Arnoldi Flipbook 10-22-2026 by Charlotte Jackson Fine Art

CHARLES ARNOLDI

The a rtis t a t work on a recent pa inting in his Ve nice s tudio.

PHOTO: FIROOZ ZAHEDI

Charles Arnoldi Conjures a Creative Compound in Southern California The m ode rn re s ide nc e he s ha re s with his a uthor-wife inc lude s works by Fra nk Ge hry a nd Andy Wa rho l BY MICHAEL SLENSKE MAY 10, 2019

As a kid growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Charles Arnoldi was a hard-partying, streetbrawling, drag-racing “hood,” he says. “I had a slicked-back haircut, pegged pants, and pointed-toe boots for fighting. In Dayton, they just pushed you through high school, and my buddies and I didn’t care. All we wanted was to get through school to go work at a factory, because if you did the graveyard shift you got paid double time.”

A 60-foot skylight illuminates a selection of Arnoldi’s paintings in the main gallery of his Venice studio. Photo: Firooz Zahedi But a trip as a teenager to visit his father in Thousand Oaks, California, made a big impression, and after graduation in the mid-’60s, he and some pals pooled their money and stole enough parts for his 1955 Chevy to get themselves out west. Though he had no intention of becoming an artist, Arnoldi adopted a hippie lifestyle, finding work painting houses and digging trenches, and eventually starting a Lucite frame company with artist Laddie John Dill. Arnoldi also took classes at the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) in L.A.’s Westlake neighborhood, though he dropped out after winning the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Young Talent Award in 1969 for his labor-intensive abstract paintings—a language he has continued to explore over the ensuing half-century, becoming a stalwart of the L.A. art scene. These days, Arnoldi, now sporting a few more lines on his tanned visage and a shock of white hair, still exudes an intrepid, industrious spirit. He cuts an athletic figure in his studio uniform of a white T-shirt, jeans, and black sneakers as he stands outside the Malibu home he shares with his wife, author and former competitive bodybuilder Katie, on a cliffside plot with scenic views overlooking Little Dume (a beloved surf break where

Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton are regulars) and out to Catalina Island. Walking through his cactus garden, host to a prized saguaro he grew from a seedling, Arnoldi discusses the life he and Katie have created here—and perpetually reinvented—over the past three decades.

Arnoldi designed much of the home’s furniture; a painting from his “Potatoes” series is displayed atop the fireplace opposite a large work by his daughter, Natalie Arnoldi, while a Frank Gehry fish lamp stands along the rear wall. Photo: Firooz Zahedi “Katie’s father was a surfer, and he bought that little beach house in the 1950s,” Arnoldi says, pointing to a shingle-roof bungalow on the bluff below. Though he and his wife would have gladly lived in that surf shack, it became a weekend retreat for family and friends, so the couple decided in 1986 to build a home on land next to the Mediterraneanstyle manse owned by Katie’s brother. “I was used to living in lofts and storefronts,” says Arnoldi. “When I told my buddy Frank Gehry I was going to build a house, he said, ‘Just build a box.’ ”

With some help from contractors, that’s essentially what the Arnoldis did, creating a 4,000-square-foot, three-bedroom residence composed of voluminous interconnecting cubes with walls of troweled concrete and floor-to-ceiling glass doors that run half the length of the structure. Inside, the walls are accented by steel-channel baseboards, while the millwork is hewn from marine-grade plywood—the same material Arnoldi used as the base for the celebrated series of “Chainsaw” paintings he produced in the ’70s and ’80s.

Two of the artist’s large paintings from the 1990s hang in the corner of a gallery space in the studio. Photo: Firooz Zahedi Arnoldi has installed numerous idiosyncratic touches throughout, including sculptural glass doors in the guest bedrooms and, on the front of the home, a cast-bronze balcony whose pattern conjures (and predates) Ai Weiwei’s Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing. In the master bedroom, the artist devised a wall-size picture window that revolves on ball bearings and overlooks the double-height living-dining area, which is filled with furniture of his own design. Suspended above the long mahogany dining table is a chandelier made from bound branches that echoes the forms of the early “Stick” paintings that won him international recognition in the 1972 “Documenta” exhibition in Kassel, Germany.

Scattered throughout the house are not only Arnoldi’s artworks, including a few choice “Chainsaw” paintings, but also pieces by friends such as Gehry, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Ken Price, and Billy Al Bengston, as well as indigenous art and artifacts collected around the world by Katie. “Just stuff,” Arnoldi calls their collection, though he estimates he made 25,000 steps shuttling it all down to safety inside the beach house during the Woolsey Fire, which broke out in November 2018. (While a number of nearby residences burned in the blaze, the Arnoldis’ homes remained unscathed.) Countless memories permeate these spaces, and seated at the dining room table, Arnoldi recounts a few—like the time he drove the VW Beetle on which fellow artist Chris Burden had himself crucified for a legendary 1974 performance in a Venice garage.

Sculptures and furniture by Arnoldi are arrayed around the pool and putting green. Photo: Firooz Zahedi Outside, at the front of the property, Arnoldi has created a tropical folly dotted with his bronze sculptures and aluminum paintings. There’s also a 75-foot-long swimming pool surrounded by concrete seating and a putting green with artificial turf.

A seasoned golfer, Arnoldi also has a putting green next to his 15,000-square-foot Venice studio, a space carved out of a former potato chip factory that rivals any blue-chip gallery in L.A. Inside, the aesthetic shares similarities with the Malibu house, including the same distinctive plywood cabinetry. “I just can’t escape myself,” Arnoldi says of the overlap between his art and his design pursuits. The studio’s main gallery, where he makes and exhibits new paintings, is topped by a skylight that stretches some 60 feet. “I was gonna make it longer, but the building department wouldn’t let me,” he says.

An Andy Warhol skull is grouped with works by Arnoldi, Ken Price, John McCracken, and Natalie in a bookcase. Photo: Firooz Zahedi Far from slowing down, Arnoldi still spends six days a week in the studio. His most recent paintings and sculptures, the subject of multiple museum and gallery shows, include geometric abstractions based on the interlocking stones of Machu Picchu— inspired by the couple’s 35th anniversary trip hiking the Inca Trail—and a new suite of “Chainsaw” paintings made last summer during an excursion the two took to Canada’s Yukon Territory. “My wife really wants to travel more, but I have a hard time because I like to be here,” he says. “My mind is just working all the time.”

Still, it seems like the artist derives just as much pleasure building an ipe-wood tub room for Katie (with views of the Pacific) off the master bath or converting the childhood bedroom of his daughter, Natalie—an artist and marine biologist—into a home studio. For years, he’s been working on plans to level and rebuild the Venice studio, plus he’s consulting on four or five architectural projects for friends and designing a new homestudio complex with Katie atop a hill on the Ventura County line. “I brought Frank [Gehry] up to the lot, and he said, ‘Let’s collaborate.’ I said, ‘No,’ ” recalls Arnoldi with a laugh. “I might let him design the little poolhouse. Maybe. But I’m not sure yet.”

