Smackdown: David Pagel vs. Diana Thater

I guess I’ve been under a rock.  I missed David Pagel’s review of Diana Thater’s current exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and the subsequent backlash in the comments and on Thater’s blog.  I wanted to leave a reply to one of Naomi Treblaine’s comments on Culture Monster, but the comments have been closed (why Culture Monster?), so I’ll post it here:

“A newspaper is not the place for a mean ‘critic’ to attack an artist. It is to present work, describe and analyze.”

Describe and Analyze? Wrong! This is exactly what is wrong with criticism today.  Most critics kowtow to the advertisers or higher ups and turn in a few paragraphs with absolutely no opinion whatsoever.  Pagel’s review contains plenty of description with no personal attacks.  I have to admit I haven’t seen the show yet, but lambasting rehashes of academic post-structuralist critiques is par for the course nowadays, and a genuine assessment of the work.  I have read the numerous defensive comments and Thater’s own history on her blog and there have been a few nasties slung on both sides.  But notwithstanding, it is the critic’s charge to evaluate works of art.  Chiding a critic who pans a show for being “mean” is just silly.

For some kindred thoughts, check out this blog post from Bill Wheelock who also thought Pagel’s review was “about the work, not the person.” (via @KnightLAT)

Best Los Angeles Art Shows of 2009

David Bowen, Photographic Drawing Device, solar-powered mini-robots, charcoal, paper

Data + Art: Science and Art in the Age of Information @ Pasadena Museum of California Art An apt show for the Over-Information Age.  Curated by Dan Goods and David Delgado, both from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the show included both aesthetically pleasing data visualizations that broadened awareness and understanding such as Jim Bumgardner’s “A Year of Sunsets,” and geeky gadgetry employed for artistic expression. The best mix of data and art was David Bowen’s “Photographic Drawing Device,” which used light-seeking, solar-powered mini-robots to draw charcoal circles on paper.

Gary Lang at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills

Gary Lang: Circles Lines Grids Paintings @ Ace Gallery Beverly Hills Standing up close to the surface of Lang’s paintings you could see the slight wiggle in each hand-painted line, and the color juxtapositions seemed a little odd, but when you stepped back these paintings hummed and glowed as if they were actually breathing with life.  They were stunning and magical.

Femke Hiemstra, In Thought, graphite on paper, 8 x 10 inches. Courtesy of Copro/Nason

Femke Hiemstra: The Herring’s Hairdo @ Copro/Nason Her paintings and drawings had this authentic old-fashioned feeling that you don’t find in most Magic Realism/Pop Surrealism, and they had just the right mix of childhood fairytale/storybook style and eerie/scary subtext.  I particularly liked the paintings on book covers and graphite drawings on paper.

Penelope Gottlieb, No $ Down, installation view. Courtesy Kim Light/Lightbox

Penelope Gottlieb: No $ Down @ Kim Light/Lightbox Monochrome color-pencil drawings of idyllic suburban homes were matched with coordinating, brightly-painted vintage frames and arranged salon-style on the walls along with a fake fireplace and gray wainscoting to boot.  The cheerful display of real estate dreams juxtaposed with the phony architectural elements seemed particularly poignant as the mortgage industry was ominously imploding and foreclosures escalated.

Rebecca Campbell, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, detail, avocado tree, velvet, glass, bronze, Windex

Rebecca Campbell: Poltergeist @ LA Louver Campbell expertly took on the subject of memory and nostalgia from a particular, personal perspective without sliding into over-sentimentalization.  The highlight of the show was an amazing velvet covered avocado tree populated with Windex-filled glass birds. Its haunting aura was counterbalanced by more quirky aspects in the show like the clock running backwards on the olive-colored wall oven stuffed full with childhood books.

Julie Blackmon, Family Portrait, 2007, archival pigment print, 22 x 22 inches, Edition of 25. Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery.

Julie Blackmon: Domestic Vacations @ Fahey/Klein Gallery These wonderfully humorous fictional photos of family life paradoxically balanced relaxation with chaos and escape with everyday stresses.  I had fun deciphering what just went on in each image from the visual cues and ended up chuckling at every one.

Kaz Oshiro, False Gestures, installation view. Courtesy of Rosamund Felsen Gallery.

Kaz Oshiro: False Gestures @ Rosamund Felsen Gallery Oshiro’s painting/sculpture facsimiles were illusion to perfection. The suitcases and shelves alluded to the disparity between simulation and reality, while the metallic blue panels with faithfully replicated duct tape made evident the tenuous line between realism and abstraction.

