Opening @ Copro Gallery January 21, 8:00 - 11:30 PM until February 11

Conjoined In 3D! Part 2: The Sequel, picks up where Conjoined 1 left off, last year at this time. More classic sculptures, Life like models, Surreal assemblages, mixed media paintings, life sized toys and other conjoined works in 3-D. Curated by Chet Zar this show will include many artists of Pop-Surrealism as well as motion picture industry special effects and well known Art Toy artists. From the twisted and bizarre to the majestic and unbelievable there will be many unusual works and all in 3D!

Peter Gric's Android Awakening will feature a comprehensive body of work consisting of 16 paintings, primarily new and some from the distant past. Most of the new work centers on Androids which are machines designed to look and act like human beings but can be programmed and controlled in order to serve their masters.

Peter Gric is a Czech painter living in Austria, who is best known for his mysterious abandoned futuristic architectural landscapes, He practices a very fine technical method of painting as taught by the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He studied under professor Arik Brauer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna who was one of the original members of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism so therefore is among the next generation of artists influenced from this movement. Peter has been exhibited alongside many other notable artists such as H. R. Giger and is a member of the Labyrinthe group as well as Ange Exquis .

at Craig Krull Gallery

January 21 - February 25, 2012
Building B3

Craig Krull Gallery will present a solo exhibition of a new body of work by seminal Los Angeles based artist Lita Albuquerque in conjunction with the Getty's Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945-1980 The exhibition, entitled 287 Steps, will also coincide with Albuquerque's Spine of the Earth 2012 a large scale ephemeral work created for the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, organized by Glenn Phillips of the Getty Research Institute and Lauri Firstenberg of LAXArt.

The exhibit 287 Steps is comprised of three installations in which the human form is alchemically re-embodied, taking new forms in historically significant, elemental materials such as gold, pure powdered pigment dust, and bone white plaster.

at dnj Gallery untill February 25, 2012

dnj Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, “Encaustic Noir” by Helen K. Garber, to inaugurate Noirfest Santa Monica 2012. In Gallery II, we present a selection of vintage works by famed Parisian photographer Brassai and several of his contemporaries.

In her new work, Garber recycles imagery from an earlier photographic body, using a layered, textured technique to create completely new work. “Spending months on a 40-foot long technical nightmare for the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture started me thinking about … working with texture and dimension. I felt that I had mastered the 2-D image and that it was time to move on to something new.” Taking her inspiration from film noir of the 40’s and 50’s and German Expressionism, Helen K. Garber’s work is evocative of the minimal black and white cinematic style. Garber uses an encaustic process to adhere her vintage negatives, printed on handmade papers, to reclaimed and salvaged wood scraps found locally in her local Ocean Park Historic District neighborhood and to finish with a fresh coating of beeswax and twine sourced locally from an old independent Venice shop. In this series, Garber has artistically found a way to reinvent her photographic library into work that is entirely new, with stronger, descriptive and expressive qualities.

This is Helen K. Garber’s second show with dnj Gallery. In the 2010 group exhibition, “Night Lights,” her series of photographs, “Venice/Venezia,” was included. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with her most recent exhibition held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Ireland. Garber’s work can be found in numerous museum collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the George Eastman House International Museum of Film & Photography in Rochester, NY and the Brooklyn Museum. Garber resides in Santa Monica and maintains a studio on Ocean Front Walk at Venice Beach, CA.

dnj Gallery is also very proud to showcase a collection of vintage noir photography by artists Brassai, Paul Almasy, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Maurice Georges Chanu, Robert Doisneau, Andre Kertesz, Jean Prevel, Geza Vandor and Sabine Weiss. Each vintage print is rare, highly collectible and selected to showcase Paris by night. Images portray from high society, the intellectuals, the ballet, the grand operas, as well as scenes from the dark, bleak side of Paris. Brassai once wrote that: “he used photography in order to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night.” His iconic images, and those of his colleagues, have defined the Paris mystique.

at dnj Gallery until February 25, 2012

dnj Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, “Encaustic Noir” by Helen K. Garber, to inaugurate Noirfest Santa Monica 2012. In Gallery II, we present a selection of vintage works by famed Parisian photographer Brassai and several of his contemporaries.

In her new work, Garber recycles imagery from an earlier photographic body, using a layered, textured technique to create completely new work. “Spending months on a 40-foot long technical nightmare for the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture started me thinking about … working with texture and dimension. I felt that I had mastered the 2-D image and that it was time to move on to something new.” Taking her inspiration from film noir of the 40’s and 50’s and German Expressionism, Helen K. Garber’s work is evocative of the minimal black and white cinematic style. Garber uses an encaustic process to adhere her vintage negatives, printed on handmade papers, to reclaimed and salvaged wood scraps found locally in her local Ocean Park Historic District neighborhood and to finish with a fresh coating of beeswax and twine sourced locally from an old independent Venice shop. In this series, Garber has artistically found a way to reinvent her photographic library into work that is entirely new, with stronger, descriptive and expressive qualities.

This is Helen K. Garber’s second show with dnj Gallery. In the 2010 group exhibition, “Night Lights,” her series of photographs, “Venice/Venezia,” was included. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with her most recent exhibition held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Ireland. Garber’s work can be found in numerous museum collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the George Eastman House International Museum of Film & Photography in Rochester, NY and the Brooklyn Museum. Garber resides in Santa Monica and maintains a studio on Ocean Front Walk at Venice Beach, CA.

dnj Gallery is also very proud to showcase a collection of vintage noir photography by artists Brassai, Paul Almasy, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Maurice Georges Chanu, Robert Doisneau, Andre Kertesz, Jean Prevel, Geza Vandor and Sabine Weiss. Each vintage print is rare, highly collectible and selected to showcase Paris by night. Images portray from high society, the intellectuals, the ballet, the grand operas, as well as scenes from the dark, bleak side of Paris. Brassai once wrote that: “he used photography in order to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night.” His iconic images, and those of his colleagues, have defined the Paris mystique.

