The Art of Exotic Dance – Photographer Elizabeth Waterman Explores the World of Female Strippers

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You may never have considered strippers and exotic dancers as subjects of fine art photography. But Elizabeth Waterman did with her MONEYGAME project, and viewers are the richer for it.

The project began last year with a book of these photographs. Waterman spent five years of Saturday nights in the strip clubs of Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and New Orleans, capturing uniquely personal photographic images of the women earning a living there. From arraying themselves in glitzy performance attire to climbing the pole, and counting their dollar tips at closing time, she captures both the strenuousness of this work and the agility it requires, a combination of competitive athletics and charismatic performing styles.

Now, images are on view at ArtBarLA in Mar Vista, with a closing event set for Sunday ,August the 14th, and more exhibitions planned through 2023 in London at BOOGIE-WALL, in the fall, and at Boston’s Howard Yezerski Gallery next spring, among other locations.

Beautifully lit and elegantly sinuous,  whether in vibrant color or pristine noir black and white, the photographs are both art and activism. Waterman has used the images to help support  LA strippers who are currently on strike in the local area. A picket line at North Hollywood’s Star Garden Topless Dive Bar is in its fourth month, with the performers locked out for speaking up about safety issues, working conditions, an attempt to unionize the club. If they succeed at realizing their demands, it would be a very needed first in this country. The often elaborately costumed picket line has started the Stripper Action Fund to cover their basic needs, and Waterman will be donating a portion of the proceeds from print sales of her work on the 14th, to support the Stripper Action Fund.

When MONEYGAME itself opened last month, one of Waterman’s subjects and one of the strikers, performed and spoke about the strike’s goals. At the August 14th closing event, strip performer Tess, also on strike, will participate in a short Q & A about it, and perform a pole dance.

 

Along with supporting the laudable goals of the stripper’s strike, attending the closing exhibition will garner a look at the intimate look at stripper life that Waterman reveals. The intimacy she depicts was hard won, after months of struggling to access clubs to shoot her images and working to establish genuine relationships with the dancers. Saying that she herself has been changed by the experience she notes, “I’ve taken on some of their audacity.” She shoots in a bold, highly cinematic and narrative style, engaging both her viewers and subjects with a sense of immediacy through her fluid style.

Recasting the women’s work through a feminine perspective allows viewers to see stripping and exotic dancing as a rigorous job, one that requires skill and grace, as well as the grit to endure the often-fraught setting of performing and cultural mores about the job. Waterman’s gaze is both nuanced and relatable, celebrating the humanity and commitment to craft that the dancers share in their work and to their separate personal lives and future plans.

Curated by Juri Koll, founder of the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art, the exhibition includes photographs taken from the book, and others that have not been seen previously. The images, shot primarily on 35mm and 120mm film, capture both the skill and effort of performing, and the societal position of the performers. One could easily say that despite the skill required in their work, the dancers do not receive the reverence bestowed upon those performing classical ballet, nor as respectful an audience.

The photographer’s beautifully realized exhibition photographs, and those in her coffee-table book MONEYGAME, published last year from XYZ Books, reveal a profession, the lives behind it, and their unique challenges, all with a genuine beauty in presentation. A very limited quantity of the book will be available for collectors who purchase prints at the exhibition.

Devoted to her subject and the complexities and nuances of this type of “women’s work,” the Los Angeles-based Waterman plans to continue photographing strippers and exotic dancers, the better to support them in their efforts for better working conditions.

ArtBarLA gallery and stage is located at 12017 Venice Blvd., on the west side.

  • Genie Davis; photos probided by the artist

Hagop Najarian Styles Up

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Styles change but art remains. For Hagop Najarian,  his move from figurative to abstract to a more hybrid body of work is all about vibrant color and a dancing morph of figurative form into geometric abstracts. While his current body of work on display in his Bendix Building studio is just such a choreography, the change really showed itself in a December 2021 exhibition at Launch gallery.

“Home Turf at Launch LA was a great opportunity for me to synthesize a lot of the ideas that I have been working with for the past decade. Home Turf meant going back to my art making roots and expanding on the formal and conceptual aspects as they relate to the work. Incorporating my technical advancements with my art historical influences. A synthesis of my visual DNA,” Najarian says.

While he began his art career painting more realistic figurative narratives for decades, in 2014, he decided to “not paint imagery, but study color, light, composition and application of paint through the format of abstraction. I think that now the synthesis happens in my current work because of the mark making and gestural forms that happened in my abstract work would almost always relate to the formal things I do when painting the figure: the curve and overlap of forms, the division of space by light and color.” He adds “With the abstract work, I specifically focused on color and sound. I made direct connections to volume, speed, texture, flow and fracture using different musical genres of Classical, Jazz, Punk, Reggae and how they translated to the emotional impact of color.”

Najarian is also a musician, finding painting and music somewhat interchangeable influences. His work at the Launch exhibition was created during the quarantined portion of our ongoing pandemic, a dark time indeed, when he says he “hoped to bring some optimism to the viewer by having the figures supporting each other in a composition made of a fractured environment. The color in the painting actually started from a trip to Palm Springs where those mesmerizing sunsets happen that glow with blue violet/ orange symphonies. I loved the tranquility of that peaceful nature setting as a backdrop to the crumbling human interaction. As the painting progressed, I enjoyed watching the colors and images transform and purposefully using gray as my unifying element.”

