New David Hockney & Alison Saar Works At L.A. Louver!

There was a packed house at the L.A. Louver last night for the opening of David Hockney: Something New In Painting (and Photography) [And even Printing] ... Continued as well as a new sculpture from Alison Saar almost exactly a year after their dual show this time last year. The crowd was abuzz with anticipation to see the new work from one of the most celebrated living artists in the world, but certainly in Los Angeles, which is almost always the star of Hockney's work. Bright colors and swimming pools made his name, and we were all here to see the latest.

It was almost intimidating to arrive to see the absolute longest line to get in I've ever seen stretching down Venice Boulevard all the way to Speedway. Indeed, it was too much for some who chose to sit it out at James Beach or the Canal Club rather than wait in line, but that's too bad because the line moved very quickly, and the reward was great once inside the door of the Louver.

The first floor was all Hockney, with large scale murals depicting "photographic drawings" of people in chairs taking in the more familiar, colorful works from Hockney. The drawings of mostly men were a little creepy to me, but it's cool to see such a range from someone so known for the almost tropical hues of his beautiful paintings of the great and sunny outdoors.

I've loved the Australian artist, Ken Done, since I was a little kid, and several of the bright new works from Hockney reminded me of those gorgeous visuals from the hemisphere to our south.

This will be a show worth revisiting, as there was really no way to take it all in with so many people crammed in there to see and be on the Art Scene. You couldn't take two steps without running into a longtime Venetian art lover, and that's really the best part of these show openings. That, and the confirmation that ART is still very much alive and well in our fair town. I overheard a girl in line saying in her Millennial drawl, "It's smart that they're putting art galleries in Venice now, there's so much money here." I had to step in and let her know that this venerable gallery has been here in Venice since 1975 ... and that Venice has always been about art, money or none. And always will be, if we the People have anything to say about it. And we do.

The upstairs gallery featured more of the bright works, and a series of drawings of Hockney friends, from Ed Sheeran to this lady that I thought was Jane Goodall, but was really a woman called Erica Bolton.

I loved the piece called The Walk To The Studio, 2018, as it features the wonderful flora and fauna outside of Hockney's Hollywood Hills studio. Lucky fella!

In the Skyroom outdoor galley, there was the new sculpture from Alison Saar called Grow'd, depicting one of her Topsy characters based on the girl in Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is pure power, and the now grown girl/woman commanded the room beautifully. I love Saar's work, and I'm not alone, because there was a hushed and reverent aura over the room from everyone who entered. The importance of good art cannot be understated.

What a great show! And night - as the party continued on to James Beach, the Venice Art Crawl mixer at Canal Club, and then an extra fun whiskey tasting party over at The Stronghold. This was one of those Venice nights that make all the rest of the things going on here all the way worth it. Kind of like standing in the line to get into this show ... there's hassles, sure ... but the art and community you get once you're here is WHY you're here. I love you, Venice. I love you, Art. Thank you!

David Hockney Something New in Painting (and Photography) [And even Printing] 
Alison Saar : Grow'd
L.A. Louver
Venice
February 7 - March 23, 2019

New Shows At LA Louver - Starring Matisse

I hadn't been to an opening at the L.A. Louver for a while, so it was lovely to head over there last night and see both new art and a bunch of familiar faces to wish a "Happy New Year" to (I'll say it until I see you the first time in it). I love it when everyone comes out in the name of art.

The ground floor held a group show called "Elemental" that featured sculptures by a variety of diverse artists from Carl Andre to Yoko Ono, all in materials that were in some form raw - elemental. Richard Deacon's Siamese Metal #6, 2012 was next to Peter Alexander's I Remember When It Was All Orange Groves that conjured no pastoral landscape that I could tell. Art. It was all rather cold, dark, and metallic ... reminding me a bit of the Trump's Christmas decorations.

A lot of people packed in to check it all out, and it was a mix of longtime Venetians and dudes that probably rode in on Bird scooters (Please don't. They make you look like SUCH tools. Thanks.). Art lovers and scenesters congregated in the main room around a piece by Richard Long called Trastevere Spring Line, 2012.

The piece I liked the most downstairs was Sundog by Peter Shelton, mainly because I had recently seen a magical rainbow sundog in the sky back in Minnesota, and this brought back a fond memory. All reactions to art are personal, if you think about it ... and sometimes you really have to search for that connection ...

... as in the altered fridge that Josh Callaghan titled Monument To World Peace made one wonder just how a household appliance could accomplish such a thing, but kudos for trying.

The upstairs skyroom held more sculptures, centered around a little ceramic dude by Matt Wedel that was fun and whimsical, and it gave one a breath of fresh air while checking it out.