January 4 - February 4, 2012

Joe Blaustein’s new work celebrates, and pokes fun at, aging. Everyone experiences time’s inevitable ticking, the way it changes and defines us, the joys of our memories and experiences, and revulsion with how our bodies betray us. Blaustein’s work can be seen as a metaphor for the aging process. He works over and over, building on the past, erasing, restoring, contemplating the journey, where he has been, where it will go. These are works filled with joy and sorrow, humor and melancholy, reflections on a long life lived and much left to do.

Frank Pictures Gallery opens Imogen Cunningham, Vintage and Signed Photographs, on November 19 2011. The exhibition featuring rare photographs Cunningham shot and printed herself at the time of their conception, spans her enduring and miraculous seven decade career, resulting in some of the most outstanding contributions to fine art photography. Even though her first love was portraiture, Imogen Cunningham is most known for her stunning close-ups of flowers and her uncensored celebration of the human form. A sensualist, Cunningham pushed boundaries, both as an artist and a woman. No stranger to the scandal her images evoked, she constantly defied limits. Imogen Cunningham was born in Portland, Oregan, on April 12, 1883. One of her first photographs was a 1906 nude self-portrait, taken on an isolated spot on the UW campus with a 4"x5" mail-order camera. Cunningham established her own studio in 1910, becoming one of the very first professional woman photographers. She encouraged other women to join her, publishing an article in 1913 titled "Photography as a Profession for Women". On February 11, 1915, Cunningham married Roi Partridge, an artist himself and an artistic collaboration between them flourished. Together, they enjoyed exploring the local nature terrain and especially that of Mount Rainier, where she engaged him as a model in an extended series of the nude in the wilderness. The publication of these images created a local scandal and invited so much ridicule that Cunningham retired the negatives for more that fifty years. In 1932, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, Edward Westin, and others, founded Group f/64, which promoted photography and helped to establish photography as an art form. The name of the group, derived from the smallest aperture available on a large format camera, implies images of the greatest depth of focus and sharpest detail. Imogen Cunningham continued to take pictures until shortly before her death at age 93 on June 24, 1976 in San Francisco, California.

at Gallery Luisotti until July 9, 2011

The objective coolness in these pictures renders color as an elemental form, one serving to further accentuate the contours of the scene. Brohm’s Ohio is a place of bleached house paints, washed bricks, and faint neon signs – colors of a distant fragment of time.

Lanisha Cole Gallery, August 12- October 31

Artist Reception: September 10, 2011 6-9pm

Unjusa Temple
Ultra Chrome Print
47" x 37"

Lilla Bello Studio is a boutique floral studio, specializing in day-to-day florals, weddings, home installations and private events . We combine clean contemporary vessels with only the most premium lush florals, often with the unexpected succulent or silky orchid for that added touch. If you’re in the area, we invite you to come in and discover an array of fine gifts from gorgeous scented candles to one-of-a-kind vintage treasures.

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Please order by 1pm for same day service. Local delivery within a 20 mile radius, Monday-Friday.

Feel free to call one of our design specialists to discuss your order: 310.453.3311

Order online: www.lillabello.com

In Time for 100 Visions, 2012 Masayuki Oda invites the viewer to take a fresh look at the familiar. Each sculpture reinterprets objects, symbols, body parts, clothing and figures of speech, creating captivating visual idiosyncrasies. The effects are innovative, humorous and thought provoking. In Walking Lady, Oda sculpts a pair of women’s high heels. He installs them high on a wall, creating a whimsical effect that leads one to imagine a figure walking on walls with heavy bronze clapping high heels. Time for 100 Visions, 2012 is an invitation into Oda’s creative and unusual visions.

While the sculptures appear cast, they are fabricated individually by the artist and each is unique in its fabrication. The installation of the body of work is taken into careful consideration to enhance the relationships between these unusual objects. Each piece stands alone, transforming the gallery space into a harmonious environment.

at Patrick Painter, Inc. until January 14, 2011

Jeffrey Wisniewski is an artist whose work becomes more relevant as news headlines shape the histories that describe society today. His art is not strictly political rather his work regularly employs objects linked to commodities, such as oil drums, corn, or solar panels which are a signature motif throughout his work. In past seminal works, Wisniewski sent an entire American colonial house through a wood chipper, in another project he dropped a one ton steel trough attached to a lace parachute out of an airplane. Weighty judgments do not feign the pretense of the serious in Wisniewski's artmaking, rather he lets the story tell itself.

Like a portrait painter whose subject slips in and out of view, Wisniewski brings us context without a subject. In his sculptures, he leaves us with the shell of a person, the detritus of their personalities left behind in their clothing and their settings. It is a person who has dissolved into thin air subsumed and sublimated by his surroundings. They have surrendered their identities leaving us with memo references told by the residue of their accoutrements.

In Battle of the Buddha, Jeffrey Wisniewski creates a choreographed fight scene between good and evil Buddhas utilizing motion capture technology. The video begins with one levitating Buddha which then separates into one gold and one red who battle each other rolling half naked around an empty, starkly lit space. These are not beings that we wish to emulate and yet we recognize them with the same familiarity by which we know our own hands.

Wisniewski's work uses the broad strokes of global fluctuations combined with a seamless utterance of art history, poetry and the media's language of desperation. He tells us about ourselves giving us something to laugh about even as the world sinks deeper into its self-realized nightmares.