Those colors, combined with his palpable joy in drawing and painting his figuartive naratives define a large portion of his work, but so does “allowing myself to use the lessons of abstraction and emotive color from previous abstract paintings as an environment for the figures.”

His loved for painters such as Giotto and Michelangelo is also embedded in his work, for which his process is to “make many drawings and gouache paintings to provide variations of the outcome. I will have a theme or idea on what I want to say, but the paintings are live activities for me. I allow the structural changes and developments to determine the final outcome. So, I may have the main composition in mind, but I will keep moving things around on the canvas with each painting session until it feels done.”

According to Najarian “The Home Turf series really opened new doors to my visual vocabulary and continues to fuel the work that I am making now.”

The artist is also currently an integral part of three art collectives: Durden and Ray, Museum Adjacent, and High Beams. From community and opportunity to inspiration for installation and performance based work, Najarian keeps busy. “I curated three shows in 2020 with Durden and Ray which were all amazing experiences through a time of pandemic. Cautious Optimism I co- curated with Brian Thomas Jones and Curtis Stage , which invited artists that were making work through the pandemic to keep art alive. During the summer when the gallery was at a dry spell, we were fortunate that the members of Durden and Ray allowed us to curate a fundraiser show for the artists that lost their studios and life’s work in fire that destroyed the Little Tokyo Arts Complex. With the invaluable help of Stephanie Sheerwood, Katie Shanks and Noel Madrid, we hosted a three day fundraiser in the Durden and Ray gallery, generating over $12,000 in sales that went directly to the artists from the Little Tokyo Arts Complex.”

And then there was High Beams #3 Laser Snake held in the Bendix parking lot, where he says “I collaborated on ‘Visual and Musical DNA’ with my daughter playing live music, while my two fellow artists Tom Dunn from Durden and Ray and Surge Witron from Museum Adjacent painted live on a clear vinyl canvas in front of us until it filled up with imagery during our performance.”

More recent was High Beams #5 Night Moves rooftop event at the Bendix building, for which Museum Adjacent participated with an 8 x 8 foot free-standing wall that was a ”ZOOM Meeting.” And for the Carl Baratta, Max Presneil, and David Wiesenfeld helmed B-LA Connect, just last month, Najarian co-curated an exhibition on the 6th floor as a pop-up.

He says he most wants people to know that he is, above all else, “a story teller, a communicator, a humanist. At best we all want our work to be a true reflection of who we are. I hope that viewers who see the work and don’t know me can get a sense of my interests in color, joy, my humor and celebrating life. I think that viewers who do know me would say that I am in the work.”

Balancing his visual art with his music is important to Najarian, who describes the two types of art in this way: “Painting in the studio is a private act that we share with the public when we hang it on a wall. As a musician, I love composing and recording music, but playing it live is the most validating confirmation, which is very hard to do in painting. So the live act of painting becomes the recorder for the performance that we share with the public. I think I am at a place where the work is at a good balance for me of my love of music making and art making.”

Using color to amplify the emotional impact of his narrative, he says that regardless of whether the work is figurative or abstract, “It is that element of surprise and live painting that I enjoy most…our sense of memory, our history and life experiences are always visible in our work. As an Armenian immigrant growing up in La Mirada, the colors, smells and sounds from my house made an impactful foundation on me that I still see every time I start a painting. We are who we are thanks to our youth.”

Above image courtesty of Leah Shane Dixon; Brand exhibition

Currently, you can view some of Najarian’s prolific works at the group exhibition Abstract Generations at the Brand Library in Glendale.

  • Genie Davis; photo images, Genie Davis, except as noted 

Susan Spector Offers Words of Wisdom

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Susan Spector’s Sticks/Stones, which just closed at TAG Gallery, is a delightful collection of text-based work filled with wit and exuberance.

Simple painted figures are featured with phrases that are inspired by a question she asked during the COVID pandemic lockdown. That question being “What is a phrase from your past that has stayed with you forever?” She was still soliciting responses on Post-It Notes at the gallery – which we can hope leads to a part two for this smart work.

It isn’t just an illustrated reproduction of these phrases that Spector is after here. Rather, she has gathered and compiled ideas that are intrinsic to our way of life, refining and exploring social issues, mental health, cultural mores. The exhibition also touches upon the way we each speak to ourselves,  and the ways in which society encourages specific forms of self-talk.

From loving advice to harsher words, the collection both charms and rivets, exposes and encourages.  The work is a significant departure from the artist’s past abstract figuration. These are simple, easy to see visualizations accompanied by text that punches both a visual palette and an emotional one.  Despite deceptive simplicity, this crowdsourced, text-based art is presented in a variety of visual ways.

