356 Mission – Rebecca Morris, Seth Bogart, and a Whole Lot of Fun

Posted on by Diversions LA

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A couple of confessions here. 356 Mission is one of my favorite galleries in LA. It’s huge at around 12,000 square feet, the work is cutting edge without having the least little bit of attitude around it; last year at this time I got to see “Another Cats Show” there which featured 300 plus artists all depicting my favorite creatures: cats.

So I knew I would love the current exhibits, and I did. I also loved the buffet of vegan food, keg of craft beer, coca-cola, and d.j. tracks in the courtyard strung with white lights and filled with the happiest party you’ve seen in a long time – all art lovers.

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Well, you might’ve missed the great hummus, but you won’t miss the fantastic art. Last Friday’s opening was for Rebecca Morris: “Rose Cut.” Running through November 1 in the main gallery space, these are large, lovely, geometric paintings that rush at the viewer with images that feel like modern tapestries. Morris titled the show after “the big salmon-pink-red colored painting (Untitled #04-15) that is included and some of the paintings that led to it. A rose cut is a particular cut of diamond,  a round half circle divided into equally shaped triangular facets.” Rose colors and rose scent also played a part in her choice of title, and in the delicate quality of these rich and wonderful patterns. “I also love the scent of a rose and am really drawn to perfumes that are rose based…perhaps the lightness/ thinness of the paint handling I use, could communicate an aspect of scent as much as the color relationships might create an attitude.”

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In the downstairs gallery, The Seth Bogart Show holds forth, a fantastic spread of color, sound, media – like an art amusement park gone wonderfully mad.

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Musician and artist Bogart says “It’s based around this new album I’m recording, so I wanted to create a whole world to present it in.  So there’s music videos projected with songs that I’m making, and I wanted it to be more special than seeing a touring band –  I wanted to have someone step into a world I created… kind of like beauty school meets Pee-wee’s Playhouse and very plastic…I like the way it looks and feels,  like a safe place to hang out.” The contained, magical, funky, fabulous world of Bogart runs through Oct. 2nd.

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Head just east of DTLA’s arts district and check out both of these shows. Trust us. Go, go, go.

356 S. Mission Road
Los Angeles

  • Genie Davis; Photos Genie Davis/Jack Burke

Beautiful Bridge: Ode to 6th Street Bridge

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Multi-media art plays homage to the soon-to-be-demolished 6th Street Bridge at Art Share L.A. in the DTLA Arts District. Over 45 artists are participating in this show, which will present a closing reception on Saturday 9/19.

Curated by Dale Youngman and Tanner Blackman, the show is a heady mix of photography, acrylics, watercolors, dioramas, and collage. From rushing flood waters tearing through the viaduct under the bridge, to this iconic landmark’s golden hue in morning light and it’s shadows in growing darkness, the bridge at all hours of the day and all seasons is represented here.

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The bridge has played a part in many television shows, movies, and commercials as well as serving as a silent model for these profoundly talented artists. For over ninety years, this graceful bridge has stood sentinel, its arches surfing the sky, its buttresses delicately poised over the containment of the LA River. Sadly, the landmark architecture has to go – its cement infrastructure is crumbling due to alkali-silica reaction, a cement destroying disease that would likely cause the bridge to collapse in an earthquake.  While there is no way to repair it – the landmark’s memory and form live on through these artworks.

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The opening reception buzzed with excitement about the art, the bridge itself, the new bridge. Artist Alex Schaefer burned one of his paintings about the bridge, sacrificing his work as the bridge itself is being sacrificed. Yes, all things, even bridges and art are ephemeral – it’s time to enjoy them, experience them, savor them, and cross them while we can. Everyday we’re burning bridges with the past and setting out to ignite the future. “Bridge” the gap –  see this show.

Artists exhibiting include Suzi Moon, Dwora Fried, Lisa Talbot, Osceola Refetoff, Andre Miripolsky, Diane Pirie, Teale Hatheway, and many others weigh in on the bridge that once hosted Terminator 2 and Grease. Connecting Boyle Heights to DTLA’s arts district, the bridge was built in 1932.  A new bridge will take its place, designed by architect Michael Maltzan, and there will be bike ramps, stairs, six arches, and a new ability to explore the river beneath its arches. But for now, its time to fete the old before bringing in the new.

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Don’t miss the final weekend for this tribute, 7-9 pm. Saturday, September 19th. Weekday gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 1-6.  Art Share L.A. is located at 801 E. 4th Place, Los Angeles, Calif.