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2019 Summer Issue under the headline Form Meets Gumption. Subscribe to the magazine.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Still Friends After All These Years

“2Truchas”, Laddie John Dill, Charles Arnoldi, and Ron Cooper, 1971 Pictured from left: Charles Arnoldi, Ron Cooper, Laddie John Dill

Charles Arnoldi, Ron Cooper, Laddie John Dill SEPTEMBER 11 - OCTOBER 10, 2026 OPENING RECEPTION WITH THE ARTISTS: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 5-7 P.M. GALLERY TALK: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2-4 P.M. “A Conversation with Charles Arnoldi, Ron Cooper, Laddie John Dill and Rani Singh” The colors sink deep into you. The heat of a gouache red. The radiant blue glow of light in a glass tube. The shimmering gold of pearlescent pigment on Plexiglas. The forms and formats as distinct as the techniques. Yet these works of art, large and small, all somehow find their way inside the viewer – shifting, shaping, answering questions we hadn’t thought to ask. These works are by three renowned artists who emerged out of the California Light and Space movement of the early 1970’s whom Charlotte Jackson met and showed decades ago. As she notes: “In 1987, I curated an exhibition featuring three artists: Charles Arnoldi, Ron Cooper, and Laddie John Dill. Thirty-nine years later, all three are still making art — and still friends. I had forgotten about the 1987 exhibition until Ron Cooper’s registrar found the catalog and sent it to me. That discovery immediately inspired me to bring the three artists together again.” By the time of that 1987 show, the three artists had already known each other for about twenty years, having met somewhere between the halls of Chouinard Art Institute and the industrial warehouses and artist lofts of Los Angeles in the 1960’s. Each skilled, hungry, and with a restless energy that helped to propel them headlong onto the world stage as rare artistic talents. Still Friends After All These Years once again brings together works, old and new, from all three luminaries, whose art engages and challenges the perceptual experience of viewers. — Michaela Kahn, Ph.D.

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART 554 SOUTH GUADALUPE STREET, SANTA FE, NM

505.989.8688

www.charlottejackson.com

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART, INC.

CHARLES ARNOLDI CASE STUDY

Charles Arnoldi has experimented with myriad formats, materials, and formal languages, but he always manages to assert his distinctive sensibility, witty but workmanlike, materially sensitive but almost architectural in its formal disposition. In this new group of paintings, there's no "almost:" entitled "Case Study," referencing southern California's landmark postwar building project, the series conjures the design and erection of habitable structures - without lifting brush from picture plane. The Case Study houses were not in fact inspiration for the paintings; but when Arnoldi realized that, with all their conjuration of post-and-lintel construction and interplay of light and shadow, the paintings were describing a kind of Americanized, and to some extent domesticized, International Style, he decided to pay post-facto homage to the houses (some of which stand only blocks from his studio). The surface dynamics of these Case Study paintings may re-enliven Mondrian's formula and the vibrancy of prewar and postwar constructivism, but - like the Case Study houses themselves - their sense of space, not to mention light, bespeaks a very American grasp of landscape. Indeed, a sidewise glance at certain of the paintings can reveal Arnoldi's inner Diebenkorn - not so much the Diebenkorn of Ocean Park but the figurative Diebenkorn, composing around the horizon line until rooftops and cresting streets flatten into pattern in the California sun. Arnoldi's Case Study series thus broadly honors the spirit and sensation of both a place and a time, the state he lives in and the American era defined by that state. (Charlotte Jackson, 554 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe; closed. www.charlottejackson.com)

- Peter Frank for Huffington Post, 8/31/2012 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/haiku-reviews-silentfilm_n_1843347.html?utm_hp_ref=email_share#slide=1453325 pictured above: Charles Arnoldi,Koenig, 2011,acrylic on canvas, 42x36 inches

554 South Guadalupe Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 . 505-989-8688 . Fax: 505-989-9898 . www.charlottejackson.com

The Art of Imperfection Vir g in ia P e lle y

P a in t in g is d e a d . Th a t w a s t h e n o t io n Ch u c k Arn o ld i’s a rt s c h o o l t e a c h e rs t ru m p e t e d in t h e la t e 19 6 0 s . So h e fo u n d a w a y t o c re a t e p a in t in g s t h a t w e re n ’t p a in t in g s . O n a fr u it - fo r a gin g e x p e d it io n w it h so m e fr ie n d s in a n o r ch a r d e x p o se d t o t h e h igh w a y a ft e r a d e v a st a t in g M a lib u fir e , Ar n o ld i w a s st r u ck b y th e w a y t h e b la ck e n e d , b u r n t b r an ch e s o f t h e t r e e s lo o k e d fr a m e d a ga in st t h e sk y . “T h e y w e r e lik e h a n d - d r a w n lin e s,” h e sa y s. So w h ile h is fr ie n d s h e lp e d t h e m se lve s t o fr u it fr o m t r e e s u n scat h e d , Ar n o ld i co lle ct e d b r an ch e s a n d t o o k t h e m b a ck t o h is st u d io . H e fa sh io n e d h is st ick s in t o e n o r m o u s ge o m e tr ic p a in t in gs- cu m - scu lp t u r e s, co n n e ct in g t h e b r a n ch e s in w a y s t h a t w o u ld n e v e r o ccu r in n a t u r e . H e so m e t im e s

p a in t e d t h e m b e fo r e p u t t in g t h e m t o ge t h e r , so m e t im e s a ft e r w ar d s, a p p ly in g go b s o f v ib r a n t co lo r s o n th e m in w o r k s t h at m u t a te d t h e ir n a t u r a l d e sign . T h e se m a je st ic, t o w e r in g d e sign s w e r e le ss a h ip p ie ce le b r at io n o f th e n a t u r al w o r ld ; Ar n o ld i’s cr e a t io n s alm o st m o ck e d it .

“At t h e m o m e n t o f Ar n o ld i’s fir st St ick p a in t in gs, t h e a r t w o r ld co u ld b e sa id t o h a v e h a d a su r fe it o f st ick - ar t , n o n e o f it v e r y in t e r e st in g,” a r t a n d cu lt u r e cr it ic D a v e H ick e y w r o t e in t h e 2 0 0 8 b o o k C h a r le s Ar n o ld i. “Ar n o ld i’s st ick s w e r e n o t h in g lik e t h e se . T h e y b o r e w it h t h e m n o ‘h o m a ge t o n a t u r e ,’ b u t r a t h e r h o m a ge t o t h e fa ct t h at w h a t n a t u r e a sp ir e s t o a n d a lw a y s fa ils t o a ch ie ve — sy m m e t r y , r igh t a n gle s a n d st r a igh t lin e s — a r t ca n ca su a lly d isd a in .” If Ar n o ld i w a s a d iffe r e n t t y p e o f a r t ist a n d a d iffe r e n t ty p e o f m a n , h e m igh t h a v e b e e n k n o w n t o d ay a s “t h e st ick gu y .” Bu t h e h a s n e v e r st o p p e d cr e a t in g a n d e v o lv in g. F o r ty y e ar s la t e r , h e st ill w o r k s in h is st u d io six d a y s a w e e k a n d is a s w e ll- k n o w n fo r b r e ath t a k in g la r ge - sca le a b st r a ct p a in t in gs, stu d ie s o f sh ap e a n d

sp a ce a s w e ll as co lo r , a s h e is fo r scu lp tu r e a n d h is ch a in sa w p ie ce s, in w h ich h e a t t a ck s ch u n k s o f w o o d a n d p ly w o o d w it h h is sa w t o , a s h e p u t s it , “d r a w in n e ga t iv e sp a ce .”