Jeffrey Wisniewski has gained international recognition through solo exhibitions including Artpace San Antonio, Texas (2009) Gallerie Rolf Ricke, Köln, Germany (2003); Gallerie Sima, Nürnberg, Germany (2003); David Zwirner, New York, New York (1995); Nordanstadt-Skarstedt (1992) and Centre d'Arte Contemporain, Theirs, France (1991). Wisniewski's work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Museum for Modern Art (MMK Frankfurt am Main), Frankfurt, Germany (2007); “Sweet Temptations,” Kunstverein St. Gallen Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2005); The Munster Project, Munster, Germany (1997) and “Ripple Across the Water”, The Watari Museum, (1995) Tokyo, Japan; “In Through the Out Door”: Almost 25 Different Things, PS 1 Institute for Contemporary Art, Long Island City, NY (1991). In 1997 Wisniewski was a recipient of the DAAD prize awarded by the German government.

B7 Gallery through January 2012

ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY presents our inaugural exhibition at B7 Gallery, most recently Craig Krull Gallery exhibiting Julius Shulman and Carlos Almaraz, previously Samuel Freeman Gallery and initially the home of Patricia Faure Gallery.

ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY presents LOST & FOUND/ABSTRACTING LOS ANGELES 1945 - 1980 – paintings, drawings, sculptures and assemblages from obscure and known artists who used different media to interpret the abstract expressionist movement with a Los Angeles twist. The focus will be post war works up to 1980. This exhibition will show different media relating to Los Angeles’ interpretation of modernism with an emphasis on the difference between Los Angeles and its East Coast counterpart.

Exhibition includes select works by Elsa Warner, Stanley Tschopp, Max Finkelstein, Ted Gilien, Eugene Berman, Jules Engel, Russ Tamblyn, John Grillo, Ben Talbert, Hans Burkhardt, James Gill, Paul Bruch, Norman Zammitt, Agnes Kellog, William Tunberg, Henrietta Berk, Joe Goode, Oskar Fischinger, Frank Lobdell, John Baldessari, Ed Kienholz, Bruce Conner, Craig Kauffman, Carlos Almaraz, Llyn Folkes, Norton Wisdom, Rico Lebrun, Larry Bell, Eric Orr, Man Ray, Wallace Berman, Don Sorenson, John Altoon and Robert Graham.

RECEPTION:
Saturday, November 19, 5:00 – 7:00 pm

LOCATION:
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave. / B7 Gallery
Santa Monica, CA 90404

GALLERY HOURS:
11 – 6, Tuesday – Saturday

RSVP:
310-315-1937

PRESS INQUIRIES:
Email: info@robertbermangallery.com

January 14 - February 28, 2012 - D5 Gallery

ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY presents
JUST OCCUPY - an exhibition documenting the Occupy movement featuring photojournalists Ted Soqui and Christopher Felver.

In the spirit of the Occupy movement, Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station Arts Center will be holding a pop-up exhibition titled JUST OCCUPY featuring the photojournalistic, yet intensely striking photographs by Los Angeles photographer Ted Soqui. Soqui is a seasoned Los Angeles photojournalist, whose photographs were featured in the New York Times, LA Weekly and other international journals around the world.

Ted Soqui’s iconic photograph of the female protester with the 99% bandana, knit cap and shockingly intense eyes was chosen by artist Shepard Fairey for the cover of TIME magazine’s person of the year. The image is now the symbol for the Occupy movement, not only from Wall Street, but from Arab Spring to Athens to Moscow.

JUST OCCUPY will be the first exhibition and documentation of the Occupy LA phenomenon, which lasted longer than the Wall Street occupation, of which all images are intense, provocative and beautiful.

Also featured in JUST OCCUPY will be a series of photographic collages by photojournalist Christopher Felver, who is known for his documentary photographs of the beats, poets and musicians. These photos from his Ordered World series show a stark contrast to the narrative photos of Ted Soqui, yet have a different impact by showing the force of simple words when joined together such as: JUST PEACE, JUST WAR, JUST 99%, JUST OCCUPY.

JUST OCCUPY will open in conjunction with Photo LA on Saturday, January 14th, 2012.

EXHIBITION:
January 14 - February 28, 2012

RECEPTION:
Saturday, January 14, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
LOCATION:
ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave. / D5 Gallery
Santa Monica, CA 90404

GALLERY HOURS:
11 – 6, Tuesday – Saturday

RSVP:
310-315-1937

PRESS INQUIRIES:
Email: info@robertbermangallery.com

January 7 - February 4, 2012

Opening Reception on Saturday, January 7, 2012, 5-7 pm at Robert Berman C2 Gallery. Performance to follow at City Garage Theater at Track 16 Gallery at 8 pm.

ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY is pleased to present HOME.SWEET.HOME: a collaborative exhibition of images by artist/photographer Gerald Slota with captioning by celebrated playwright/filmmaker Neil LaBute.
The exhibition first debuted in New York City in the fall of 2010 at the Ricco/Maresca Gallery and is the result of an email correspondence between Slota and LaBute from 2008-2010, initially born as a greeting card series that developed into an eighteen text-and-image photographic print narrative of innocuous, suburban domesticity gone subtly and deeply awry.
At the beginnings of their email pen-pal-ship, LaBute suggested investigating a “family affair confessional” as a central theme and soon after offered this evocative thought: “the baby stopped crying hours ago. i’m afraid to go upstairs and check it.”
Thus began a rich back-and-forth that produced a darkly familiar world inhabited with twisted characters branded with each artists’ unique point of view. Slota’s layered, collaged imagery blurs and then brings into focus the disturbing consequence of LaBute’s seemingly innocent dialogue with a latent one-two punch. The final outcome as coined by Fluence Magazine is “inescapably provocative and decidedly memorable.”
HOME.SWEET.HOME opens January 7th in conjunction with City Garage Theater’s west coast premiere of LaBute’s 1980s play Filthy Talk For Troubled Times subtitled “scenes of intolerance” at Track 16 Gallery also in Bergamot Station Arts Center. Originally set in a topless bar, City Garage, working with LaBute, is presenting the play in the entirely new setting of a high-end art gallery opening. Tickets and more information available at www.citygarage.org.
Neil LaBute is a writer/director for theater, film, and television, and, on occasion, writes short stories and non-fiction. His newest play, IN A FOREST, DARK AND DEEP made its debut in London in March of 2011 and his play REASONS TO BE PRETTY is currently playing at the Almeida Theater in London.