Lorser Feitelson, Untitled, 1971, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches. Courtesy Louis Stern Fine Arts.

Lorser Feitelson: Late paintings @ Louis Stern Fine Arts In these paintings, Feitelson’s took his hard-edge, straight-line geometry to another level.  The sensuous curves, curls and undulating ribbons were so sexy.  It’s hard to believe they were painted in the late-60s, early-70s given their immaculate surfaces and contemporary feel.

William Powhida, How to Destroy LA, 2009, graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper, 18 x 15 inches

William Powhida: No One Here Gets Out Alive @ Charlie James Gallery This dead-on skewering of art world insiderness and the bad-boy-artist mayhem of Powhida’s alter ego was effectively tongue-in-cheek but also achingly honest, openly admitting artists’ gripes and egoism as well as worries and self-doubt.  I absolutely loved the way he used the crossed-out word to convey humor.

Zadok Ben-David, Blackfield, 2009, painted stainless steel and sand. Photo: Elizabeth Gilson and Andrew G. Glennon, courtesy of Shoshana Wayne Gallery.

Zadok Ben-David: Blackfield @ Shoshana Wayne Gallery This installation was totally amazing. As you walked into the gallery you saw a sea of tiny, delicately-cut sheet steel botanical shapes coming up from a perfect rectangle of white sand.  They were black, as if charred or dead.  But then, as you walked around to the far side of the gallery you began to see that the back of each minute plant was painted with vibrant, bold colors.  Once you reached the back of the gallery you were faced with a glorious field of flowers, full of joy and life.  Visitors were audibly gasping as they circled around the installation.

Richard Wilson, Town to Town, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 60 inches. Courtesy of Carl Berg Gallery.

Richard Wilson: Rises @ Carl Berg Gallery The perfectly balanced, asymmetrically stacked, rectangular and square canvases had the most absolutely pristine surfaces. Wilson took Donald Judd’s dictum “one surface, one color,” and had some fun with it.  The spot-on color combinations in each grouping covered not only the front of each monochrome canvas, but also rectangular areas along the edges, allowing him to toy with the tropes of geometric Hard-edge painting as well.

Irving Penn, Deep Sea Diver (B), New York, 1951, gelatin silver print, copyright 1951 (renewed 1979) by Conde Nast Publications Ltd., Partial Gift of Irving Penn, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Irving Penn: Small Trades @ Getty Museum Amazingly, Penn’s subjects were both individual and typical.  The attire, trappings and tools of each tradesperson at first seemed obvious and conventional against the plain studio backdrops.  But before you could pigeonhole the sitter, their stark surroundings allowed you to notice clothing details like the wrinkled suit of a harmonica player or the crisp apron and toque of a London chef.  Facial expressions and postures were also telling.  Some seemed like nothing but affectation like the upturned head of a proud undertaker or the contrapposto of a deep-sea diver in full gear.  Others revealed humility and honesty like the tired face of a New York groom clad in worn shoes or the slouching shoulders of a milkman with a heavy milk bottle carrier in hand.  The simple style and elegance of this series of photographs could easily have seemed antithetical to his chosen topic, but Penn’s talent made this tension work.

Give it a Whirl – Thursday, January 14, 2010

3 x 3 @ LA Louver

“3 x 3 (“Three by Three”) celebrates the work of three painters and three sculptors of different generations, backgrounds and artistic approach, who egage in a dialogue with abstraction. Each artist uniquely explores the boundaries of form, color and surface, to question the very nature of how painting or sculpture is defined.”

Sculpture by Richard Deacon, Joel Shapiro and Peter Shelton
Paintings by Imi Knoebel, Robert Mangold and Jason Martin

Also, while you’re there, run upstairs to see Sol LeWitt, Gouache on Paper 1987-2005.

OPENING RECEPTION:  Thursday, January 14, 6-8 pm

LA Louver
45 North Venice Boulevard
Venice, California 90291

January 14 – February 13, 2010

Joel Shapiro, Untitled, 2006, wood and casein, 37 1/4 x 28 1/2 x 21 1/4 inches. Courtesy of LA Louver.

