I was surprised to find my brother-in-law, an entertainment lawyer, reading a book on the minimal artist, Robert Irwin. “Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees” was recommended to him by his son, our nephew in New York. My brother-in-law described some of Irwin’s philosophical ideas on questioning and frustration. He sold me and and I navigated to Amazon to add to my cart. I tried to return the favor by suggesting “Philip Guston The Collected Writings, Lectures and Conversations” but my brother-in-law laughed and said “this book will be enough of that kind of thing.” You can’t get enough of that kind of thing.
Ai Weiwei is a big guy. He was huge before he was imprisoned by the Chinese government and now of course he is bigger. He’s everywhere especially on Twitter. His work addresses Chinese traditions, multinational intrusion and out right theft and of course censorship. He recreated ancient Zodiac figures that were looted from China in the Opium Wars and they are now on display in a courtyard at the LA County Museum. I loved them. In their permanent collection it was a pure delight to see Picasso entertaining himself with exaggerated form in a room full of portraits and just around the corner a room devoted to Giacomenti’s elegantly refined sculptures.
Another day and another PST stop, this time the Getty overlooking the construction on the 405. I would love to go back and photograph those partially dismantled retaining walls, orange cones and new infrastructure. Robert Irwin designed the gardens at the Getty. “Crosscurrents in LA Painting and Sculpture” was nice but not earth shattering with some Dieberkorns, Hockneys and Ruscha’s but the John Altoon’s painting, “Ocean Park Series”, was the bomb! It reminded me of Don VanVilet’s best work. No time for the permanent collection here and the Rembrandts that knock me out just thinking about them.
“Now Dig This!”, our third installment of “PST” at the Hammer Museum in Westwood focused on the African American art scene in LA and it was an eye opener with strong, graphic, physical, rough and tumble work in a distinctive earthy palette, beautiful Charles White drawings and John Riddle sculptures, names I had never heard of, mixed with political art that still feels fresh, Aunt Jemima with a machine gun and women with Angela Davis Afros shoving the stereotypes back in our face. Minstrel to militant. Right on!
The Hammer’s permanent collection is stellar. Take the fifteen small head sculptures by Daumier!This time I feel in love with Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Touc“, a gorgeously painted dog sitting on a table. I’m no dog person but this looked like it was done by Leon Golub. In the book store, the Hammer has one of the best, I bought a book from the EVA Hesse painting show that had just left and sitting next to that I spotted a complete collection of Robert Irwin”s writings.
Leave a comment