“W h e n I ge t go o d a t st u ff, I ge t r e a l su sp icio u s. If p e o p le sta r t t o lik e it a lo t , t o o , it sca r e s t h e s**t o u t o f m e ,” h e sa y s. “If I k n o w so m e t h in g r e a lly w o r k s, I t r y t o t w e ak it . T h e r e ’s u su a lly so m e t h in g t h at ’s a lit t le p e r v e r se o r o ff a b o u t t h e m b e ca u se y o u d o n ’t w a n t t o m a k e a p e r fe ct t h in g. T h a t ’s th e d iffe r e n ce b e t w e e n cr a ft a n d a r t .” “Yo u d o n ’t w a n t t o b e d o in g it b e ca u se y o u h a v e a n a u d ie n ce ,” h e co n t in u e s. “Yo u d o n ’t w a n t t o t h in k a b o u t d o lla r s in w h a t y o u ’r e d o in g. An d I go t t a a d m it , I w a s a p o o r k id , a n d m o n e y m e a n s a lo t t o m e .”

Ar n o ld i w a s b o r n in D a y t o n , O h io (“o n t h e gr a y , fa cto r y sid e o f t o w n ”), in 19 46 t o a n a lco h o lic ga m b le r fa t h e r . A se lf- d e scr ib e d “gr e ase r k id ” a n d h o t r o d d e r , h e fix e d u p ca r s w it h o ft e n st o le n p a r t s a n d h a d m in o r b r u sh e s w it h t h e la w fo r t r u a n cy a n d v a n d a lism . Aft e r gr a d u a t in g fr o m h igh sch o o l in 19 6 4, Ar n o ld i d r o v e t o C alifo r n ia w it h a b u n ch o f fr ie n d s w it h $ 6 t o h is n a m e a n d a ca r t h a t sp u t te r e d in t o t h e C a lifo r n ia d e se r t t h e n b it t h e d u st . H e d id o d d jo b s, so m e fo r a co u p le fr o m M ich iga n , w h o a ft e r se e in g t h e scr e e n p r in te d t - sh ir t s a n d p a in t in gs h e w a s d o in g o n t h e sid e s o f ca r s, e n co u r a ge d h im t o e n r o ll in a r t sch o o l.

H e la st e d a b o u t t h r e e se m e ste r s a t Ve n tu r a Ju n io r C o lle ge a n d th e n w e n t t o t h e p r e st igio u s Ar t C e n te r in L o s An ge le s fo r tw o w e e k s. O n e o f se ve r a l in st r u ct o r s w h o t o o k a n in t e r e st in Ar n o ld i u r ge d h im t o cu t h is h a ir , cle a n u p h is a ct a n d b u ild a p o r tfo lio . D u r in g fr e sh m a n a sse m b ly , h e sa y s, “T h e y h a d gr a d u a te s o n st a ge …t h e y w e r e b r a ggy B a r b ie d o lls ta lk in g a b o u t w h a t ’s ‘go o d fo r b u sin e ss,’ a b o u t a d v e r t isin g a n d a cce sso r y d e sign . I t h o u gh t, ‘T h is is f***e d . I d o n ’t w a n t t o d o t h is.’”

Ar n o ld i’s t a le n t p a ve d h is w a y in t o t h e a r t w o r ld d e sp ite h is in clin a t io n t o w a r d r e b e llio n . In 19 6 9 , o n e o f h is P le x igla s a n d sp r a y e d - la cq u e r p a in t in gs w o n h im t h e Yo u n g T a le n t Aw a r d fr o m t h e L o s An ge le s C o u n t y M u se u m . A fr a m e - m ak in g a n d p r in t in g b u sin e ss st a r t e d w it h a co u p le o f fr ie n d s le d t o co n n e ct io n s a n d fr ie n d sh ip s. D e scr ib in g m e e t in g a r t ists a n d fr ie n d s F r a n k St e lla a n d Ja sp e r Jo h n s, Ar n o ld i sa y s h e w a s y o u n g a n d n a ïv e e n o u gh t o t a k e t h e a r t ist s u p o n t h e ir o ffe r s t o v isit a n d h a n g o u t in N e w Yo r k C it y . Ar n o ld i a lso co u n t s ar ch it e ct F r a n k G e h r y a s a clo se fr ie n d , a n d G e h r y cit e s Ar n o ld i as a n in sp ir a t io n in h is o w n w o r k . St ill, Ar n o ld i in sist s th a t h e d o e sn ’t co n sid e r h im se lf su cce ssfu l. “I’m r e la t ive ly su cce ssfu l co m p a r e d t o 9 8 p e r ce n t o f a r t ist s o n th e p la n e t , b u t I’v e n e v e r b e e n in t h a t e lit e , a n d I d o n ’t k n o w if I e v e r w ill b e ,” h e e xp la in s. “Bu t o n e o f t h e t h in gs I d e cid e d a lo n g t im e a go is t h a t I w a s n o t b u ild in g a ca r e e r .” A se r ie s o f scu lp tu r e s m a d e o u t o f p o t a to e s a d o r n t h e w a lls o f Ar n o ld i’s e n o r m o u s st u d io in Ve n ice . “A fr ie n d sa id , ‘I t h o u gh t y o u ’d lo st y o u r m in d .’ B u t it ’s a ll a b o u t t h e fo r m , it ’s n o t t h e fa ct t h a t it ’s a p o t a t o ,” h e e x p la in s. “W h e n I t o ld p e o p le a b o u t m y ch a in sa w p a in t in gs, p e o p le w e r e lik e , “W h a t t h e h e ll d o y o u w a n t t o d o t h a t fo r ?” Bu t t o m e , it w as a n id e a , a n d I d id it . It d id n ’t o ccu r t o m e , a r e t h e cr it ics go in g t o lik e it ? Ar e th e d e a le r s go in g t o lik e it , o r , a r e p e o p le go in g t o b u y t h e se t h in gs? I m a d e a ch a in sa w p a in t in g t h a t w as 10 b y 3 5 fe e t . Yo u k n o w w h a t a p a in in t h e a ss so m e t h in g lik e t h a t is? It ’s so h e a v y . If y o u t h o u gh t a b o u t it lo gica lly fo r a m in u te , y o u w o u ld n ’t d o it . “W h a t I im a gin e , I d o ,” h e sa y s. “In a fu n n y w a y , t h a t ’s b e co m e m y sty le .” F o r m o r e in fo r m a t io n o n Ar n o ld i, v isit h im o n lin e a t ch a r le sa r n o ld ist u d io .co m .

Charles Arnoldi

A Constantly Expanding Vocabulary of Artistic Expression by Victoria Looseleaf

Ohio-born, Los Angeles-based abstract painter, printmaker and sculptor, Charles Arnoldi, whose 50-year passion for the material world, a commitment to experimentation and a tireless focus on studio production – and whose work has been exhibited in galleries including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao –plumbs his own psychological depths only to discover what makes him love work and life.