Twitter Reviews – November 2009

Daniel Buren: Rainbow in the Sky (***) Subtle, floating w/ the breeze, constantly changing fluttering flashes of white stripes w/ multi-hues
1:47 PM Nov 13th from txt

Ingres’s Comtesse @NortonSimon (*****) The smooth softness of her face and skin counters her coy, knowing expression.
2:31 PM Nov 13th from txt

Comtesse: The milky cream of her skin contrasts yet harmonizes w/ the crisp, shiny lushness of the red hair ribbon & blue satin dress.
2:37 PM Nov 13th from txt

Scot Heywood @ Frank Lloyd (****) Warm with siennas, yellows and reds to foil the black and white. One shifted panel in each spices it up.
2:58 PM Nov 14th from txt

.@KielJohnson: Publish or Perish @MMooreGallery (****) I like the DYI spirit and deadpan humor. #artLA
3:32 PM Nov 14th from txt

Jeanne Silverthorne @ Shoshana Wayne (****) Things that are a bit off are what makes it work-the impossibly heavy water drop or moth circling light
4:02 PM Nov 14th from txt

Alejandro Gehry @ Robert Berman (**) Bad imitation of Sue Williams slapped over a bad imitation of Hans Hoffmann just equals bad painting.
4:08 PM Nov 14th from txt

Sarah Perry @ Lora Schlesinger (***) Drawings of lunar surface scratched onto chalkboards were lovely, but the dead animals were creepy.
4:18 PM Nov 14th from txt

Ned Evans: Inside the Prism @ William Turner (****) Best Evans paintings I’ve seen in awhile-bleeding acrylics slashed with crisp diagonals.
4:38 PM Nov 14th from txt

Jennifer Steinkamp @ ACME (****) The videos make me feel like I’m spinning and floating underwater along with leaves and petals.
5:07 PM Nov 14th from txt

Kellesimone Waits: Power Plays @ Frank Pictures (**) Rather than subverting gender roles, it just reinforces them. #artLA
6:22 PM Nov 14th from web

Brendan Monroe @ Richard Heller (***) Ambivalent about the paintings but liked the warped atomic-age style suspended sculpture. #artLA
6:25 PM Nov 14th from web

Pagel says Koons’ pntgs seem to suffocate under preposterously long list of sources. 2 bad he gets dazzled by the artisans http://tr.im/FkP2
6:13 PM Nov 19th from tr.im

Jeff Koons @Gagosian (**) Stick to sculpture, Jeff. I haven’t seen a decent painting since the Celebration series. #artLA
2:27 PM Nov 21st from txt

Don’t think that I hate Koons all together, just not this body of work.
2:43 PM Nov 21st from txt

Koons: I don’t mind the factory, artisans, excess, etc. The problem is that the craftsmanship alone is not enough.
2:46 PM Nov 21st from txt

The ideas and composition have to be good too and Koons has failed here.
2:47 PM Nov 21st from txt

Koons: Though the sexuality is more veiled it’s still tasteless. The Courbet cunt shot scribbles were kinda offensive.
2:51 PM Nov 21st from txt

Koons: The references to Twombly doodles and Lichtenstein fake brush strokes and benday dots were hollow winks to the cognoscenti.
2:56 PM Nov 21st from txt

Koons: The only thing I found interesting was an optical illusion of the surface undulating if you got very close to the dots.
2:59 PM Nov 21st from txt

Koons: David Pagel seemed to feel that the perfectly executed artisan work was enough to save the paintings from boredom, but I didn’t.
3:02 PM Nov 21st from txt

Lorser Feitelson: Late paintings @ Louis Stern (*****) So sexy. Hard 2 believe they were painted late 60s early 70s. Love the curves. #artLA
3:19 PM Nov 21st from txt

Groupings @ Manny Silverman (***) Standout–Maxwell Hendler’s Love’s Attire. I want 2 take it home & add it 2 my collex of pink paintings.
3:28 PM Nov 21st from txt

Marilyn Minter @RegenProjects (****) Interesting play between repulsiveness/goo & attractiveness/sparkles within the context of female objectification.
4:00 PM Nov 21st from txt

John M. Miller @ Margo Levin (****) Plays tricks on your eyes. Move & you feel dizzy. Think you see 1 color then it changes as you go by.
4:20 PM Nov 21st from txt

Roy Dowell @ Margo Levin (***) Nice but…besides using mostly hand painted scraps, how is this advancing early Modernist collage? #artLA
4:24 PM Nov 21st from txt

.@livingroomart I am interested in Koons’ take on excess and banality, but I feel he expresses it much better in his sculpture.
5:55 PM Nov 21st from TweetDeck

Koons just can’t seem to get sex right. First he stumbled with the blatant Cicciolina stuff.
5:58 PM Nov 21st from TweetDeck

Koons: Then he missed the mark mingling it with cartoons. Now he tries soft focus and dowsing it w/ art historical references.
6:02 PM Nov 21st from TweetDeck

Koons: No matter how he approaches sexuality, it just comes off as sleazy.
6:03 PM Nov 21st from TweetDeck