Gerald Slota has been widely exhibited across the US and abroad. His work is included in collections at the LA County Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of Art. His images have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, BOMB, Blindspot, ARTNEWS, and Art in America.

Reception: Sat., 1/7/12, 5-7pm

Rosamund Felsen Gallery is pleased to announce Magical Thinking, an ambitious new exhibition featuring the work of Los Angeles painter Karen Liebowitz. For this, her second exhibition at the gallery, Liebowitz will paint a single large-scale mural – measuring 16 by 30 feet – on the wall in our main gallery. This exhibition will also feature the work of two other artists with whom Liebowitz shares in community and intention, Philadelphia-based Nancy Blum and Los Angeles-based Vanessa Conte.
These three artists see magical thinking as an acknowledgment and openness to causal connections without a correspondent need for scientific proof. They share in a belief in the interrelationship of those experiences that go beyond conventional observation. When the ineffable and ephemeral engage with the material and tangible, beauty is revealed to be not a supplement to our experience, but a substantive source of power in its own right.
Karen Liebowitz’s mural is a continuation of her ongoing series “Manifesting Prophecy,” which explores apocalyptic stories and animal prophecy as alternate symbologies. As in past works, Liebowitz starts with an ancient religious literary text and from it invents a new drama; a contemporary, if not futuristic, myth in which women are the main protagonists. Liebowitz frequently paints the absurd alongside the miraculous, traversing the line between skepticism and faith – perhaps as a means of drawing our attention to the division – through female characters. The women in these re-imagined myths depict and enroll the power of earthly human intervention in order to make the magical happen. They demonstrate both overt and covert power, pointing to a new female identity that displays strength through nurturing, and an inherent sexuality that heightens their empowered nature.
Nancy Blum will present a series of very intricate new botanical drawings. These works present unabashed beauty at the same time that they subvert the traditional idea of the decorative. The complex and fantastical flowers appear to be the masters of their own universe, seeming to possess authority and freedom. Blum uses line and form in a subtly mathematical way, so the effect is hallucinatory, yet the nuanced patterns point to a sense that each move has an accompaniment or echo. Nancy Blum has exhibited widely throughout the United States and has created numerous public works including in San Francisco, Charlotte, and Seattle. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy.
Vanessa Conte’s paintings tend to conflate the descriptive with the haphazard. What reads as stylistic significance doubles as a stain, or an incidental gesture. Conte utilizes non-systematic and varied compositional conventions to make paintings that are associative and therefore steeped in memory and reflection. For this exhibition, Conte will show three panoramic landscapes and a cluster of four portraits. Vanessa Conte has had solo exhibitions at JB Jurve in Los Angeles and Daniela Steinfeld/Van Horn in Düsseldorf. She holds a BFA from NYU.
Karen Liebowitz is an artist and educator in Los Angeles and has exhibited throughout the United States. She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon and an MFA from UCLA.

At ROSEGALLERY
3 December 2011 - 18 February 2012

ROSEGALLERY is pleased to announce Voyage en Egypte – new photographs by German photographer, Elger Esser. The exhibition will be on view 03 December, 2011 through 18 February, 2012.

For his latest body of work, Elger Esser traveled along the Nile from Luxor to Aswan with an 8 x 10 land camera, photographing the banks of the river, traditional feluccas, dahabiyas, and fisherman. Taken from a great distance with the artist’s signature precision and formal grace, the photographs of Voyage en Egypte are calm, grandiose landscapes in addition to being provocative meditations on light, space and color. Large expanses of water and sky in dissipating pastel hues form the cornerstone of these compositions, while the land and civilization itself provide sharp but remote horizon lines which are dwarfed by the natural elements. Like 19th century landscape paintings, which are strongly echoed in these works, Esser’s latest photographs capture an element of the sublime in nature. The mystery and beauty of the river, which has been the lifeline of Egypt since the Stone Age, is elevated in these images, and like his previous work, they strategically blur the line between pure documentary photography and painterly concerns. RoseGallery’s exhibition marks the debut of Voyage en Egypte in the United States and is the first in-depth presentation of Esser’s work in Los Angeles.

Elger Esser was born in Stuttgart in 1967 and was raised in Rome. In 1986, he moved to Dusseldorf, where he worked as a commercial photographer until 1991. He then attended the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie, Studying with Bernd and Hilla Becher until 1997. His work has been published in several monographs published by Schirmer/Mosel Verlag including Vedutas and Landscapes, 2000; Elger Esser, Cap d’Antifer-Etretat, 2002; Anischten/Views/Vues, 2008; and Elger Esser, Eigenzeit,, 2009. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Kunstpreis der Stadt Dusselfdorf, Forderkoje Art Cologne, Friebe Gallery, and the Deutsches Studienzentrum Venedig. Esser’s pictures are included in numerous public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Guggenheim Foundation; Kunsthaus, Zurich; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

at Ruth Bachofner Gallery
until Saturday, January 7, 2012

"My Morning, Day 5," 2012
Oil on canvas
50" x 60"

at Santa Monica Museum of Art

Beatrice Wood: Career Woman—Drawings, Paintings, Vessels, and Objects offers a comprehensive survey and a new assessment of this emblematic California artist—a scholarly, commemorative evaluation of Wood, whose extraordinary life and career traversed and contributed to the cultural and artistic highlights of the entire 20th century. SMMoA Executive Director Elsa Longhauser and Deputy Director Lisa Melandri are co-curators for the exhibition.

Beatrice Wood: Career Woman is part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980. This unprecedented collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together more than sixty cultural institutions from across Southern California for six months beginning October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. An artist who worked on both the East and West coasts and bridged gaps between areas as disparate as New York Dada and Southern California ceramics, Wood (1893–1998) was a vital contributor to the art scene of the period and is thus a key player in the Pacific Standard Time project.

Beatrice Wood: Career Woman includes over 100 works of art. The exhibition begins with Wood’s early Dada work, which includes drawings, paintings, posters, prints, and illustrated albums and travelogues. Wood first encountered Dada—a primary creative and personal influence—in New York, arising from her intimate friendships with Marcel Duchamp and the collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg. It was Dada that first inspired Wood to become an artist, and it shaped her creative thinking for the rest of her life. The exhibition also feature prominent examples of Wood’s ceramics created from the 1940s until her death in 1998. Wood was exceptionally prolific, even given her remarkable longevity. She repeatedly investigated and revisited a number of subjects, forms, and materials over a 60- to 70-year period.

Though Wood did not turn to ceramics until 1933 at the age of 40, she became an accomplished clay artist and went on to produce some of her most notable works well into her 90s. Her experimentation with ceramic glazing and firing was extraordinary, a compendium of clay technique. She first began to experiment with clay pieces that took the form of tiles or plates. By the 1980s, Wood was creating objects on a much larger scale, such as colossal goblets more than a foot tall and wide. The exhibition will survey the full range of her ceramics—from the miniature to the large-scale, from the utilitarian to the decorative, and from the vessel to figurative sculpture.

A fully-illustrated 144-page comprehensive catalog, published by the Santa Monica Museum of Art, accompanies the exhibition and offers a scholarly assessment of Beatrice Wood. This elegant publication includes 58 full-color plates, over 90 photographs, forward and acknowledgements by curators Elsa Longhauser and Lisa Melandri, original texts by Garth Clark, Kathleen Pyne and Jenni Sorkin, Wood's original diaries annotated and edited by Francis M. Naumann and Marie T. Keller, and a chronology by Lida M. Sunderland. The catalog’s essays range from the examination of Wood’s threshold position in early modernism, to her relationship with the Theosophical community in Ojai, as well as a technical evaluation of her work in clay. Wood began her life in art as a dilettante, and emerged a serious artist, nearly fifty years later. The accompanying writings illuminate the evolution of her work and document the art historical trajectory that delineates her vibrant contribution to the canon of Twentieth Century art.

Wood created a complex, thoughtful, and inexhaustible oeuvre, one that is equal parts narrative and form, equal parts poetry and wit. Her irrepressible sensibility could be bold, audacious, insouciant, sexually charged, and at times biographical. This exhibition will honor Wood’s indomitable spirit and dynamic artistic force, a pairing that produced a mature body of work that defines her importance as an artist.

The exhibition and publication are underwritten by lead grants from the Getty Foundation.

Generous support has also been provided by the LLWW Foundation. Additional support has been given by Rosa and Bob Sinnott; The Bluhm Family Foundation; Julie Chapgier and Brian Biel; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation; Susie and Jaime Gesundheit; the Kayne Foundation; Ric & Suzanne Kayne and Jenni, Maggie & Saree; the Pasadena Art Alliance; and Brenda R. Potter.

The exhibition was designed by potter Adam Silverman, partner and studio director of Heath Ceramics in Los Angeles.

Beatrice Wood: Career Woman is part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1946–1980.

Generous Support Provided By
South Coast Plaza, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Tiffany & Co.

John and Louise Bryson, David and Marianna Fisher, The Mohn Family Foundation, Anne and Jim Rothenberg, Elizabeth and Henry Segerstrom, Christina and Mark Siegel, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Holmes Tuttle

Additional Support Provided By
The Ahmanson Foundation, The Broad Art Foundation, California Community Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, W. M. Keck Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Sotheby’s

Click here for a full list of Pacific Standard Time sponsors

About Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980
Pacific Standard Time is a collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together for six months beginning in October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a major new force in the art world. Each institution will make its own contribution to this grand-scale story of artistic innovation and social change, told through a multitude of simultaneous exhibitions and programs. Exploring and celebrating the significance of the crucial post-World War II years through the tumultuous period of the 1960s and 70s, Pacific Standard Time encompasses developments from L.A. Pop to post-minimalism; from modernist architecture and design to multi-media installations; from the films of the African American L.A. Rebellion to the feminist activities of the Woman’s Building; from ceramics to Chicano performance art; and from Japanese American design to the pioneering work of artists’ collectives. Initiated through $10 million in grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time involves cultural institutions of every size and character across Southern California, from Greater Los Angeles to San Diego and Santa Barbara to Palm
Springs.

at Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA)

To purchase tickets, please call 310.586.6488 x116, email incognito@smmoa.org, or visit http://www.smmoa.org/incognito2012.

INCOGNITO, Santa Monica Museum of Art’s highly anticipated annual exhibition and benefit art sale, returns for its eighth year on Saturday, March 17th, enhanced by the first-ever PRECOGNITO Gala and Preview event. Tickets for both events go on sale Monday, December 19 at 10 am at http://www.smmoa.org/incognito2012 or by calling 310.586.6488.