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What historical art figure would you like to have lunch with and why? Picasso or Brâncuși, because I think I could relate to either one of those guys very well. I see some connection in my work to theirs. What did you purchase with the proceeds from your

rst sale?

It was so long ago to be

honest with you, I probably just paid my bills. I wasn’t really buying things back in those days. What words or phrases do you overuse? ‘I’m lucky.’

Blue Print

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How do you know when a work is finished? It’s when the object starts speaking to me. There is a dialogue I have with my work, and I must listen to what the work is saying. Often, I’m surprised by what comes back. As it progresses, the painting or sculpture begins to feed me information and define itself. It takes on a life of its own. That’s when I know it’s done. When the work has the power to communicate, separate from my intention, I know it’s ready to go out into the world. When and where were you happiest? I’m pretty happy now. Wherever I am, I’m happy. You know? What is your most treasured possession? My family. I realize that family is the one thing that is really real. Family is my most treasured possession.

Railyard

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Where is your ideal escape destination? My studio. What’s the worst survival job you’ve ever had? When I was very, very young, I got a job working on new tract homes digging in the trenches for sprinkler units. What TV series from your youth best describes your approach to life? The truth is that we didn’t really have a television, but I distinctly remember watching Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan.

Too Fast

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4/21/23, 3:41 PM

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I wish I could hear better and that my sense of taste and smell we’re better. I’m getting older and I’m losing some facilities, so I just would like to be in better shape like my younger days. What is your most treasured memory? The birth of my son, Ryland. And then later, my daughter Natalie. What makes you smile? My English Bulldogs Peaches and Herb. They make laugh out loud all the time. What makes you cry? Thinking about all the friends that I’ve lost. Even answering this question, I get teary-eyed thinking about it. I mean, there’s been so many and because of my age those are friendships are 50 years old.

Welfare

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What is your go-to drink when you toast to a sale? Rombauer Chardonnay. After an all-nighter, what’s your breakfast of champions? Well, I go to bed at 9:00. But I eat Muesli for breakfast every day, no matter what. Who inspires you? I think myself. I don’t have heroes out there, and I’ve been fortunate enough to know Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and John Chamberlain. And that was inspiring, that I had friendships with them.

Whoopie

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The Chainsaw, photo by Fahren Feingold

What do you consider your greatest achievement? My greatest achievement is being me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in a funny way I am the American dream. If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be? I would come back as myself! 2 for 1 you know, what the hell.

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CHARLES ARN O LDI Ch a rle s Arn o ld i, is a n Am e rica n p a in te r, scu lp to r a n d p rin tm a ke r. He wa s b o rn Ap ril 10, 1946 in Da yto n , Oh io . Ch a rle s Arn o ld i h a s b e e n d e scrib e d a s a n a rtist wh o “d ra ws in sp a ce ” to cre a te h is u n iq u e a sse m b la ge wo rks o f a rt. Th rou gh o u t h is lon g ca re e r h e h a s b e e n fa scin a te d with sh a p e a n d p a tte rn a s th e y a p p ly to a d va n ce fo rm a l con ce rn s, fro m h is 1970’s p a in tin gs m a d e e n tire ly o f n a tu ra l form s, to h is cu rre n t wo rk, of wh ich a rch ite ct Fra n k Ge h ry h a s sa id , “th e m a tu rin g Arn o ld i h a s a se cu re co lo r se n se a n d th e a b ility to wo rk a t la rge sca le a s we ll a s to p rod u ce tin y, e xq u isite wa te rco lo rs.” Ge h ry a lso cite s Arn o ld i a s a n in flu e n ce in h is o wn wo rk, a n d sa ys, “th is is a n a rtist wh ose b e st is ye t to com e , wh o is still e xp e rim e n tin g a n d still willin g to risk.” Arn o ld i h a s b e e n m a kin g a rt fo r ove r fo rty ye a rs, first a ch ie vin g m a jo r a ccla im in th e 1970’s. A d e ca d e la te r h e h a e sta b lish e d h im se lf a s on e o f th e m o st p ro m in e n t p a in te rs in so u th e rn Ca liforn ia . Arn o ld i’s work re sid e s in n u m e rou s co lle ctio n s a n d m u se u m s th ro u gh ou t th e Un ite d Sta te s, in clu d in g th e Mu se u m of Mo d e rn Art, th e Me tro p o lita n Mu se u m of Art, Th e Lo s An ge le s Co u n ty Mu se u m o f Art, th e Sm ith so n ia n Am e rica n Art Mu se u m , a n d th e Gu gge n h e im , Bilb a o, Sp a in .

Charles Arnoldi, Untitled (05.104), Gouache on collaged paper, 27.5 x 28 in. (69.9 x 71.1 cm) unframed, 36.5 x 36.5 in. (92.7 x 92.7 cm) framed, Courtesy of the artist and Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, New York

Charles Arnoldi (05.94), Gouache on collaged paper, 36 x 36 in. (91.4 x 91.4 cm) unframed, 44.25 x 44.25 in. (112.4 x 112.4 cm) framed, Courtesy of the artist and Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, New York

Charles Arnoldi, Ocean Liner (06.77), Oil on aluminum, 24 x 42 in. (61 x 106.7 cm) irregular

Charles Arnoldi, Junk (06.82), Oil on aluminum, 29.25 x 27.75 in. (74.3 x 70.5 cm) irregular

Charles Arnoldi, Hole in One, Acrylic on canvas, Overall: 34 x 72 in. (86.4 x 18 cm), Collection of Bank of America

Charles Arnoldi, Air Lock, oil on canvas, 84 x 84 in. (213.4 x 213.4 cm), Collection of Ryland and Natalie Arnoldi, Courtesy Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, New York

Charles Arnoldi, Colonel, acrylic on canvas, 42.25 x 42.25 in. (107.3 x 107.3 cm), Courtesy of the artist, and Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, New York

Charles Arnoldi, Driver, Lithograph, Overall: 23.5 x 32 in. (59.7 x 81.3 cm), Courtesy of the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Charles Arnoldi, Stamp, Woodblock, Overall: 25 x 25 in. (63.5 x 63.5 cm), Courtesy of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Charles Arnoldi, Jesse, Lithograph, Overall : 26.75 x 23.75 in. (67.9 x 60.3 cm), Courtesy of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Charles Arnoldi, Bernardi, Acrylic on canvas, Unframed: 50 x 43 in. (127 x 109.2 cm), Courtesy of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Charles ARNOLDI Natural Selection September 9 - October 23, 2021

PASSION 2021 oil on linen 74 x 66 inches CA271

Summary While visiting Machu Picchu in 2017, Charles Arnoldi was struck by the perfect fit of the rocks from which the ancient city walls were built. The architectural stability of the irregularly-shaped slabs of granite suggested a compositional approach to balancing blocks of color. When he returned to his studio in Southern California, Arnoldi set to work on a new series of paintings inspired by the Inca archaeology.

