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Top 3 This Week
Let Lindsay Preston Zappas curate your art viewing experiences this week. Here are our Top 3 picks of what not to miss. Scroll down for Insider stories.
LACMA’s ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN is Ed Ruscha’s first retrospective in over twenty years. As a defining figure of postwar American art, Ruscha has drawn inspiration from Los Angeles throughout his career. In this exhibition, LACMA presents 250 artworks from across all media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and artist’s books. The comprehensive exhibition places his most acclaimed artworks like Standard Station (1966) alongside lesser-known aspects of his practice.
With a career spanning over sixty years, Ruscha has consistently “held up a mirror to American society,” particularly consumer and pop culture. Perhaps one of the most special features of this retrospective is the inclusion of Ruscha’s installation Chocolate Room, which was first produced in Venice, Italy in 1970. Visitors can immerse themselves in the rich, overwhelming scent as they walk into the gallery space, which is paneled floor to ceiling with chocolate.
LA Louver’s latest exhibition is a survey of work by beloved cultural figure Luis Bermudez (1953-2021) made between 1986 and 2014. The exhibition, entitled Sobre La Vida, or “About Life,” is a celebration of Bermudez’s influential career in Los Angeles as an artist, instructor, and curator. The sculptural works in the Sobre La Vida demonstrate the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the interconnected nature of place, identity, and materiality as well as the relationship between the physical and spiritual.
Bermudez found inspiration in his Mesoamerican heritage, the natural world, and philosophical traditions outside of Western culture. In many of the works, Bermudez played with unique textures and colors and used his distinctive castable refractory, a material between cement and clay. The artist aimed for the semi-abstracted forms found in his work to be viewed from various angles and perspectives, encouraging visitors to LA Louver to fully immerse themselves and engage in circumambulation as a performance.
Art 2 is the art collective MSCHF’s second Perrotin solo presentation. Taking up the gallery’s new Los Angeles space at the former Del Mar Theatre, MSCHF stages a series of “spectacles” or installations bound by the theme of a second act. Taking place in “Tinseltown,” MSCHF takes on the role of both superhero and villain, shapeshifting between art collective and fashion brand and traversing multiple dimensions.
Amongst various standout works, the collective has replicated Pablo Picasso’s Le Poisson sculpture 249 times as a school of fish. In their Drop #84 Key4All, MSCHF transported a 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser across the country by giving thousands of people access to duplicate keys. Participants consistently repaired, repainted, and accessorized the vehicle, which now sits in Perrotin as a relic entitled Public Universal Car. Made with 3D printing technology, Microscopic Handbags presents a series of minuscule luxury accessories replicating brands like Bottega Veneta, Gucci, and Hermes that can only be viewed via a microscope.
Gallery talk is your insider look into the stories of gallerists, curators, and artists in the Los Angeles art community.
The Institution Set Ablaze
For the first time, Ed Ruscha’s iconic Los Angeles County Museum of Art Set on Fire (1965-1968) is being exhibited at LACMA as part of the exhibition ED RUSCHA/ NOW THEN. In a conversation with museum director Michael Govan during a press preview of the show, Ruscha noted that the idea for the painting began in 1965 after a forty-five-minute helicopter ride over the city.
“In just over forty-five minutes you can see the entire city of LA. I ended up in the area and took some Polaroid pictures of the museum from the air. I started playing with it and it evolved into a painting of LACMA. I forget at what point I decided to paint the museum on fire. I thought the museum was an authority figure that I wanted to revolt against.”
The painting takes on a greater significance now that LACMA’s original structures have been demolished to make way for architect Peter Zumthor’s redesign. “The right and left-hand side of the painting are at odds with each other,” Ruscha noted, “the left has a furious fire and the right side could almost put you to sleep.”
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