Named “The Best of LA” this year by Los Angeles Magazine, INCOGNITO 2012 will be held on Saturday, March 17th from 7 to 10 pm, and will feature more than 600 original artworks for sale by 500-plus leading, mid-career and emerging contemporary artists, including renowned artists John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Mark Bradford, Marco Brambilla, Judy Chicago, Kim McCarty, Yoko Ono, Raymond Pettibon, Ed Ruscha, Betye Saar, Mickalene Thomas, William Wegman, and many more. All artworks are the same 8”x10” size and available for only $350 plus tax. This highly energized evening encourages attendees—from sophisticated art patrons to first-time collectors—to trust their instincts in selecting the works, as each work is signed on the back and the artists’ identities are revealed only after purchase.

This year, for the first time, the Museum will host PRECOGNITO, a preview and gala that honors philanthropist and collector Eileen Harris Norton, artist Paul McCarthy, and founder of the Bergamot Station Art Center, Wayne Blank. PRECOGNITO will be held on Thursday, March 15th from 7 to 10 pm in the Museum’s Main Gallery. Attendees will be treated to an exclusive preview of the more than 600 works of art available for purchase at INCOGNITO, an elegant dinner by Lene, and musical entertainment by NYC DJ Duo Cassie and Harley.

Acclaimed artist and INCOGNITO 2012 honoree Paul McCarthy designed the logo for this year’s benefit, which represents the unique spirit and energy of this groundbreaking evening. Other luminary artists also participating this year include: Eleanor Antin, Don Bachardy Devendra Banhart, Tomory Dodge, Shepard Fairey, Simone Forti, Gajin Fujita, Charles Gaines, Alexandra Grant, Roger Herman, George Herms, Amanda Ross-Ho, Mary Kelly, Martin Kersels, Joyce Kozloff, William Pope.L, Rodney McMillian, Ed Moses, Ruben Ochoa, John W. Outterbridge, Laura Owens, David Reed, Steve Roden, Allen Ruppersberg, Alison Saar, Jennifer Steinkamp, Pae White, and hundreds many more.

The element of surprise that underlies INCOGNITO reflects the essence of discovery that inspires SMMoA’s exhibitions, education, and outreach programs. All proceeds directly support the Museum.

A variety of PRECOGNITO/INCOGNITO special packages and ticket levels are available. For a limited time: Luminary and Visionary ticketholders will be offered a Valentine’s Day trip to San Francisco to preview Mark Bradford at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This fabulous trip includes a private tour of the exhibition led by Bradford, a seasonal lunch at TRACE, and a delectable dinner at Alice Waters’ famed Chez Panisse Café.

PRECOGNITO/INCOGNITO will be accompanied by a festive cocktail reception featuring musical entertainment by New York City DJ Duo Cassie and Harley, Food by Lene, and a wide range of wine and spirits. Media sponsors are Los Angeles Magazine and KCRW 89.9 FM. Doors open at 7pm sharp.

To get a sense of the exhilaration of INCOGNITO, please watch this video produced by Richard Schacter in collaboration with SMMoA staff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr6wpDa99AA
and this time-lapse video by Steve Craig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu42tGsG_Ho.

Early purchase is recommended as PRECOGNITO/ INCOGNITO tickets are limited. Tickets go on sale Monday, December 19, 2011 and may be purchased through Thursday, March 15, after which they may only be bought at the door at INCOGNITO on the evening of March 17 (based on availability).

To purchase tickets, please call 310.586.6488 x116, email incognito@smmoa.org, or visit http://www.smmoa.org/incognito2012. All ticket purchases are non-refundable. All tickets (and artwork vouchers where applicable), will be held at Will Call at the Museum on the evening of the PRECOGNITO/ INCOGNITO events.

at Santa Monica Museum of Art

Opening Reception: Friday, January 13, 6 - 8 pm

Santa Monica Museum of Art presents Adam Berg: Endangered Spaces, a new, multi-dimensional video, sculpture, and photo installation created for SMMoA that explores the relationship between man-made environments and displaced wildlife. In this work, Berg identifies a parallel future between endangered animals and threatened architectural spaces; he also investigates the impact historical architectural designs have on popular perceptions of primitive and domestic identities. On view from January 14 through February 25, 2012, this never-before-seen work by Berg for Project Room 1 marks the inauguration of NY/LA, the Museum’s new exhibition series that connects contemporary art on both coasts.

Santa Monica Museum of Art Deputy Director Lisa Melandri is curator of Endangered Spaces, which utilizes “cinéma vérité”—truthful cinema—to create visual episodes that juxtapose singular Los Angeles landmarks with wild animals dislocated into the architectural spaces. Berg presents a series of four single-channel videos in Project Room 1, creating a moving mural effect. Each video episode repeats, which presents a sequence where animals seemingly invade the Los Angeles landmarks: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, the Rudolf Schindler House, Richard Neutra’s Kronish House, and John Lautner’s Beyer House. Berg’s work reveals two endangered spheres: historic architecture and wildlife.

Berg complements his videos with three geometric, stainless steel, mirror sculptures that at once refract and reflect the visual projections. The mirror sculptures transfigure the projections, which Berg uses to visually challenge contemporary perceptions of animalism and the humane. He has also created three photo-etched wall installations that make viewers aware of their own environment. The photo etchings evoke sublime space between humans and nature in the romantic tradition. Taken all together, the sculpture and photography connect structural geometry, primitive habitats, and perceptions of place. With these two and three dimensional components, Berg constructs an environment for visitors that mimics the environments he is exploring in his work. The result is architecture as a domestic construction that—like zoological spaces—exhibits ‘being’ as a deliberate and man-made design.