As is usually the case for Arnoldi, the series inspired several others, intermingling visions of masonry with visual inspiration from sources ranging from viruses to his own prior painting. “I guess I’m just an intuitive guy,” he says with characteristic candor and modesty. An important and acclaimed California abstract painter and sculptor, Arnoldi has been channeling visual intuitions into transcendent large-scale artworks since the late 1960s, when he moved from the Midwest to Southern California and became the youngest member of the Venice Beach scene. Arnoldi’s extraordinarily versatile virtuosity is in full view in his 10th one-person exhibition at Modernism, which includes twenty paintings, sculptures, and works on paper competed over the past five years. The exhibition highlights Arnoldi’s lyrical application of color, which enlivens organic abstractions comprising tangles of line, geometric tiling, and the irregular blocks inspired by Machu Picchu. The architectural blocks are also evoked in wooden sculptures hewn with a chainsaw, repurposing an unconventional studio technique that Arnoldi has applied intermittently to paintings on plywood since the early ‘80s. The aesthetic variety is a natural outcome of Arnoldi’s commitment to process, and his eagerness to experiment, traits he holds in common with Venice Beach scene peers including Joe Goode and Billy Al Bengston. “I let the paintings develop themselves quickly and spontaneously,” he explains. “I'm not trying to make a signature style of art, not an Arnoldi. I am just trying to make paintings.” However, all of Arnoldi’s compositions are unified by his conviction that each work must be autonomous. “In abstract painting, an artist invents a problem and solves it,” he says. Like the Inca architects of Machu Picchu, who found balance in asymmetry. Arnoldi's work resides in numerous major public and private collections and museums internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain.

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Slate architecture

Frank Gehry on Film What a new documentary does and doesn't say about the famous architect.

By Witold Rybczynski Updated Wednesday , July 26, 2006, at 12:51 PM ET "It's not just that I didn't know anything about making documentaries. I didn't even know anything about architecture," says Hollywood director Sydney Pollack, recalling his reaction to Frank Gehry's request that he make a movie about his work. "That's why you're perfect," Gehry is supposed to have answered. After seeing Sketches of-Frank Gehry, I'm not so sure. Pollack has made many memorable films, among them two of my favorites , Three Days ofthe Condor and Out ofAfrica. He spent five years filming Sketches, which is clearly a labor oflove. Some of the unaffected scenes are conversations between Gehry and Pollack-old friends and schmoozing old pros. But when Hollywood talking heads such as Michael Ovitz, Michael Eisner, and Dennis Hopper (who lives in a Gehry-designed house, though we never see it) pontificate about architecture, it's downright embarrassing. Pollack was right: He doesn't know much about architecture (although he knows a lot about how to film it and produces some gorgeous footage of Gehry's buildings). Perhaps that's why he didn't interview many architects. It would have been interesting to hear from Gehry's younger Los Angeles colleagues, such as Thom Mayne or Eric Owen Moss, for example, about how Gehry has-or hasn't-influenced their work. Or from Robert Venturi, who once roundly criticized the sort of sculptural, evocative buildings that Gehry has brought to the fore. Instead , the only architect we hear from is an aged Philip Johnson, visibly fragile and lacking his usual acerbic wit. In his Hollywood way, Pollack wants to cast Gehry as an outsider, a rebel. (Never underestimate the lingering influence of The Fountainhead.i Consequently, except for a brief scene of a standing ovation during the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, we get no sense of Gehry's immense and far-flung popularity; he has won every architectural award, and is-after Bilbao-a household name. This is an odd omission, since Pollack is a consummate maker of popular entertainment. It would have been interesting to hear man-on-the-street interviews to have a sense of how Gehry connects with his public. Pollack does talk to Barry Diller, who has commissioned Gehry to build his corporation's headquarters in New York City. Diller, perfectly in character as a powerful captain of industry , shrewdly observes that one of Gehry's strengths is his ability to solve technical problems. It's one thing to crumple paper and Scotch-tape together bits of cardboard, as the movie shows Gehry's assistants doing, and quite another to translate such improvised models into weatherproof, solid, and functional buildings. Sadly, Pollack leaves this practical aspect of Gehry's talent unexplored. Although Pollack doesn't talk to many architects, he does interview several Los Angeles painters , who provide interesting insights into Gehry's work. Chuck Arnoldi gives a very funny-and revealing imitation of Gehry designing ("Let's make it like this, or like that ... or maybe try it another way"). Ed Ruscha speaks about a younger Gehry seeking out artists, with whom he seemed to have more in common than with other architects. One of the things that Gehry shares with painters is that he, like them, takes aesthetic risks. His buildings are always a balancing act between the improbable and the impossible, and watching the tightrope walker do his tricks high up in the air is part of the thrill-and

http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2146515

10/18/2006

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also explains his popularity . Pollack includes a token negative critic in the film, art historian Hal Foster. The Princeton professor is . unconvincing, but there is a real criticism of Gehry to be made. He is currently designing two large urban real-estate development projects, one in Brooklyn and one in downtown Los Angeles. How suitable will his whimsical, idiosyncratic approach be for city building? My guess: not very. It's not a question of size, or density, or art in the service of commerce. The urban renewal of the 1960s demonstrated the peril of architects designing entire neighborhoods. This is no less true of gifted architects. Expressionistic virtuosos-Borromini, Antonio Gaudi, or that Art Nouveau genius, Hector Guimard-created wonderful buildings, which are wonderful precisely because they are exceptional. An entire neighborhood of Gaudi-or Gehry-would be like a meal of only ice cream. Too much of a very good thing. Witold Rybczynski is Slate's architecture critic. Article URL: b!1Q:/Iwww.slate.com/id/2146515/

http://www.slate.comltoolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2146515

10/18/2006

Paul Jenkins , Phenomena Wind Harp,

1974, oil on can vas,

77 x 10T'.

Pard Morri son, King Pleasure,

2011, fired pigm ent on aluminum ,

45 x 120 x 3 'to". Images : Co urtesy of Co llecto rs Contemporary. Singa pore.

Beauty And Conceptual Rigor

he wo rks in the exhibi tion co lor + Form + Fun ction a t Co ll ec to rs Co ntempo rary (January 17 to February 2 8, 20 13) not only expl ore the potential of color and the sig nifica nce of physical process but also the materiality of pa int, and the primacy oHorm in abs tract ar t. Color + Form + Function is a timely and dynami c explora tion o f the relevance o f a bstrac tion. The exhibition takes, as a starting point, the notion that ab stract art does not seek to dire ctly repr esent the physical world using familiar languag es o f literal or figurative represen tati on but instead invo lves the crea tio n of new and altern ate ways of exp eri encing the world and Ihe a rt ob ject through a lan guage o f form . This ca n involve the co ncept that the ar t object does not seek to represent anyth ing outside of itself, or that art lies in the process or action o f its creatio n.

24 ASIAN ART NEWS

For some artists in the exhibition, abstract forms distil a relationship with an emoti onal , sp iritua l, o r physical real m. A b straction ca n al so invo lve the exploratio n o f spa ce o r the embodim ent of energy. Co lor is pre sent in the ex hibitio n as a powerful visual and sensory fo rce that functio ns in di al og ue w ith the phy sicality and comp o sitio n of the work. The pioneer of post-war a b stra ct ex p ressio nism Paul Jen kin s' pain ti ng is im bu ed w ith energy. The spo nta neo us diaphanous form s, mad e by the arti st co ntrolling the move ment o f poure d, flowing pain t, cloud the canvas in translu ce nt veils of jewel-like co lors . The exhibition will featur e the Southern Californian art ist Charles Arnoldi whose prol ific 40-year car eer has invol ved a de ep ond intuitive expl oration of form, light, texture, com po sition, a nd pure co lor. Arnold i's w orks have been exhib ited across the w orl d and are held in the co llec tions of the Museum o f M odern Art, Metropolitan Muse um of Art , a nd Whitney Mus eum of A merican Art, among oth ers.