.@klightbox I DO like most of Koons’ work. Balloon Dog, Puppy, Basketballs & Hoovers, Rabbit, Jim Beam trains. Just not THESE paintings.
2:01 PM Nov 22nd from TweetDeck

.@klightbox Tracey Emin uses similar imagery but it comes off as personal emotion/desire to be loved. Koons never gets beyond the male gaze.
2:52 PM Nov 22nd from TweetDeck

I can’t believe Chris Miles thinks Koons’ new paintings are “surprisingly fresh.” Check out my comment @LAWeekly: http://tr.im/G9kL
7:06 PM Nov 29th from tr.im

Ned Evans: Inside the Prism @ William Turner

Saburo, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 75 x 51 inches

Mexicola, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 78 x 39 inches

Cremesicle (triptych), acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 80 x72 inches

Chewy, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 39 x 78 inches

William Turner Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave., E-1
Santa Monica, CA 90404

November 7 – December 19, 2009

Twitter Review:
Ned Evans: Inside the Prism @ William Turner (****) Best Evans paintings I’ve seen in awhile-bleeding acrylics slashed with crisp diagonals.
4:38 PM Nov 14th from txt

Scot Heywood: New Paintings @ Frank Lloyd

left: Untitled Blue, Yellow, White, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 67 x 119.5 inches; right: Untitled Sienna, Yellow, Black, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 79.75 x 108.5 inches

left: Untitled Green, Umber, Yellow, 2009; right: Untitled Red, Blue, Yellow, 2008

Untitled Green, Umber, Yellow, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 49.25 inches

Untitled Red, Blue, Yellow, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 79.5 x 72 inches

Untitled Green, Yellow, White, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 49.25 inches

Frank Lloyd Gallery
2525 Michigan Avenue, B5B
Santa Monica, CA 90404

November 12 – December 19, 2009

Twitter Review:
Scot Heywood @ Frank Lloyd (****) Warm with siennas, yellows and reds to foil the black and white. One shifted panel in each spices it up.
2:58 PM Nov 14th from txt

David Allan Peters: Integrity Spiral @ Ruth Bachofner

Ruth Bachofner Gallery
2525 Michigan Avenue #G2
Santa Monica, CA 90404

October 24 – November 21, 2009

Twitter Review:
David Allan Peters @ Ruth Bachofner (***) Maximal layering. Prefer wht/blk/metallic monochromes w/ 1 or 2 carvings better than overall cut pieces.
1:27 PM Oct 25th from TweetDeck

William Powhida: No One Here Gets Out Alive @ Charlie James

Opening reception for William Powhida's "No One Here Gets Out Alive" at Charlie James Gallery

William Powhida, How to Destroy LA, 2009, graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper, 18 x 15 inches

William Powhida, LA Makeover Chart, 2009, graphite, watercolor, and colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches

William Powhida, The Blue Period, 2009, graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper, 18 x 15 inches

William Powhida, smiling, enjoys the reception.

Charlie James Gallery
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012

October 24 – December 5, 2009

Twitter Review:
William Powhida: No One Here Gets Out Alive @ Charlie James (*****) Absolutely love the way he uses the crossed out word to convey humor.
7:58 PM Oct 24th from txt

Natural Artifice @ Torrance Art Musuem

Natural Artifice: David French and Seth Kaufman at Torrance Art Museum

David French, Untitled, 2009, Styrofoam, Fiberglass, auto paint, 22 x 20 x 10 inches

David French, Where Are We Going, 2009, Styrofoam, Fiberglass, auto paint, 43 x 14 x 12 inches

David French, Eden, 2009, Styrofoam, Fiberglass, urethane, auto paint, 23 x 28 x 9 inches

David French, I Believe, 2009, Styrofoam, Fiberglass, auto paint, 68 x 9 x 13 inches

David French, Caligo, 2008, Styrofoam, Fiberglass, auto paint, 22 x 15 x 16 inches

Artist, David French (in black), shakes hands with Eric Smail at the opening reception for Natural Artifice at the Torrance Art Museum. Tim Doyle observes with arms crossed.

Seth Kaufman's sculpture in Natural Artifice at the Torrance Art Museum

Seth Kaufman's sculpture in Natural Artifice at the Torrance Art Museum

Seth Kaufman's sculpture in Natural Artifice at the Torrance Art Museum

Seth Kaufman's sculpture in Natural Artifice at the Torrance Art Museum

Torrance Art Museum
3320 Civic Center Drive
Torrance, CA 90503

September 19 – November 7, 2009

Twitter Review:
Natural Artifice @torranceArt (****) I love Seth Kaufman’s & David French’s sculptures–I’m just not convinced they belong together. #artLA
2:06 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

Twitter Reviews – October 2009

Blum & Poe’s new space is BIG. Upstairs in still a bit raw. Show is a mixed bag. #artLA
7:35 PM Oct 3rd from txt

Blum & Poe: Didn’t care for much of the art except I liked Takashi Murakami & Mark Grotjahn in a small room together. #artLA
7:39 PM Oct 3rd from txt

Blum & Poe: My favorite work in the show was Dave Muller’s long narrow acrylic on paper paintings of record album edges. #artLA
7:42 PM Oct 3rd from txt

Second Nature @hammer_museum (**) Too bad this will be the nucleus of the Hammer’s sculpture collection. #artLA
5:53 PM Oct 9th from TweetDeck

Guess it’s fitting since “an overwhelming number of the artists in Second Nature are students of UCLA sculpture professor Charles Ray”
5:54 PM Oct 9th from TweetDeck

http://twitpic.com/kwjat – Only piece I found interesting was Paul Sietsema’s miniature Rococo Room & only photo I got before the guard intervened.
5:56 PM Oct 9th from TwitPic

Jennifer Vanderpool: A Pocketful of Posies @ One Colorado (**) Disappointed. Too trashy, not enough eye candy. Doesn’t envelope the space.
7:54 PM Oct 9th from txt

Wayne Thiebaud: Sweets & Treets @nortonsimon (***) Love the pink walls. Too bad there’s no paintings–only prints.
8:13 PM Oct 9th from txt

Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting @ PMCA (****) Wow, what lush paint! Food, cityscapes, figures. Love women in swimsuits from 1966.
8:50 PM Oct 9th from txt

Charles Burchfield: Heat Waves in a Swamp @hammer_museum (***) Moody, eerie, gloomy, foreboding. Nature w/ invented embellishments that convey sound, movement or emotion.
7:31 PM Oct 16th from TweetDeck

Burchfield: A few really outstanding early pieces like The Insect Chorus from 1917 in this jam-packed show.
7:34 PM Oct 16th from TweetDeck

Burchfield: I actually found the most interesting work was at the beginning of his point of crisis rather than the late “great” work.
7:38 PM Oct 16th from TweetDeck

Burchfield: One small room contains two similar reworked paintings from 1943–Two Ravines and The Coming of Spring.
7:40 PM Oct 16th from TweetDeck

Burchfield: Both have two streams joining; one in dark shade, the other sunny; one frozen, the other flowing.
7:43 PM Oct 16th from TweetDeck

Burchfield: The two routes depicted at a point where signs of both winter and spring coexist seem to reflect his dilemma.
7:56 PM Oct 16th from TweetDeck

Tools @ACCD (****) Part art, part artifacts, highlights the thingness of tools & man’s ingenuity reaching beyond the limits of his body.
12:56 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

Baker’s Dozen @torranceArt (**) Typical Annual–No theme. No thought either–just 13 of Max’s friends that he finds “interesting”.
2:03 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

Baker’s Dozen: Reading curator’s essay: 3 maybes, 3 seems, 4 perhaps, 1 not sure, 1 not certain, 7 ? marks. Keeping it “real” or “easy” Max?
2:04 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

Natural Artifice @torranceArt (****) I love Seth Kaufman’s & David French’s sculptures–I’m just not convinced they belong together. #artLA
2:06 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

Installations Inside/Out @ Armory (****) Even though not all strictly site specific installation, still a great show celebrating 20 years.
3:39 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

Armory: Don’t miss Pae White’s tapestries of swirling smoke & crinkled mylar & Sarah Perry’s dark room w/ glowing clouds & floating feathers.
3:40 PM Oct 24th from TweetDeck

William Powhida: No One Gets Out Alive @ Charlie James (*****) Absolutely love the way he uses the crossed out word to convey humor.
7:58 PM Oct 24th from txt

David Allan Peters @ Ruth Bachofner (***) Maximal layering. Prefer wht/blk/metallic monochromes w/ 1 or 2 carvings better than overall cut pieces.
1:27 PM Oct 25th from TweetDeck

April Street @ Ruth Bachofner (**) There’s some potential in the paintings w/ the b&w checked circles and swags. The others just look unfinished.
1:29 PM Oct 25th from TweetDeck

Alejandro Diaz @ Happy Lion (**) I was drawn in by the Marfa sign, but ultimately felt the show was too smarty pants/trite jokes for me.
1:43 PM Oct 25th from TweetDeck