Berg (b. 1962) was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and works and lives in Los Angeles. He attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, studied architecture, landscape architecture, and philosophy at the University of Toronto, and philosophy at York University, Toronto. He earned undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate degrees from the University of Haifa, Israel. He currently teaches at Otis College of Art and Design, California State University Dominguez Hills, and California Institute of the Arts.

Berg’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Dvir Gallery in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, Har-el Gallery in Jaffa, Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem; and the Haifa Museum of Art; in Italy at Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Casagrande Gallery and Campo dei Fiori in Rome, Saletta Paolini Nezzo in Urbino, and Chiostro Vescoville, Palazzo Ducale in Urbania; in Canada at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, and Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Toronto, and the University of Toronto; in Paris at Passage des Retz; and in Los Angeles at The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (Redcat). Berg has also been represented in numerous group exhibitions at the Museo Revoltella in Trieste, Italy; Remba Gallery in Los Angeles; Refusalon in San Francisco; The National Gallery, Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens; and the 1999 International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Jerusalem.

Support for Adam Berg: Endangered Spaces has been provided in part by Edward Cella Art+Architecture.

NY/LA: A New, Annual Exhibition Series
NY/LA is an innovative programming initiative that diversifies the Santa Monica Museum of Art’s curatorial voice through an all-new, annual exhibition series. Developed by SMMoA Deputy Director and curator Lisa Melandri and New York-based independent curator Jeffrey Uslip, NY/LA connects emerging contemporary artists on the East and the West coasts. With NY/LA, SMMoA continues to reshuffle and revitalize its programming, and promote an ongoing discourse that links contemporary art across the United States.

NY/LA will debut at SMMoA with two exhibitions on view from January 14 through February 25, 2012: Adam Berg: Endangered Spaces (LA) in Project Room 1 and Georgi Tushev: Strange Attractor (NY) in Project Room 2.

at Santa Monica Museum of Art

Opening Reception: Friday, January 13, 6 - 8 pm

Santa Monica Museum of Art presents Georgi Tushev: Strange Attractor, a series of paintings and works on paper—created exclusively for SMMoA—that investigate the effects of oil paint when exposed to extreme magnetic fields. Strange Attractor is the first Los Angeles show for Tushev and his debut museum exhibition. On view from January 14 through February 25, 2012, this commission for Project Room 2 marks the inauguration of NY/LA, the Museum’s new exhibition series that connects contemporary art on both coasts.

New York-based curator Jeffrey Uslip is guest curator of Strange Attractor, which subverts the traditional medium of painting allowing viewers to consider the cellular cycle of life and the material possibilities of paint. Tushev uses pigments in his paintings that contain high concentrations of iron or cobalt—that lift off the canvas when exposed to magnetic fields—to create a textured, three-dimensional topography. Tushev’s works on paper are created in water, which results in one-dimensional concentric rings and circular patterns when exposed to the magnetic fields. Once the magnetic fields are activated, disparate pigments separate into areas of black, white, and gray—each reflecting the contours and delineations of the magnetic field lines.

”Tushev’s paintings affectively recall the biological processes of cell division, such as mitosis,” says Uslip. ”His compositions challenge us to consider painting as the physical transformation of matter through art.”

Similar to any process of scientific experimentation, Tushev’s compositions are subject to varying degrees of chance and instability. Each piece challenges the conventions of flattened pictorial space, as the iron or cobalt pigments in his paintings create three-dimensional terrains. Tushev’s artistic practice expands traditional conceptions of abstraction—his signature works explore the dynamism of pigment and the physical possibilities of paint.

Tushev (b. 1969) was born in Bulgaria and lives and works in New York City. He earned a graduate degree from the National Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria, and completed a residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, and a Master Class of Painting in Amsterdam with painter Markus Lupertz.

Tushev’s work has been represented in solo exhibitions in San Francisco at Noma Gallery and in Sofia, Bulgaria, at XXL Gallery.

Support for Georgi Tushev: Strange Attractor has been provided in part by Peter Gelles and Eve Steele Gelles.

NY/LA: A New, Annual Exhibition Series
NY/LA is an innovative programming initiative that diversifies the Santa Monica Museum of Art’s curatorial voice through an all-new, annual exhibition series. Developed by SMMoA Deputy Director and curator Lisa Melandri and New York-based independent curator Jeffrey Uslip, NY/LA connects emerging contemporary artists on the East and the West coasts. With NY/LA, SMMoA continues to reshuffle and revitalize its programming, and promote an ongoing discourse that links contemporary art across the United States.

NY/LA will debut at SMMoA with two exhibitions on view from January 14 through February 25, 2012: Adam Berg: Endangered Spaces (LA) in Project Room 1 and Georgi Tushev: Strange Attractor (NY) in Project Room 2.

at Santa Monica Museum of Art

A Public Art Installation Pairing L.A. Artist Peter Shire with Local Students
Santa Monica Museum of Art recently for the unveiled one of the Museum’s latest large-scale, public art installation Wall Works: The Walls Have Eyes, designed by Los Angeles-based ceramic artist Peter Shire and created with the work of local K-12 students.

On view through May 20, 2012, this public art project has transformed Bergamot Station’s G-Hallway into a site-specific installation that includes the work of more than 500 students who participated in the SMMoA project, provided free of cost to schools and classrooms.

For this 19th Wall Works project, Shire introduced students to the art of ceramics and provided instructions for the project in a video produced by the Museum. His studio, Echo Park Pottery, prepared ceramic discs for the students to paint and etch their interpretation of an actual or imaginary eye using two techniques: painting with liquid black underglaze pigment using a brush, and scraffito etching using a long hardware nail.