Color + Form + Function a lso introduces new ar tists to the regi on . Co lo ra do-bas ed a rtist Pard M orri son's unfoldin g geo metric wo rks utilize co lor a nd space to interroga te the viewer's perc eption whil e con fou nding distinctions betw een sculpture and pointing. Each piece is a powerful investiga tion into the dichotomy betw een coo l industrial abstra ct form a nd human gesture. Jeff Kellar combin es geo metrical form w ith sculptural sur face to encou rage o n interroga tion of material ity, pe rspective, a nd sca le. Additional high lig hts include works by Richard Serra, Dan iel Buren, Anish Kapoor, Sara h M orris, WonkunJun, an d Norma n M ooney, Co lor + Form + Function presentsa rtwo rkso fbo th beauty and co nceptual rigor. Each art ist con be seen to expl ore color, for m, a nd process in orde r to evoke a ra nge of responses in the vie we r; responses that can be at o nce visceral, sensory, intell ectual, and emotion al. Co llectorsCont emporar y is loca ted at 5 Jolo n Kilang Bara t. Tel: (6 5) 6 87 8 0 103 .

...

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

5/26/23, 10:16 AM

The 76-Year-Old Venice Artist Who’s Become McQueen’s Latest Muse

A BRUSH WITH FASHION: Alexander McQueen’s Arnoldi dress. (Photo: Thomas Drotar)

The 76-Year-Old Venice Artist Who’s Become McQueen’s Latest Muse Is that a Chuck Arnoldi you’re wearing? The local septuagenarian, known for works incorporating stick constructions, moves to the front line of high fashion By Merle Ginsberg - February 1, 2023

Venice abstract artist Chuck Arnoldi is famous for incorporating nontraditional materials—like parts of trees —into his paintings. But now, he’s branching out into a new medium: schmattes. The 76-year-old Guggenheim fellow was recently approached by British luxe label Alexander McQueen for collaboration on its spring/summer 2023 line. “They’d seen a painting of mine and wanted to use it to create dresses for women and suits and T-shirts for men,” Arnoldi says. “I had no idea who or what Alexander McQueen was. Didn’t have a clue.” But Arnoldi’s wife, novelist Katie Arnoldi, explained who the late designer was and how his company is still producing high-end fashion, and then Arnoldi received a packet of sketches from McQueen’s design team. “I said to Katie, ‘This stuff looks pretty good.’ I told them, sure, they can use it,” he says. “They offered to pay me – but I would have done it for free! Stay on top of the latest in L.A. news, food, and culture. Sign up for our newsletters today.

https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/chuck-arnoldi-alexander-mcqueen/

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Charles Arnoldi was a young man from Dayton, Ohio who had seen little of the world when he arrived in Southern California in the mid 1960s. Following stints at a local community college and Chouinard Art Institute, Arnoldi won LACMA’s New or Young Talent Award in 1969 and thus began his ever-evolving career which continues to this day in his sprawling Venice studio. For close to 50 years, Arnoldi’s work has reflected a passion for the material world, a commitment to experimentation, and a tireless focus on studio production. Charles Arnoldi | Four Decades is drawn from the holdings of the collector Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation. One of the Venice Beach artists, captured in same 1970s party photographs and spoken of in the same breath as slightly older local artists, including Ed Ruscha and Billy Al Bengston, Arnoldi has always been “the kid.” In the highly experimental Los Angeles art scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, Arnoldi established an aesthetic separate from his peers. “The exhibition traces the evolution of the artist’s practice from the seminal Sticks works of the 1970s through the aggressive physicality of the plywood-based Chainsaw works in the 1980s, into the chromatic glories of the paintings of the last two decades,” says curator Bruce Guenther. Through his use of materials, he both created within and radically redefined the two-dimensional form, making artwork at the intersection of sculpture, drawing, and painting. The exhibition will be complemented by a free publication produced by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation and authored by curator Bruce Guenther. During the run of the exhibition, the Fisher Museum will present a slate of related public programming including curator and artist talks and a panel featuring Arnoldi and his Venice Beach peers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARNOLDI & ARNOLDI (Charles & Natalie) – NOVEMBER 15 - DECEMBER 15, 2019 – OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 5 - 7 P.M. ARTIST TALK: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 3 - 4 P.M. A conversation with Chuck & Natalie Arnoldi and Rani Singh, Director of Special Projects at Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills, and formerly from Modern & Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Charles Arnoldi, Untitled, 2019, acrylic & charcoal on linen, 62 x 52 inches

A father and daughter exhibition pairs new work by consummate abstract artist, Charles Arnoldi, with the atmospheric place paintings and gouaches of Natalie Arnoldi. Despite the radical difference in approach, there is a subtle cohesion between these very distinctive bodies of work. Charles Arnoldi has been following his inspiration and ideas for over 50 years making art. The history of his work reads, visually, like a long and ongoing dialogue between Charles and color, shape, and form. No matter the medium – whether oils, acrylics, canvas, charcoal, metal, paper, wood, or the burnt sticks from his earliest successful works – Charles sees himself primarily as a maker of objects. And these objects, with their complex constructions or simple balance, infused with the ideas and kinetic energy of their maker – above all, must have a life of their own. In this exhibition are two new series inspired by a trip to the ruins of Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes. Charles was fascinated by the ruins, pulled into the mysteries of their seamless carved block construction. In the original design of the citadel, the stone blocks, though not uniform, are fit together in beautiful and seamless patterns, fit like the most massive and intricate puzzle. The geometric patterns of the place took hold of him, and Charles has been inspired by their unique beauty in several of the series he has created since his visit. It is easy to see the connection in the two sets of work he brings to this exhibition: a new set of sculptural wall-works of interlocking wood blocks, along with a selection of large acrylic paintings of joined blocks of color and lines in rich earth tones.

Natalie Arnoldi, I-25, 2019, oil on canvas, 57 x 64 inches

Natalie Arnoldi, who in addition to working as a full-time artist is pursuing a PhD in Marine Ecology at Stanford University, brings her signature darkly luminous paintings to the exhibition, including several new pieces featuring desolate gas stations at night. Having grown up in the “school” of her father’s studio, surrounded by artists in her home, perhaps the greatest lesson which Natalie took with her, she says, is her work ethic. Natalie witnessed the daily, persistent work that goes into creating works of art and to maintaining an artistic career. However, Natalie’s aesthetic is fundamentally different from her father’s. Place-based: showing ocean scenes, shark fins disappearing into waves, night time freeways, railroad tracks in fog, lonely gas stations at night – these works have a clear narrative line which diverges from her father’s strictly abstract constructions of color and shape. And yet, these works, with their fogged and blurred borders and mysterious qualities, somehow also seem to push against the nature of representative art.