The best in show/s was a wonderful display of art by Henri Matisse, showing works on paper from 1913 - 1948.  The drawing, etchings, and lithographs were almost all female, and almost all nude, and all highly covetous (and they're all for sale!). They're all so simple and sultry, conjuring up what felt like an easier, breezier time. La Sieste, 1938 was particularly dreamy, and kept distracting me from all of the conversation happening around.

These shows are all on display until March 3, and it's always a lovely addition to any day to take in the art at L.A. Louver, whatever they are showing. Venice is nothing without its art.

Matthew Heller - Grand Theft Autocorrect

Sometimes a lot of fun things happen in Venice at once, and sometimes that means you have to attend an art opening still completely covered in glitter from participating in the Mardi Gras Parade down the Boardwalk earlier in the day. Which is fine, because the art opening was also in Venice, and the people understand.

The show opening was Matthew Heller's Grand Theft Autocorrect at the great gallery space that doesn't seem to have a name on Main and San Juan. Heller is a friend's cousin and another friend's favorite artist, so I was there, glitter be damned.

I've always been very attracted to art with words in it (what is that called, anyway?), so Heller's new work did not disappoint. In fact, it was almost all words, made even better by having many of the pieces filled with lyrics from favorite songs like John Denver's "Annie's Song" or David Bowie's "Life On Mars" (done before he died, so not on the bandwagon).

Some of the works are made from what looks like masking tape spelling out words ...

Some pieces feel like you're snooping on someone's love letter writing, someone that's really, really good at inducing swoons through words ... Poems as visual art. Poems that kind of remind of Kerouac at times, high praise for me, indeed.

There were a lot of cool people at the opening, made cooler by the fact that no one blinked an eye at the  Glitterbomb talking to them, in fact, some wondered where they could get some for themselves. Right on.

Heller's work contains a whole lot of emotion in pretty minimalist pieces, which I think is the mark of a really good and effective contemporary artist. Simplicity that packs a wallop.

In chatting with Heller, I found that he couldn't be nicer or more open to talking about his work, another refreshing element in his artistic profile, especially with so many artists going up their own ass once anointed as chosen by the Art World. Not Heller. Warm, approachable, smart, and very clearly talented.

I think my favorite piece was this one that felt exactly just right to be shown in Venice:

Demand optimism! I love it.

Matthew Heller's Grand Theft Autocorrect is on view now through February 28 at 201 San Juan.

Ollie - The Skate Art Of Oliver Bell

I love art and I love the surf and skate culture, so it was with true excitement and anticipation that I went to see Ollie, the new show by Oliver Bell at the ETC Art Gallery (Every. Thing. Changes.) in the old Zephyr Surf shop space at 2009 Main Street in Santa Monica. This is a great example of the new and old schools of both art and skating coming together, as the Bell is the son of prolific Venice artist, Larry Bell, and the space where the show is being held used to house the most legendary of all surf and skate shops in Zephyr.

Bell was born and raised in New Mexico, but  from the age of six weeks visited Venice each year with his father, and loved it. He was always more into skating than art, and his annual trips to Venice were more than enough to seal that deal, with skate icons and legendary skate spots were everywhere. "To me, skating in Venice was heaven, even with piss on the ground." Bell loved it all.

Back in New Mexico, Bell and his boys were skater outlaws, and as all skaters do, they made videos of themselves skating. Bell got really good at them, and soon was going to school for video production at Santa Barbara Community College. Bell's "Skating just to skate" led to creating skate videos for others. Though Bell had kind of avoided the art world due to it being his Father's realm, he soon found himself making video projects for art galleries, and the art world liked what he was doing.

In 2013, Bell got an email out of the blue inviting him to participate in the Robert Rauschenberg Residency for six weeks in Captiva, Florida. This was huge for Bell, but also for his family, as Rauschenberg had been a mentor and a friend to the Bells, and he was now providing an opportunity for Bell's artwork to grow. Bell said it was maybe like only the second time he'd ever seen his Mother tear up, so he knew it was a big deal, and he knew that he was going to make the most of his time in Captiva.

Bell drove to Florida from New Mexico, and upon his arrival at sunset, he saw the green flash as the sun set in the ocean, and he knew that to be a particularly great omen. The program in Florida helped Bell grow enormously, both as a man, and as an artist. He was the only one of the ten artists in residence who didn't already have "a thing", like a set kind of art or way of expression, so he was more free to explore and see what happened. "It was a dream come true," says Bell of his time in Captiva. His Dad sent out a bunch of art supplies, and Bell just got to work using any and everything, from watercolors to oil to photographs to whatever. The namesake work in the show is called "Ollie" and is an image created by Bell actually rolling his skateboard through ink across paper while doing an Ollie as his victory lap for the program. This piece was done the very last night of his residency at the Rauschenberg Foundation, and set him on his way.

ETC Art Gallery has been open in the Dogtown Realty offices for the last year, and curators Leslie Heinze and Jeremy Ryan have created a home for local artists, often from the surf and skate genre that the landmark space helped to originate. Thus, it's fitting that they would be the ones to host Bell's first solo show in the area.

Photographs, paintings, video installations and mixed media make up the show that clearly reflects Bell's true love of skateboarding. "It's like when I opened a skate magazine as a kid and it blew my mind, that's how I feel about skateboarding and art ... you can always blow your mind."

Bell took a photo of a mural that he loved of the Venice skate pit in 1999 when he was 16 years old. He recently found out the mural had been done by street artist Mear One, and the full circle was completed when Mear One came to his art opening and saw that long ago photo of his mural. Perfect.

My favorite piece in the show is an homage to his inspirations and skating, a board filled with photographs, skate decks (one colored by his baby nephew), and other ephemera all depicting a life of skating and art.

Another great photograph is called "Burlesque" ...

and I'll let Bell's caption describe why.

Classic. And true, in my experience.

We talked about Venice, with Bell saying about recent changes, "Change is both good and bad, but it's a huge bummer to see people being displace by money ... I love that skateboarding is embraced, though I liked it better when we were outlaws ... now we're all good guys with art shows." That's pretty true, as is the fact that "People like Block at Venice Originals and artists like my Pops are still keeping Venice, Venice." ... And we need them now more than ever, as we do shows like this that show our both our history and a way of making the future still be cool.

Asked if Bell wanted to add anything to his story, he shrugged and simply said, "I love Venice dearly."

And that's why you will love this show, and the art of Oliver Bell.

Ollie is up through December 5th
ETC Art Gallery
2009 Main Street
Santa Monica

Paris Photo At Paramount Studios

When it's breezy at the beach, you come up with field trips. Sunday's excursion was to Hollywood to check out the Paris Photo exhibit taking place at Paramount Studios. As my brother, Paul, is one of this town's very best photographers, we thought we'd go take a gander at some of the work by his peers.

It was a gorgeous day, and the show was a big, sprawling affair so you got a chance to be outside strolling from booth to booth, so you didn't have to feel guilty about being indoors.

Sprawling, because this exhibition hosts 80 galleries from 17 countries around the world. There's so many photographs to see that it's a bit overwhelming (especially when you had to keep an eye on the clock to not miss a second of the Minnesota/Chicago hockey game). We did not nearly see it all.

The huge sound stages were set up like a convention center, with each gallery having a booth to display their artists' works.

The New York backlot streets had all their storefronts filled with galleries, some so tiny that lines formed in front while one or two people at a time looked inside.

There seems to be a trend recently in photography where the subjects are blurry or out of focus on purpose. I don't love it. I'm always a sucker for an ocean photo though, and there were quite a few of those to choose from, so I'm fairly confident I'm not alone there.

With all the great (and not so great) photography to look at, I'd have to say the people watching was even better.

The trend among ladies was big hats and rompers, or as Paul put it, "There's a lot of '80s "Holiday" Madonna here." He speaks the truth.

There were so many hipsters in the place that Paul also cracked, "How did the Hipster drown?" I didn't know. "He fell into the mainstream." BAM! And it was happening before our very eyes.

The good spots to do this people watching from were the various bars set up around the lot, so you didn't have to be thirsty - or sober - while you checked it all out. There were also, of course, the ubiquitous food trucks that now seem to be a requirement of any larger scale event. Because it's so fun to stand in long lines to eat food off of a truck. I guess. We passed.

There were also spots for the photographic book people, well represented by the Taschens, etal ... The Rolling Stone photos were cool, but nothing that you haven't seen before. That was the thing with this show, was it didn't really feel like anything you hadn't seen before.

With SO many fine photographers in the world - and now everyone can be one with their Iphone cameras - you really do have to figure out some way to distinguish your work from all the rest.

I liked how this person turned their nudes into a little house of film.

I liked the sentiment on this photo book.

I was a total sucker for the beach photos by David Alan Harvey.

Frankly, I spent a lot of the time thinking my brother's work needed to be there. I'm definitely biased, but I also know what's good, and Paul Gronner Photography should really be featured in there next year, Gallery Owners. You'd be cleaning up, from what I saw.

That was seconded by the friends we'd bump into along the way, who confirmed that sentiment, unprompted. As the clock was ticking, we did one last lap, which was cool, because we turned the corner to see skater/artist Ed Templeton sitting there signing his art book. Cool.

Though it was tempting to take a seat in the sunshine outside the Parisian looking cafe, we had to split. I know now that a couple hours is not sufficient to take all this in, so will plan accordingly next time ... and hope to maybe be sitting there myself, helping to share Paul's work.

It was inspiring to once again see a whole bunch of people out and about in the name of art (and maybe just a little bit about being seen) on a sunny Sunday. Thanks for the good time, Paris Photo!