Allison Schulnik at Mark Moore (Bergamot through February 6).
There has been lots of media bubbling about this sold-out show. The work is interesting. There are great gobs of paint. She slathers it on more vigorously than Frank Auerbach and with the same “innocence” of Karel Appel. Me thinks the hype machine is not truly dead.
Ralph Bacerra at Frank Lloyd (Bergamot through February 6). Bacerra (1938-2008) taught at Chouinard and then Otis. He was influential to a generation of Southern California ceramic artists. His work has a classical beauty. He appropriates various cultural motifs - mixing them with traditional forms and ornamentation.
Miya Ando at Lora Schlesinger (Bergamot through February 6).
Miya Ando’s work is sublime. The flat wall pieces are composed of steel, patina, pigment, phosphorescence, and automotive lacquer. The work is an illusion of landscape where the sky meets the sea - much like the photographic series of seascapes by Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Barbara Kasten at Gallery Luisotti (Bergamot through April). This artist has had a long and distinguished career. This is all the more significant in that she is a woman (tends to be a man‘s world), her work has continuously mined architectural sensibilities, and she continues to develop new approaches to a fairly constant program of glass, mirrors, and controlled light. The works in this exhibition are sort of monochromatic and very elegant.
Tim Ebner at Rosamund Felsen (Bergamot through February 6). Ebner is always evolving. In each successive exhibition he seems to change. His Neo-Geo paintings of the 80’s have been evolved to his current figurative/decorative motifs. These cutouts share spirit with the flotsam/decorative work of Kim McConnell. And they invoke the exuberance of Red Grooms.
Don Bachardy at Craig Krull (Bergamot through February 20). This is an exhibition containing only self portraits by Bachardy from 1959-2009. Terrific show. I love portraits. A good portrait marvels me with its technique and seduces me into inferring a story - a transference of my circumstance onto the sitter in the painting. Not much is more “natural” that contemplating the view of another.
Bachardy has steadfast been true to the genre. While this genre, portraiture, has not been fashionable he has used it to record our fashionable history.
The Last Plastics Show at CardwellJimmerson (Culver City through February 13). This is a “partial re-creation of the 1971 Cal Arts exhibition of the same title” (15 of the original 24 artists). The gallery has done another superb job of bringing contemporary history back into view. The 1970 Ed Moses resin painting is killer.! Roland Reiss in 1971 cast plastic dog statuettes in resin.
