Happy Artfilled New Year!
We look forward to new art spaces this year with The Main Museum opening downtown in Spring and the Marciano Art Foundation which will occupy The Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Midwilshire. “Conceived as an ‘Art City’, the building is being re-imagined as a space for the display, research, performance and making of contemporary art and will include a variety of temporary exhibition spaces for installations by international and local artists.”
January is abuzz with art fairs and I have a hopeful outlook that there will be more women artists represented than in the past.
Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Barker Hanger, Santa Monica. 1/26-1/29/17.
The LA Art Show, Los Angeles Convention Center, 1/12-1/15/17.
Photo LA at the L.A. Mart, 1/12-11/15/17.
IN THE GALLERIES:
“Arleen G. Hendler: Works on Paper” is the current exhibition at FIG gallery. presents a versatile group of works on paper in watercolor and pastel. Her intimate approach to the subject matters at hand, land and cityscape, still life and portrait, display dominant concerns with geometric composition, drawing, and expressive paint handling. Thru 2/04/17.
Arlene Hendler
The Good Luck Gallery presents ceramics and drawings by Sylvia Fragoso. Born with Down syndrome, Fragoso started making art in her early twenties. Over the last thirty years she has produced hundreds of clay sculptures: spiritually-inspired monuments that possess a humble beauty and strange power. The mysterious clusters with crucifixes atop them that testify to her devout Catholicism, and crumbling towers, some with spiky projections jutting out from their thickly glazed exteriors. Her drawings are mesmerizing abstractions and swirling striations – sometimes embedded with religious symbols – pulsate with color and energy. Thru 2/12/17.
Sylvia Fragoso
“With Liberty and Justice for Some” is an exhibition benefitting many non-profit organizations threatened by the impending actions of the president elect at Walter Maciel Gallery. featuring the work of several contemporary artists who have been invited to create portraits of immigrants to the United States. The show is a statement on the many fears surrounding the announcement of our new president elect and a powerful response rejecting the presumed policies that threaten to disrupt basic civil rights. Among the artists are SCWCA members Linda Vallejo and Dwora Fried. Thru 3/4/17.
CB1 Gallery is featuring works by Emily Davis Adams and Merion Estes. “Emily Davis Adams: Somewhere Between” are new paintings that explore the physical qualities of light as both representational object and abstraction. Estes’ “Lost Horizons” series gives pictorial form to vanishing natural domains and references Frank Capra’s 1937 film of the same name. Additionally, a 2016 painting, Cooling Trend, will be on view. Thru 2/19/17.
Merion Estes
Sloan Projects is exhibiting new work by Laura Forman. The exhibit will feature works in both pastel on paper and plaster-based sculpture. Forman’s work is haunting, surreal and technically masterful. 1/14-2/25/17: Reception 1/14/17: 5-7 pm.
Laura Forman
“Lay Back and Enjoy It” will be opening later this month at Shoshana Wayne Gallery. The exhibit will feature new work by Rachel Lachowicz. A large-scale installation modeled after three prominent structures from the 1973 Clint Eastwood film, High Plains Drifter. The artist has completely covered two structures – the Sheriff’s Station and the Church – in red lipstick to represent different pillars of historical patriarchal power: Law and Order, Religion, Markets and Domesticity. At just under full-scale, viewers are completely immersed in the seductive aesthetics of red lipstick, visually, physically and olfactory, while viewing their own reflection in the red mirrored windows of the building. 1/21-4/1/17. Reception: 1/21/17;5-7pm.
Etching collages by Kathi Flood will grace the Cal State Northridge Performing Arts Center Gallery. The work is a visual commentary on urban behavior in Los Angeles. 1/14-3/3/17.
Reception: 1/14/17;5-7 p.m. Call Sally Abelblue for gallery hours and app’t: 818-677-8800.
Kathi Flood
IN THE MUSEUMS:
“Beyond Bling: Jewelry From The Lois Boardman Collection” is a rather stunning and worthwhile exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The exhibition, which features a selection of 50 works from the gift of over 300 pieces from collector Lois Boardman. These examples of contemporary studio jewelry from the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand offer a wide range nontraditional materials and techniques, the ways jewelry can communicate personal or political messages, and the medium’s potential to shock and delight. The collection is the first of its kind to enter a museum on the West Coast. This example is a necklace made of polymethyl methacrylate, metal rings by Carolyn Kriegman. Thru 2/5/17.
The Hammer museum presents a selection of works from the Hammer Contemporary Collection by Liz Craft at Hammer. Craft is known for her surreal sculptures that simmer with a sense of the absurd. Cartoony and dreamlike, her works are rendered with a mash-up of realistic detail and weighty materials such as bronze and steel. Working in Los Angeles for many years, Craft chooses subjects that often evoke the idiosyncrasies characteristic of Southern California’s cultural landscape. This exhibition is organized by Connie Butler, chief curator, with Emily Gonzalez-Jarrett, curatorial associate. 1/14-4/30.
Liz Craft
“Creature” continues at The Broad. It features 50 works presenting approaches to figuration and representations of the self. The installation features works by over 25 artists including Ellen Gallagher, Jenny Holzer and Cecily Brown Runs thru 3/19/17.
Australian born artist Toba Khedoori‘s luminous paintings on wax-coated paper are on view on the 2nd floor of BCAM at LACMA. In addition to contributing to the rapidly growing recognition of the work of women artists, it also extends LACMA’s efforts to trace the recent history of art in Southern California.” Runs thru 3/19/18.