Charles Arnoldi, Untitled, 2019, acrylic & charcoal on linen, 75 x 66 inches

Evocative, the gas station works combine an architectural cleanness with a diaphanous use of light and darkness. While Charles’ works may challenge the viewer with seeing harmony in geometric patterns, finding the living quality of an object – Natalie’s work challenges the viewer to go inward with emotionally paradoxical scenes that elicit simultaneously a sense of familiarity and unease. Beyond the inspiration of place and the architectural qualities of their work, there is a underlying sense of these disparate art works working together. While distinct and unique, the works of Arnoldi & Arnoldi (Charles & Natalie) speak to each other, conjuring a sense of some common, underlying, aesthetic DNA.

–— Michaela Kahn, PhD

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART 554 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 | 505.989.8688 | www.charlottejackson.com

Natalie Arnoldi, I-8 0, 2019, oil on canvas, 48 x 42 inches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHARLES ARNOLDI: STILL WORKING NOVEMBER 3 - DECEMBER 3 OPENING RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST Friday, November 3, 2017, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. GALLERY TALK WITH THE ARTIST AND BOOK SIGNING “Charles Arnoldi: Paper” a new book by Radius Books Saturday, November 4, 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. at the gallery

FILM PREMIERE: CHARLES ARNOLDI: TRUE BELIEVER A documentary film by Dale Schierholt Thursday, November 9, 6:30 p.m. Center for Contemporary Arts 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM Call the CCA box office at 505-982-1338 in advance for free tickets. Sponsored by Charlotte Jackson Fine Art and Art Santa Fe Presents.

MACHU PICCHU SERIES Stack Up, 2017, oil on canvas, 106 x 90 inches

Still Working, celebrates quintessential artist Charles Arnoldi with an exhibition of new work, a book signing for the brand new book Charles Arnoldi: Paper by Radius Books, and a screening of the documentary film about the artist, Charles Arnoldi: True Believer by film-maker Dale Schierholt. Featuring new works from the past few years, Still Working, pairs Arnoldi’s familiar large format canvases (up to 7+ feet) with smaller works on paper. The works themselves range among Arnoldi’s unique array of styles – teasing out new explorations and amalgamations. Color, form, depth, the creation of space and dimension – these are the lenses that Arnoldi offers the viewer as a way to see art and the world. Whether it is the energetic, almost frenetic scattering of colored lines from a work like Mustang or Chevrolet, the endless tangle of a work like Arsenal, or a new, less hard-edged take on geometric color blocks such as two new untiled 2017 works – Arnoldi is a master at interweaving the varied visual languages which he has carefully developed over decades. No matter the size, palette, or language, there is something uniquely Arnoldi’s that comes through in each piece: an un-cynical and unsentimental dedication to the making of art. Each piece offers a viewpoint, an expression, a world to translate. Still Working gives the viewer an opportunity not only to explore these dynamic works of art – but provides a vision of what it means to be an artist.

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART 554 SOUTH GUADALUPE STREET, SANTA FE, NM | 505.989.8688 | www.charlottejackson.com

LAMA BLOG Interview with Artist Charles Arnoldi September 23, 2016 Throughout his forty-year career, legendary Los Angeles artist Charles Arnoldi (b. 1946) has been associated with the artistic scene of Venice Beach. Hailing originally from Dayton, Ohio, critic Dave Hickey aligns him with other Midwestern artist transplants, like Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, and Joe Goode, who have adopted California as their home base.

Charles Arnoldi, Billion 1, 1985

Arnoldi’s distinctive compositions of pigmented wood traverse the boundaries between sculpture and painting and contain echoes both of architecture and the natural world. Meticulously crafted, Arnoldi’s works impose a geometric order on irregular material to achieve a harmonious and symmetrical balance. Arnoldi recently spoke with Peter Loughrey, Director of Modern Design & Fine Art at Los Angeles Modern Auctions to discuss his work: Peter Loughrey: When I got (to Los Angeles) in the mid-1980s, I remember walking around galleries, looking at shows and being blown away by the boldness of the art here. I remember seeing your work and thinking how unapologetic it was. I think Billion 1 is such a perfect title. Charles Arnoldi: Back in those days the word “billion” was not used all the time, like it is used today. I called it Billion 1, because it was going to go to a big corporation. Somebody came in my studio and we were talking about the piece and they said “that looks like a million bucks,” so I just kind of upped it and said “billion.” It was kind of a funny thing and a lot of the work I was doing here was pretty gutsy, because we all felt like we didn’t owe anything to anybody else and we thought we could do anything. You know, use tree branches, chainsaws, resin, and you didn’t have to get into the mold of what they were doing back east. The other thing was, I think we all were kind of macho and scale was something I’ve always embraced. PL: How does the process differ from the tree branch paintings?

CA: The chainsaw paintings were after I made the tree branch paintings, which is a line I appropriate from nature. The image of the tree branch paintings makes sense, because every line on there is an integral part of the structure and it justifies what the drawing is. It was interesting because at the time the general consensus was that painting was dead. When I was making the chainsaw paintings I started to attack those paintings, to carve them away and drawing as I go. It was interesting because the holes became a big part of it. The holes left me with those chunks. The chunks were like beautiful objects that happened very spontaneously, so I kept collecting them. I could not possibly throw them away. Then I thought, why don’t you put them back on top? So it’s like a positive statement of the negative space I was drawing. PL: I wanted to ask you more about the material of this series. CA: I used to get sticks and cut down trees and save chunks of wood. I liked the striations; chainsaw cuts looked like some paintings I had in the studio, so that got me into wanting to cut with a chainsaw. So I cut a couple blocks of wood and they were not more than a foot or two in either direction. I immediately wanted to blow up the scale to painting scale. I wanted an 8′ x 8′, about a foot thick, so I counted how many sheets of plywood it would take to make this thing. So I order 24 or 30 sheets of plywood and 10 gallons of yellow glue and my assistant and I put sheets flat on the floor next to each other and rolled glue on it. Then we put two sheets in the opposite direction and we stacked this thing up. It was about 12″ thick when we got done. Now, we had not thought it out very clearly and we realized that we had to put some weight on it. My assistant at the time had a motorcycle, so we put the motorcycle on it. We put everything we could find in the studio on this thing, so that the glue would squish out right. When we did that, the glue came oozing out of the side and, basically, we glued the thing to the floor in my studio. After about four or five days we couldn’t get it up, so we called Stanley Grinstein and he sent a forklift to my studio. This is when Frank Gehry and I shared the building on Brooks Ave. Anyway, we had to get sledgehammers and wedges and we basically busted this thing loose from the floor. This thing weighed about 1,200 pounds and I realized I didn’t think it out clearly. So I used that hunk for my carving table for a long time. That was just a platform. What I started doing instead was laying two or three sheets of three-quarter inch plywood together and then I put a thicker edge around the sides so it appeared to be 5″ or 6″ deep, but it was actually slightly hollow in the back. Anyway, I started gluing this plywood together and I loved the way it looked and Frank Gehry did too so I started making furniture out of it. PL: How long did it take to make a work like this? CA: Well, the standard answer to that is 40 years, but the truth is that the chainsaw painting itself goes really quickly. You just kind of go for it. It didn’t take me more than an hour to cut the wood, but it’s glued up, painted and cut and I made the chainsaw paintings for a couple of years, so I kept saving all the chunks. You make a piece over a period of a couple of days. In fact, I find that the faster and quicker you make decisions the more natural it is, so that you use intuition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHARLES ARNOLDI LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD | SEPT 11 - OCT 10 An exhibition of work by Charles Arnoldi, Looking Back, Moving Forward, will open at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art on September 11 and extend through October 10. The exhibition is being curated by David Chickey, Publisher of Radius Books, in preparation for their forthcoming book: Charles Arnoldi: Paper. The gallery is located in the Railyard Arts District at 554 South Guadalupe Street. If art is a continually evolving drama of creation and recognition, disruption, change, and re-creation—then Charles Arnoldi stands out as an artist who forever rides the edge of that tidal process. His work speaks with a myriad of visual languages – from burnt stick as brush stroke, to color and form as space. The dozens of small paintings and works on paper included in Looking Back, Moving Forward, span from the 1970’s to 2015 and represent a tantalizing glimpse at Arnoldi’s ongoing development.

