackson Pollock’s canvasses that were painted on the floor. It marks Burchman’s turnaway from the legacies of easel painting to shopping at the hardware store for his tools.

Among the noteworthy paintings in the exhibition are the high-contrast, truncated circles of artistturned-art-critic Peter Plagens, the suave twists and turns in Tony DeLap’s black-and-white “The Whim ofTituba,” the incendiary fierceness of Scott Grieger’s “Match Man” and “Past History” canvasses, and, theoddly airless watercolor still lifes that verge on the surreal by Max Hendler, who for the last 25 years hasmade luminous monochromatic squares. During a panel of the artists talking last Saturday, Hendlertentatively ventured that while making these early painstaking still lifes, he was confined to workingwhile sitting down in a small trailer, but when he got a studio and could move back and forth whilestanding, he began painting monochromes, a transition he characterized as “painting himself out of thecanvas.”

There is a bit of overdue boosterism in the assertion that in the face of the silly 1960s declaration ofpainting’s demise that painting was not as restricted in L.A. as in other art centers. In fact, not only aremost of the works in this exhibition fairly standard flat works made in ways common to other centersacross the U.S. and Europe, but what painting’s expansion and the experimentation with new materialshad in common was the rupture of culture in the wake of the great social and political upheaval of thelate 1960s. What is indisputable is that Los Angeles artists did live in very different conditions of light andspace, and it shows.

Northern New Mexico could also benefit greatly from an initiative that investigates the history of artists,fills in the blanks, and fleshes out the diversity while documenting the give and take nationally andinternationally. What foundation can lead the way and initiate such a major endeavor? It’s about time.It’s about place. If you go

WHAT: “Southern California Painting, 1970s: Painting Per Se”

WHERE: David Richard Contemporary, 130 Lincoln Ave., Suite D

WHEN: Through July 31. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday - Saturday

CONTACT: 505-983-9555; www. DavidRichardContemporary.com


2 of 6 7/22/11 10:11 AM

COURTESY DAVID RICHARD CONTEMPORARY

“Lavendar Twins” is a 1977 acrylic lacquer on vinyl by Marion Estes.


3 of 6 7/22/11 10:11 AM


4 of 6 7/22/11 10:11 AM

“Oh Randy” is a 1978 watercolor on paper by Max Hendler.

“Instead of Free Men” is a 1976 oil and acrylic on canvas by Peter Plagens.


5 of 6 7/22/11 10:11 AM

“Match Men” is a 1977 oil on canvas by Scott Grieger.


6 of 6 7/22/11 10:11 AM

southern california painting, 1970s

Documents

art museumby

art departments

activist art collectives

abundance of art schools

black artists

chicano artists

women artists

new mexico