“We have other art experiences at school, but nothing like this,” said Teacher Anabella Fullerton of Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica. “It has been an amazing project for my students, who were very enthused by the video and the opportunity to have their work put into a kiln. And now to see their art on the walls of a gallery; this is a great experience for all of us.”

Alia Campanotto, 7, of Edison Language Academy, said she enjoyed becoming an artist through this project. “It was really fun. We got to see how a real artist makes his work, and then we got a chance to do it, too. Now I know how to work with ceramics!”

Shire said he selected “eyes” because “they are the most expressive part of the body. They are the window to the soul.”

Roxy Rong, 9, of Roosevelt Elementary School in Santa Monica, said she liked making the eye because it inspired thought on the kinds of expressions people make with their eyes. “I tried to make mine looking shocked because I like it when people look shocked,” she said opening her own brown eyes very wide. “Making this eye made me feel free – like a bird.”

Each student-made “eye” now hangs upon the Wall Works Gallery at Bergamot Station Art Center’s G-Hallway, adjacent to the Santa Monica Museum of Art, enlivening the space with a dynamic installation dotted with hundreds of eyes atop Shire’s vibrant signature brightly colored stripes —in this case of red and yellow. With The Walls Have Eyes, Shire presents a public art installation where the visitor looks at the art and the art looks back at the visitor.

“This is an extraordinary partnership in so many ways because everyone truly has to pull their weight to make this happen—the artist, Bergamot Station and its tenants, the students, teachers, schools, the Museum and our supporters,” said Asuka Hisa, Wall Works creator and Director of Education at SMMoA. “It’s always amazing to watch it come together even though we’ve been doing this for 10 years.”

SMMoA donated supplies, lesson plans, and instructions, including a Museum made video with Shire, to the schools. Wall Works: The Walls Have Eyes will be on display through February 26, 2012. To date, the biannual Wall Works has involved more than 5,500 students in grades K-12, 50 schools in five districts and 19 artists.

Shire (b. 1947) is a ceramic artist who founded Echo Park Pottery in 1972, where he has since been working at an intersection of craft, fine art, and industrial design. He has had forays into architecture, furniture making, and fashion, however he always returnsg to ceramics. He has produced a wide variety of projects that include two constant elements: clay and bright color. Shire, a native of Los Angeles, draws inspiration from his local surroundings and infuses it all with signature eclecticism.

Support for Wall Works is generously provided by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles Art Commission, the Malkin Family, Target, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, and the Wayne and Shoshana Blank Family Trust.

at Schomburg Gallery until Feb. 4, 2012

Since 1971 Art Mortimer has painted nearly 100 murals, including major public murals in Claremont CA, Billings MT, 29 Palms CA, Lompoc CA, Susanville CA and many Southern California communities. Among many other murals, he has painted a 300 ft. long History of Long Beach mural in that California beach city (2003); a 4-story high mural in downtown Santa Monica about the beach, commissioned by the Milken Family Foundation (1998); a mural on Fairfax Ave. in Los Angeles depicting the history of the Jewish community in Los Angeles (1985); one on the side of Brandelli's Brig bar on Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice (1973); a large piece in the new corporate headquarters of Rockwell International in Seal Beach CA (1992); a mural on the history of Century City in the lobby of a high-rise office building in Century City (1991); a large mural on the side of Bloomingdale's department store in New York City for the State of California depicting the various regions of California (1989); and many private commissions.
Considered one of the originators of the mural movement in Los Angeles, his mural work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and photographic collections, as well as in newspapers, magazines, books, television and films all across the United States and in many countries around the world. He was honored as Artist of the Year in 2004 by the City of Long Beach, CA.

@ Shoshana Wayne Gallery

November 12 - December 23
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 12, 5-7 pm

Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to present James Richards’ fifth solo show with the gallery.

The paintings in this exhibition continue to explore the varied and complex possibilities attainable by examining the role of surface and support in fundamental ways; namely, by partially relocating the painting’s surface to the support beneath it through the replacement of the readymade canvas with a hand made one.

Crudely woven, and with an abundance of open space, the surfaces float in front of the wall where pictorial space and physical space converge. They allow the intermingled string and yarn to act as both support for painted areas, as well as a de facto surface in itself in the form of accumulated lines which take on the qualities of drawing.

These works challenge the viewer to see painting in a new way. They demonstrate that simple craft techniques can be combined with painting techniques to have both expressive and methodical qualities that can simultaneously repel, and reward.

This show will include two new sculptures. They are made out of storage crates, yarn and polypropylene rope. Much like the paintings they investigate the symbiotic relationship between their materials. As the form of the sculpture takes shape out of several thousand feet of woven rope/yarn, it holds the crates together. The crates provide the structure for the woven rope/yarn form to stay upright - like moss on a tree trunk or muscle tissue around bones. They can also be read as the interaction between the organic and inorganic.

James Richards currently lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA in 1991. He has been a part of several group exhibitions including Electric Mud, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Houston, TX; Hubcap Diamond Star Halo, curated by Leonardo Bravo and Christopher Miles, at Peggy Phelps Gallery and East Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, CA and Plane/Structures at Otis Gallery, Los Angeles.

at Suzanne Felsen

Suzanne Felsen designs begin with the cut, color and quality of the gemstones. She carefully selects each gemstone used in the collection by hand. Unusual and rare gemstones are often found in the collection along with unique cuts created by the designer. Combinations of riotous colors are framed by her streamlined settings.
Photo: amethyst and black spinel 18k white gold ring.

at TAG Gallery
Also Featuring: Jane Peterson and David Twamley
January 31, 2012 - February 25, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 4, 2012, 5-8 p.m.
Artist Panel: Saturday, February 11, 2012, 3 p.m.