Street Art Takes Hold of the Beverly Hills Art Scene at Julien’s Auctions

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Banksy's "I remember when all this was trees" at Julien's Auctions - Photo: Jack Burke
Banksy’s “I remember when all this was trees” at Julien’s Auctions – Photo: Jack Burke

British artist Banksy​’s 2010 Detroit street art “I Remember When All This Was Trees,” sold at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills tonight for $137,500. This sale is just one of many street and contemporary art pieces drawing big crowds at Julien’s as well as participants online and by phone.

Excavated from an abandoned Packard Plant by Detroit’s 555 Gallery, and drawn in Banksy’s stencil technique, the piece that originally graced a cinder-block wall, is now owned by Steven and Laura Dunn. Dunn is the CEO of toy manufacturer Munchkin, Inc. 555 Gallery plans to use the proceeds to rehabilitate a 30,000-square-foot east Detroit warehouse into a multi-use arts space.

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Other Banksy pieces generated interest and substantial sales throughout the evening, but perhaps the bigger story at Julien’s had nothing to do with Banksy’s murals.

Bleep (left) with The Gabba Gallery owner, Jason Ostro (right)
Bleep (left) with The Gabba Gallery owner, Jason Ostro (right)

As the liaison between Julien’s Auctions and consigning curator The Gabba Gallery, located in DTLA’s Westlake neighborhood, gallery owner Jason Ostro brought art in to Julien’s for the third year. “The majority of the artists here this evening I’ve worked with, and I’ve showed them. Gabba Gallery is thrilled that Julien’s Auction House is doing their 4th annual street art auction, and that they auction more and more pieces, year after year,” Ostro says.

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Among the local artists Ostro curated for Julien’s are Wordsmith Jules, Mock Mar, 20, Morley, Christina Angelina, and Louis Carreon. All in all, over 40 LA-based artists contributed to the auction.

“While Banksy is certainly a large draw for the auction, a king of street art with a big world voice, the Los Angeles artists represented here do incredible work, and we’re excited by their participation,” Ostro asserts. He’s “always looking for more consigned and private collection pieces for the gallery, and to shepherd to Julien’s.”

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Ostro has exhibited L.A. area artist Bleep, and was instrumental in bringing his piece “Rabbit Ears” to auction. Consigned as Lot 109,  “Rabbit Ears” is acrylic and oil on canvas, and depicts a large, textured bunny with a television for a head, on whose screen is written ‘More.’ A strong symbol of a conspicuously consumptive culture, “Rabbit Ears” is whimsical, satirical, and pointed. What signal are your rabbit ears pulling in?

rabbit ears

“Having a piece in the show has been insane already,” Bleep says. “Being interviewed, having so much attention paid to the work, the trajectory has just been amazing for me, jaw-dropping, and I’m super grateful to be here.”

Kat Kramer
Kat Kramer

Actress and producer Kat Kramer was at Julien’s to support the artists and the auction. “My father Stanley Kramer and my godmother Katherine Hepburn were huge supporters of the arts. I always come to support Julien’s. If my father and Katherine were alive they would be here,” she said.

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Spicy margaritas, IPAs, hors d’oeuvres, and a buffet of cheese, breads, fruits and vegetables were enjoyed while auction paddles were distributed, and the buzz in the room became palpable.

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Lot 1 began the evening with Shepard Fairey’s “Rise Above First” selling for $21,250.

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Session I concluded September 30th following the preview reception; Sessions II and III will take place on October 1st as more street and contemporary artists go under Julien’s renowned hammer.

Merry Karnowsky Gallery – Mark Whalen – Trapezoid

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What do you see? Rubik’s Cube, geometry class, chess boards, hundreds of cameras trained on hundreds of people, one person, no people at all – the observed and the observer, entwined and alone.

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Geometric forms shape a world of immense order. Patterns create beauty, create conformity. All chaos is about to break loose in this Trapezoid life.

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The Merry Karnowsky Gallery is often a hot-bed of emerging artists, and the exhibition of Mark Whalen’s latest works, “Trapezoid” is no exception. From hand-painted glazed ceramics to acrylic, ink, and gouache on panels, Whalen has constructed a series of personal, intricate worlds.

Meticulously detailed, his ceramics and paintings feel intense,  pristine but pointed introductions to something other-worldly that Whalen is asking the viewer to explore.

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E.T. – take a picture and text it home.  The rest of us can explore this strange and stellar world through October 12th at  170 S. La Brea in Los Angeles.

  • Genie Davis; Photos – Jack Burke

Nick van Woert at Moran Bondaroff Gallery

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“Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In,” Nick Van Woert’s solo exhibition at West Hollywood’s Moran Bonderoff gallery, plays on the Kenny Rogers song of the same title, referencing altered states, the human condition, and the repetitive dance of history.  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” as philosopher George Santyana famously said.

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Or, as Woert’s art viscerally points out, perhaps the past we remember isn’t really what it appeared to be after all.

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Historic Caucasian faces carved on wooden cigar store Indian sculptures; the bombardment by police of a Philadelphia row house in 1985 meticulously miniaturized; a vinyl record – available as a take-home to opening night visitors – recreating the sounds and noises designed as musical torture in the Waco, Texas Branch Dividians stand-off.

All are a part of this wide ranging and well-curated exhibition which pulls viewers off the street and into a world of public events and private perceptions.

Recall, reinvent, and respect.

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Van Woert is originally from Reno, works in Brooklyn, and professes a powerful interest in “the evolution of materials in architecture and art… these days we’re interested in preserving the past, but only visually. There is no material continuity. The materials are more or less insignificant.”

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“Condition,” however, is quite significant. Significantly substantive political statements, significant design and art, significant emotions presented across the installation’s environment. How many gallery exhibits really make you think? It’s not just political landscape, it’s the landscape of people bearing the weight of their politics.

You can check out your condition – and conditioning – through October 10th. Moran Bonderoff is located at 937 N. La Cienega in West Hollywood.

  • Genie Davis, Photos – Jack Burke

Los Angeles Art Association: 4 Solo Powerhouses at Gallery 825

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Teale Hatheway's unique LA vision
Teale Hatheway’s unique LA vision

The show was packed, and rightly so – artists Teale Hatheway, Echo Lew, Marilyn Lowey, and Sasha Raphael Vom Dorp each contributed brilliant, immersive elements to this exhibition.  Each artist’s work creates a separate mini-world within the gallery. Running through October 9th, visitors will see four separate visions of light, shadow, and self.

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Teale Hathaway – Fragmented Realities: City of Dreams

The artist’s work is about memory, grounding, understanding, and experience; with beautifully detailed yet fragmented images.  Hatheway’s self-taught architectonic drawing and the ethereal nature she evokes of even the most common subjects combines the experimental with the investigative, using the often unsung history of Los Angeles architecture to enthrall viewers and advocate for the city’s preservation. The artist describes her subject matter as “a means to ground myself in a tangible environment in which an understanding of the whole is made up of an experience of the parts.”  The LAAA exhibit is made up of free-hanging paintings with layered elements of street lights. It’s a whole glowing city.

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Sasha Vom Dorp – Synesthesia – Inside Sound and Light

Do we hear color? See the sound of light? Vom Dorp suggests we do with her mechanical feedback loop Sound Illuminator which quite literally translates color into sound. Constructed from a salvaged 727-jet nose cowling, rippled patterns and waves let viewers see the sounds they are hearing. While Vom Dorp’s archival pigment prints continue to show, the haunting Sound Illuminator was a unique creation viewable only on opening night. Enter a portal of light and share an otherworldly experience with Vom Dorp.

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Echo Lew – Light in Space

Light drawings etched into photographs. Twenty-eight years of traditional drawing led Lew to this powerful expression of small lights and an open shutter. Printed on canvas and water-color paper, motion is trapped in the realm of light creating an ethereal and delicate pattern that seems to visually buzz like a congregation of bees. The artist says “During an exposure time of approximately one minute, I manipulate lights in front of the camera. Sometimes I invert the positive image to a negative one on a computer but otherwise the Light Drawings are not manipulated.”

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Marilyn Lowey – Dark Side of Her Broom

There’s something magical here. A chimera of light created from eye glass lenses, jewelry wire, and acrylic in Levitation Ashra #1 Mom’s Shadow; projected lights, video of a burial, and more glass lenses take on aspects of an interstellar dimension in Levitation Ashra #2 The Burial. Most striking perhaps are the light curtains, with a thousand eye glass lenses refracting their own vision attached by slip rings. What we see is not necessarily what we get. Moving light and shadow, the unseen mystery of illusion, the fine line between perception and vision.

Slip inside an enlightening experience before the show closes October 9th. Gallery 825 is located at 825 N. La Cienega just shy of Santa Monica Boulevard.

  • Genie Davis;  photos  – Jack Burke