A Helping Of Art Indulge Yourself In ‘Beyond 15 Minutes,’ A Well-Balanced Diet Of Little-Known Contemporary Artists From Los Angeles
“Beyond 15 Minutes - 14 Contemporary Los Angeles Artists” through March 26 at Cheney Cowles Museum, 2316 First.
A lot of people are dieting where I work at my real job. I hate diets. Little cups of no-fat yogurt, the occasional carrot stick, and pre-fab dabs of microwavable din-din are not for me. I’d rather fast for two days and then eat a whole bag of gingersnaps.
What does this have to do with art? Finish your yogurt, and then jog over to Cheney Cowles Museum and see.
Guest curator Josine Ianco Starrels has served up a wellbalanced, nutritious, and generous helping of fat-free contemporary art from Los Angeles. “Beyond 15 Minutes” handsomely presents paintings, sculpture, photographs, constructions and video made by 14 L.A. artists you might not know.
The show title alludes to Andy Warhol’s remark that “Soon everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Starrels selected work by artists who care more about creativity than clamor. It wasn’t made for money or headlines. No body fluids or rotting fruit or ripped flags.
This work is invested with necessity - the artists needed to make the art just as surely as they needed to breathe. Their concentration is apparent, and so is their finish. I’m not just commenting on the beautiful frames here, I mean that each artist has fully developed and carefully completed each thought. This gives the exhibition poise and solidity which are too infrequent these days.
Another quiet joy of this presentation is to see a number of pieces by each artist, which helps to know the makers in the round, and to understand something about the evolution of their ideas. Jo Ann Callis started out as a photographer, and made props for the still-life photos she shot. Now she makes the sculptures full-time, and three of these forms are displayed near an early photograph.
Judy Fiskin distilled her ideas about formality and presence in 12 small-format photographs. Similarly diminutive in size, but big in essence are 10 gouache paintings by Marvin Harden. Have you ever heard a meadowlark sing, but couldn’t see him? Harden captures those fleeting notes with glimpses of little birds that are more poetry than paint.
Constructions made by John O’Brien show his quirky curiosity and punning humor. Revisiting school days, “Desk” is exactly that, but broken into components and displayed between sheets of glass like pages of a fanned-out book. The wood pieces, tattooed with ink inscriptions, echo and document the muffled boredom of rote education.
“Antenna” is a slender curl of black metal that rocks gently with Rube Goldberg playfulness. It’s adorned with macrame and a twist of wire at one end, and a motor-looking box with snakeskin fanbelts at the other. Function? I don’t think so. But O’Brien’s mind is sure working.
Another restless thinker in the assembly is Tim Hawkinson, whose amazing repertoire of media includes aluminum foil wrappers, bathwater, and dust. I know that sounds sensationalist, but honestly, this guy just finds the stuff interesting to use. Take a look at the effects he gets in “Volume Control.” He flattened the foil into thin strips and coiled them into a huge disk. It’s like looking at a giant platinum record, grooves shimmering in the light.
“Blindspots (Self-portrait)” is a collage of Polaroid snapshots of parts of Hawkinson he couldn’t see. Yes, including whatever you’re imagining. But you’d have to work hard to find anything objectionable in this one - Hawkinson turned it into a Rorschach test you’ll flunk, and mounted it in an amoeba-shaped frame that changes your mind altogether. Now it looks like a cell in mid-mitosis.
I’m going back to indulge in this exhibition a few more times. Fewer calories than a pretzel, less expensive than Slim-Fast, and more nutritious than those gingersnaps. The perfect diet that even I can love.