Women Around Town, September 2023

The Bergamot Station Fall Open House is Saturday, September 9th from 1-10 p.m. You can stop there on your way to or way home from the SCWCA exhibit, A Keen Eye: The Artist’s Perspective at Range Projects.

IN THE GALLERIES

Craft in America presents an exhibition of the wonderful California Fibers organization. This historic group is at the cutting edge of fiber art today. Working with a myriad of techniques and materials, including weaving, quilting, embroidery, and basketry. Artists included: Sandy Abrams, Olivia Batchelder, Charlotte Bird, Ashley V. Blalock, Carrie Burckle, Marilyn Mckenzie Chaffee, Ben Cueva Doshi, Polly Jacobs Giacchina, Lydia Tjioe Hall, Susan Henry, Annette Heully, Anifaye Korngute, Kathy Nida, Marty O, Liz Oliver, Michael F. Rohde, Rebecca Smith, Cameron Taylor-Brown, Elise Vazelakis, Debra Weiss, Peggy Wiedemann,and Aneesa Shami Zizzo. September 9 thru December 2, 2023.

Lydia Tjioe Hall

Emma Webster: Intermission is the upcoming exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. “Emma Webster paints landscapes that are not landscapes. Her work fuses high technology with traditional painting techniques. Her studio is a fascinating combination of a computer lab and a Renaissance artist’s atelier. She has invented a process that fuses hand drawing, virtual reality and sculptural models to generate her images. The resulting compositions are then meticulously hand painted onto canvas with astonishing virtuosity.” (JD) September 8–October 21, 2023.

Emma Webster

Also at Jeffrey Deitch is Vanessa Beecroft: Rules of Non-Engagement. “As an art student at Milan’s Brera Academy in the early 1990s, Beecroft realized that the nude models in her life drawing class were more interesting than her own drawings. That insight led to her unique fusion of painting, performance and sculpture…Beecroft’s work has shaped performance art, the representation of the female body and socio-political discourse in art. Her performances often highlight the tensions between nakedness and clothing, constraint and freedom, the collective and the individual, and human strength and weakness. Beecroft’s work has transcended the art world and has entered popular culture, influencing fashion, film and musical performance.” (JD) September 8–October 21, 2023.

Vanessa Beecroft

parrasch heijnen gallery presents dream song, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with NY-based artist Ellen Siebers. Siebers work is abstract yet she “memorializes the immediacy of beauty in vignettes of daily life… Siebers gives breath to the temporal phenomena of her subjects with fluid compositions on panel. Any distinction between sight and impression is blurred by the artist’s languid brushstrokes. Intimately scaled yet uninhibited, the works capture a quality of lightness held within a fleeting moment.” (ph) Thru October 7, 2023.

Ellen Siebers

Hauser & Wirth, West Hollywood is exhibiting a solo exhibition of new works by Jenny Holzer. Ready for You When You Are. Known for thought-provoking and politically charged works that span mediums including painting, sculpture, light projection and installation, Holzer’s focus has always been about the use of language as she challenges viewers’ preconceived notions and encourages them to question the systems and structures that shape our society. This exhibition will feature recent paintings and curse tablets, as well as three kinetic displays – further testaments to her ability to push the boundaries of contemporary art. September 1 thru October 21, 2023.

Jenny Holzer

Later this month at Orange Coast College’s Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion will be an exhibition that examines the serious side of humor, Seriously: Humor for Challenging Times is curated by artists Suvan Geer, Maryrose C. Mendoza and Sandra Mueller. Nine local artists: Margaret Adachi, Lalo Alcaraz, Michelle Andrade, Mark Steven Greenfield, Beth Grossman, Sandra Low, Manny Orozco, Naida Osline and Elyse Pignolet provide their own versions of satire, irony and parody in these difficult times. September 25 thru November 30.

Preview reception: Thursday, Sept. 28, 5–7 p.m.; Opening reception: Saturday, Sep. 30 1–4 p.m. Gallery hours: Tuesday to Thursday, 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., and First Saturdays (Oct. 7 & Nov. 4), 12-4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Fridays and school holidays.

IN THE MUSEUMS

Did I miss something or is it possible that there are no new exhibitions this month at our local major museums?

Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson:

The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine presents Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson: Infinite Space, Sublime Horizons. Jónsson creates exquisite large-scale paintings on a loom, in a practice that blurs the boundaries between painting and weaving, fine art and craft. Her work veers between abstraction and representation, with deep connections to Iceland’s otherworldly landscapes. The exhibit will include her largest and most labor-intensive paintings, alongside smaller paintings, drawings, and watercolors. Thru September 10, 2023.

At the California African American Museum, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, whose new series of portraits of Black Angelenos is wheat-pasted across CAAM’s monumental atrium walls. Fazlalizadeh’s social practice is rooted in Black feminism. She is especially known for her 2012 public art series Stop Telling Women to Smile, in which she took on gender-based street harassment, confronting the vernacular of the catcall via direct, unwavering, closed-lip portraits of women in Brooklyn.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

Meanwhile…

Alice Neel: Feels Like Home, continues at the Orange County Museum of Art. Thru October 22, 2023.

And Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond continues at LACMA. Thru Sept. 24, 2023.