Simple, heartfelt phrases such as “I matter,” “I am Enough,” and “I am at peace with who I am,” are presented on a solid colored background. The black type of the words, created in a variety of different type-faces including a cursive flourish on some words, is presented on a layer of gold leaf overlaid on the solid colored background. The viewer’s impression is that these words are especially valuable, and should be taken to heart.

Other phrases are accompanied by her unique, yet simple illustrations – a curly haired individual, holding a red heart against an outlined chest features text at the bottom of the image that reads “Always come from love not fear.” While most of the words are in black type outlined in white, the word “love” is outlined in red to match that heart; the word “fear” is simply written in black.

There are hilarious images too, including one of a screaming red face is matched with “Caution! I’m in retrograde,” highly appropros for the conclusion of a long Mercury retro just ending as the exhibition was viewed.  A female figure, chest proudly displayed, stomach sucked in, is accompanied by bold text which reads “Tits out” in pink, and “Belly in” indicated in blue, both with arrows pointing to the way in which the body should be positioned.

 

“Spend it foolishly” looks as delightful as the advice written in thick silver letters. Here, a bent-figured grandma reaches to hand two eager children dollar bills stacked in both her hands.

Nearby, a blue-skirted, wide-eyed figure perches demurely on a chair while pink letters spell out “Be A Lady” in a long line beside her,  an invisible, internalized authoritarian instructing her behavior.

Precariously balanced items plugged into a wall socket are the accompaniment to “Don’t Do Anything Stupid,” written simply in black.  In another work, a large figure points to a screen which smaller audience-member figures look up to view.  On the screen are written “3 Rules: Show Up, Speak Your Truth, Don’t Die Wondering.” Meanwhile, an aggreived looking stick figure is accompanied by a text bubble reading “Before you decide you’re depressed, make sure you’re not surrounded by a bunch of assholes.” And indeed, in close proximity all around her are what appear to be small outlines of just that – literal assholes.

 

One of the most visually beautiful works is a primarily black on black work. Written against a dense black sky, the words “It’s always darkest before the dawn” are just discernable over a gorgeous rising line of pink, orange, and gold sunlight.

Additionally fascinating were the Post-It’s added by viewers on the wall next to Spector’s work at TAG. There was “Why can’t you be more like your cousin,” next to the excellent advice “Don’t wait for everything to be okay to be happy.”  “Life is a bitch, “Brush your teeth,” and “Nobody’s Perfect” nestled close to “Take a long walk on a short pier.”

Instead, take a long look at Spector’s work, and enjoy.

Along with this exhibition, fine solo shows by David Klein, Justin Prough, and Skut were also on display, but that’s a different story.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

 

Oceans Has High Tide Appeal – Shana Mabari at Porch Gallery in Ojai

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Running through May 23rd at Porch Gallery in Ojai, Shana Mabari’s new Oceans solo exhibition glows and shimmers like sun on the sea. Mabari previously presented artwork at the gallery that resulted from her NASA SOFIA space mission; the current exhibition is an outgrowth of her residency aboard Sea Shepherd Global off the coast of Africa.

Referencing the horizon, and its visually magical fusion with the sky, or depicting luminous sculptures evoking coral, her work evokes the light and ambiance of the sea, and its eliptical calling to humankind.

Mabari is the first artist-in-residence aboard on a Sea Shepherd Global maritime mission. The direct-action ocean conservation organization brought the artist on a five-day sailing off the west coast of Africa, in a clandestine effort to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in the waters of Benin. The mission resulted in the arrest of of an illegally fishing trawler; and brought the inspiration for Oceans. 

Mabari’s ethereally lovely sculptural works are created as two separate series within the exhibition. There are elongated cylinders of the  “Korāl” sculptures, and her circular “Horizōn” pieces. Created from all acrylic material,  the “Korāl” installation contains over 60 free-standing sculptures beteween 7″ and 14″ tall, in varied colors that range through a rainbow spectrum of red, blue, violet, yellow, and orange. These works were not only inspired by coral reefs, but positioned for exhibition as such as well, highlighting awareness of the coral reef devastation throughout the oceans, as well as their beauty underwater.

Her sculptural works in “Horizon” are wall-mounted. Eight, 15″ disks each contain a horizon line that recalls the meeting of sea and sky, and both that line’s call of exploration, and its use as a measurement tool by early mathematicians and astronomers.

Mabari has also created a new book featuring images of the “Koral” sculptures and essays about her Sea Shepherd residence, produced in collaboration with Sébastien Montabonel of the London-based Alaska Editions.

From the skies, flying aboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, to the seas on the Sea Shepherd mission, Mabari works to create comprehension of the vast and incomprehensible wonder of the world, and the risk that humans pose to it. Both as calls to action against ecological disaster, and as expressions of humankind’s connectivity to nature and the universe itself,  Mabari’s work engages the spirit with her color, light, reflection, and form. Melding scientific inquiry – and it’s importance – with her art, Mabari offers viewers the chance to engage with sea and sky through her fluid geometric forms.

Ten-percent of the proceeds from exhibition sales will benefit Sea Shepherd Global. Gallery is located at 310 E. Matilija St., Ojai, CA 93023.

 

 – Genie Davis, photos provided by Porch Gallery and the artist