Melissa Richardson Banks – Diane Behrens – Daniel Bernstein – Kevin Break – Qathryn Brehm – Bruce Cockerill – David P. Cooke – Diane Pirie Cockerill – Toby Corbett – Jean Christophe Dick – Kessia Embry – Margery Epstein – Teresa Flowers – Dwora Fried –Fernando Galvez – Carole Garland – Tom Garner – Patrick Haemmerlein – Teale Hatheway – Jett Jackson –  Fred Hoerr – Mark Indig –Tom Lamb – Tod Lychkoff – Rick Mendoza – Ted Meyer – Andre Miripolsky – Suzi Moon – Harry Nickelson – David Palmer – Francisco Palomares – Svetlana Penrose – Osceola Refetoff – Richard Reiner – Michelle Robinson – Rick Robinson – Alex Schaefer – Roderick Smith – Carol Cirillo Stanley – Jim Stern – Lisa Talbot – Sean Sepehr Talebi – Maureen Van Leeuwen Haldeman – Richard Willson –Michael Wisnieux and Jerico Woggon.

  • Story/Photos – Genie Davis

Miriam Wosk – Touch of the Hand at LAM Gallery

Posted on by Diversions LA

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In LA? Run, don’t walk to LAM Gallery for the stunning exhibit of the estate of the late Miriam Wosk. The pieces are for the most part writ large, floral, a kaleidoscope that spins the world into a rich, forested fantasia. In 2007, the artist described her work as a discovery of “a certain order in the chaos of life.” She termed her work both spiritual and surreal., calling her paintings “symbolically autobiographical…an investigation into the patterns of human experience and perception.” Searching for a balance between spontaneity and design, the artist touches on “the sacred and the mundane, life and death.” Poignantly, as the artist is no longer with us, her work is bursting with life, an eternal experience that transcends her own death. In many of her pieces, the viewer senses a rift between this world and the next, this planet and another.

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Wosk’s “Animus” is branches, horn, and painted metallic foils on a mannequin. What is the creature, frozen here, waiting to writhe into life?

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“The Mystic Flower of the Soul” is acrylic and mixed media on panel. Jewels, a star-fish – a sensual feast for the eyes.

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“The Grotto” is mixed media, acrylic, and collaged paper on canvas. Starfish, cactus spines, coral, glitter, beads are all a part of this piece, which looks like night beneath the sea, or a surreal sky the artist surfed.

Perhaps it’s the artist’s use of three dimensional materials, but the paintings transport the viewer to a place of magic, of bliss.

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“It Flows Everywhere Out of Itself” – with radiance. Paper collage with crystals embedded, the other worldly presence takes the viewer into the flowered world from which it flowed. Below,  “What in the World” — paper, crystals, threads, mixed media on black gessoed rice paper. An imploded planet, the inside of a flower, the dissection of the universe.

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Watercolors and glitter on paper – individually a Rorschach test for the senses, collectively, creatures from a different world, astrology symbols fused with sea life.

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This piece below  is a tapestry, woven with metallic threads and Swarovski crystals. It could’ve been created in a 12th century castle, or in a future not yet realized. “Big Red Tapestry” is just that. Large and aflame.

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Wosk takes on the past, an unknown future, a present bright with secret spaces and wondrous places. This her elegy and her tribute. A collection of spirits on canvas, panel, tapestry, and paper.

LAM Gallery is located at 913 N. Highland in LA on the edge of Hollywood. Or perhaps, in this case, on the edge of this universe and another.

  • Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke

Via Negativa at South Bay Contemporary

Posted on by Diversions LA
Via Negativa - Photos by Jack Burke
Via Negativa – Photos by Jack Burke

South Bay Contemporary in San Pedro has a fascinating new exhibit running through October 10th. Via Negativa: The Transcendence of the unReal explores the idea of clarifying religious experience and language through knowledge of what God is not, rather than what He is. Visually and texturally stunning, the theme behind the show adds heft to works that individually show substantial perceptive power.

Via Negativa - South Bay Contemporary - Photos by Jack Burke
Via Negativa – South Bay Contemporary – Photos by Jack Burke

Guest curated by the Cerritos College Art Gallery,  curator James MacDevitt, avoids a direct depiction of what is unknowable, instead presenting a swirling enigma in lieu of the concrete world. While the entire exhibition bristles with visual excitement, some standouts include untitled wood and neon pieces by Lisa Schulte, Shannon Willis’ fascinating sculpture created with ping pong balls and LED colored light strips, “Spiritual Aspiration,’ the single channel video “Wind and Water Study’ by David O’Brien,  and the spidery wires of Christopher Pate’s “Emergent Action.”

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MacDevitt explains the roots of the show. “When offered a space as guest curator here, I decided to extend the Cerritos show I curated with an exhibit that, like the show there, also attempts to know and to understand the unknowable.” At Cerritos, MacDevitt says the exhibition “tried to visualize big data, the artists worked with ideas like mystic diagrams. Here we are looking at apophatic theology – knowing something by what it’s not. The artists use issues of tangential stimulation and play around with animate objects. Ther’s a vitalist energy that expresses both science and religion without being dogmatic about one or another. Both, after all, are attempts to know. They are just different strategies for knowing.”

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Perhaps, where the intersection of science and religion meet, art is created. Judge for yourselves, and enjoy an exhibit that makes you think about deep questions, but is also quite a lot of fun.

South Bay Contemporary is located at 401 Mesa Street, 3rd floor, in San Pedro.

  • Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke