DuckRabbit At Anat Ebgi

             DuckRabbit is on view at Anat Ebgi in Culver City's Arts District until July 26, 2014. Martin Basher's Untitled, 2014 is pretty amazing. I also really like Jason Bailer's Losh Orangerie, 1964.

Nathan Mabry's Solo exhibition GOODGOD At Cherry And Martin

           Nathan Mabry's Solo exhibition GOODGOD at Cherry and Martin in Culver City's Art's District.

Christopher Schulz At George Billis

      Christopher Schulz is on view at George Billis Gallery in Culver City's Arts District until July 12.

Openness And Clarity: Color Field Works From The 1960s And 1970s

          Openness And Clarity: Color Field Works From The 1960s And 1970s is on view at Honor Fraser gallery in the Culver City Arts District until August 2, 2014.
         This exhibition stresses the social framework integral to the formation of the Color Field movement. Art critic Clement Greenberg had played a pivotal role in the movement by introducing key artists to one another and it in turn influenced their own work immensely; for example he showed Helen Frankenthaler's work to Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland also leading to their close friend Jules Olitski being influenced by him. 

       Anthony Caro's Dumbfound is an amazing sculpture! In 1960 he traveled from England to the United States and met Greenberg, Louis and Noland, who all influenced his work immensely. When he returned to Britain his compositions became very monochromatic and horizontal. 

       Robert Motherwell is classified as a Abstract Expressionist and part The New York School. His work shows his interest in color and composition as subjects. Along with Stella they changed the notions of painting and objecthood. This is the first time I've read about the concepts behind artwork and found it more compelling. Maybe I shouldn't have put the prior sentence on the web but oh well. It's intriguing to read about how they changed color from being a subordinate component of subject matter in a piece to being the subject. 

           Frank Stella Ctesiphon I (1968) is on loan the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and is part of  Stella's Protractor Variation series. He made this series after traveling to Iran and it's influenced from the interweaving/interlacing elements in Persian decorative art and architecture. I knew of Frank Stella, I've flipped though enough art history books to know who he was, that's the extent of my appreciation of his work...but then I saw his artwork in person. I've never been more mesmerized by an art piece before! My optic nerves were overwhelmed, it was really powerful. Gallery junkies talk about this from time to time (the 'quality gap' of what a piece looks like in a book as oppose to real life). I'm sure that phrase I just made up above to summarize this widely known phenomenon will never catch on. I'm talking about seeing an art piece in a book or on the web and how it can't do justice to viewing the piece in real life. Frank Stella's work is the most potent example of the quality gap an art piece can have.  Frank Stella used common house paint and went to Princeton.

  

Frank Stella Ctesiphon I (1968) Polymer and fluorescent polymer paint on canvas 120 x 240 in. Photo credit Honor Fraser 

Frank Stella, Sunapee IV, 1966 Oil on shaped canvas 127 x 125 inches

Anthony Caro, Dumbfound, 1976 Steel and paint 21 x 50 x 15 inches

Anthony Caro, Dumbfound, 1976 Steel and paint 21 x 50 x 15 inches

Culver City Art District Summer Solstice On Saturday June 21

       Culver City used to have a yearly art walk in the summer but because of logistics, funding aka budget cuts and the fact  that it made no money for the city  it was axed. Lucky for us it's been replaced by the Culver City Summer Solstice! I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only let down was the lack of food trucks they said would be there, but apparently it was a ruse, which was not that offensive because there is a decent amount of reasonably prices restaurants in the area. There were amazing live music as promised, and of course art- the highest caliber. 

     For anyone who isn't a galley junky like myself, this is the real deal, and by real deal I mean not the Downtown LA Art Walk. Take Honor Fraser for example; their exhibition Openness And Clarity: Color Field Works From the 1960s And 1970s show work by artists who have had a  pivotal influence on abstract art throughout the world and history books. It showcases  artists from LACMA's historic exhibition Post Painterly Abstraction curated by Clement Greenberg. One of my favorite pieces was Frank Stella's Ctesiphon I. 

    Another exhibition I thoroughly enjoyed was Kate Bonner at Luis De Jesus. She had the most amazing interactive exhibit where the gallery provided pictures, colored paper, scissors and glue for visitors to use and create art pieces. Kate also provided instructions on how to create a piece. Her exhibition along with Michael Kindred Knight will be on view until June 28 at Luis de Jesus Los Angeles.

         Some of my favorite exhibitions for this art walk were at Thinkspace Gallery, Anat Ebgi, Cherry and Martin, LAX Art and Sixty 29 Contemporary. I'll cover a few in this entry and the rest in the next 4 entries. 

     Jacub Gagnon, Erica Rose Levine and Brian Mashburn is on view at Thinkspace Gallery until July 12th. I love Jacub Gagnon's work, it's eloquent and engaging. My favorite is The Monarch. 

     Sixty29 Contemporary also had an amazing show with work by Sallie Whistler Marcucci which will be on view until August 29th. They also had amazing live music by Shaye Taylor.