Untitled, 1975 (75.17), Graphite on Paper, 29 x 23 inches

Arnoldi is perhaps best known for his very large scale paintings and constructions. For an artist who so often works at such large scale, often works on paper are used like sketches or maquettes – a way to work out issues which will be translated to the larger scale. Not so for Arnoldi. Each small piece, whether it is graphite, pastel, charcoal, gouache, or oil, is a unique work of art for Arnoldi, requiring the same level of focus and attention as other work. Each scale, Arnoldi says, requires its own set of skills. There are challenges to producing a 9 x 10 foot painting, but there is a precision and skill level required to create a 6 x 5 inch gouache on paper as well. Arnoldi will switch back and forth between large and small scale works often, and in any given period or series that he is working in, there will be some combination of larger paintings and smaller paper works. Ideas and developments flow back and forth between all of Arnoldi’s work. Even the smallest paper piece, like a fractal, holds the complexities of those larger works within itself. As Arnoldi says, it’s his job as an artist to “make inanimate objects with a life of their own.” The role of the artist, the essence of what an artist truly is, is important to Arnoldi and a question that he continues to think about even after over forty years of making art. For Arnoldi, part of the answer to that question resides in his always evolving visual languages. A quick perusal of the diversity of works in Looking Back, Moving Forward confirms this. As Frank Gehry put it in his introduction to Charles Arnoldi 1972 – 2008, “this is an artist… who is still experimental and still willing to risk.” Despite this diversity, it is easy to see connections, and hints of the artists and questions that inspire him come through in all his work. The spidery-fragile lines of the graphite on paper Untitled from 1973 which was made during the period when Arnoldi was making his famous Stick Paintings, is all openness and space, while the very structured blue-tone spaces of the small paintings from Arnoldi’s Case Study series of 2012 are spaces built into the canvas out of color and form. The shapes in an untitled gouache from the late 1990’s, during Arnoldi’s Potato Series, are organically bulbous and shadowed, and yet they somehow harken directly back to those early stick pieces. Cheer Up, a new work from 2015, plays with geometric forms and brilliant color palettes. Full and dense with shapes, the colors outlined in black, these new geometric paintings might at first seem too densely painted to have been made by the same person as some of the other works. However, these new pieces which paint space wouldn’t exist if Arnoldi had not once long ago used sticks to sketch lines into space, or later if he hadn’t used a chainsaw to explore negative space.

Untitled, 1990 (90.65) Pen and Gouache on Brown Chipboard, 5 1/2 x 4 inches

Untitled, 1997 (97.12), Gouache on Paper, 7 x 10 inches

Though the perspectives change over time, the essential truth, as Arnoldi says, that of being a human maker of marks on paper, remains. Each of these small works presents a unique universe of its own. Taken together, Looking Back, Moving Forward presents a visual dialogue across time.

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART 554 South Guadalupe St., Santa Fe, NM | 505.989.8688 | www.charlottejackson.com

Untitled, 2015 (15.38), Gouache on Paper, 9 x 8 inches

Paul Jenkins , Phenomena Wind Harp,

1974, oil on can vas,

77 x 10T'.

Pard Morri son, King Pleasure,

2011, fired pigm ent on aluminum ,

45 x 120 x 3 'to". Images : Co urtesy of Co llecto rs Contemporary. Singa pore.

Beauty And Conceptual Rigor

24 ASIAN ART NEWS

...

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

For immediate release:

CHARLES ARNOLDI: CASE STUDY — JULY 27 THROUGH AUGUST 27, 2012 — An exhibition of new work by Charles Arnoldi, Case Study, will open at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art on July 27 and extend through August 27. An Opening Reception with the artist will be held on Friday, July 27 from 5-7 p.m. The gallery is located in the Railyard Arts District at 554 South Guadalupe Street. You might want to walk into one of them – touch a black line, slide your hand down a plane of Ultramarine blue, duck your head under a beam of Payne’s gray. The deeper you move into a piece from Arnoldi’s Case Study series, the more you may have to contort and bend within its intricate and interlocking structures. These paintings defy two-dimensionality, teasing out a sense of space, not through use of the tricks of perspective, but through their complex layers of geometric form. The tightly controlled and balanced palette of blues, whites, grays, with some rare hints of sienna, successfully suggests space and depth, but perhaps more importantly is utterly satisfying to the eye. With their layered interaction of planes and lines, it isn’t difficult to make a link between these works and architecture. But the titling of the exhibition for the Post World War II program of Case Study homes sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine is more a case of synchronicity than of conscious planning. Arnoldi didn’t set out to create a series inspired by the Case Study homes, the connection came after the fact when he’d completed a number of the larger canvases and was thinking of what to title them. Having just visited a Case Study home in Los Angeles, his admiration of its clean lines and use of glass were still fresh in his mind and he decided to name the new pieces after Case Study architects. And yet, coincidence or not, a deeper study of these pieces can lead to some very interesting comparisons. The lines of the Case Study houses are clean and the structures are full of intersecting geometric planes: walkways, connecting patios, cantilevered structures, flat roofs, deep flat overhangs. Arnoldi’s paintings not only capture the structural dynamics of this architecture, but their palette is suggestive of their materials: glass, steel, stucco. The one thing you always know you will get when you go to an exhibition of work by Charles Arnoldi is authenticity. He doesn’t stand still—and that is what makes Arnoldi’s art continually fresh. Though the visual vocabulary may change from series to series, a student of Arnoldi’s art will begin to see the underlying patterns, the continuity from piece to piece that expresses so much of Arnoldi’s passions, obsessions, and curiosity. Though the works in this exhibition are in some ways an organic evolution or hybrid of his recent series Grids and Windows, as well as his interest in Mondrian and respect for Diebenkorn, subconsciously his passion for architecture was at play as well. One of the things that fascinates Arnoldi most in construction is the “framing” stage, before the walls are done. In a painting like Nuetra, for example, you can almost imagine standing in the framed skeleton of a building, so that you are able to see several rooms simultaneously with their patterns and intersecting planes. In Charles Arnoldi’s latest exhibition, Case Study, structure is key. Though these paintings, with their constraint and geometry, appear clean and deceptively simple, there is a complication that arises as the viewer sinks deeper into the overlapping layers of lines and planes, studies the way they fracture at the canvas edges. The paintings in Case Study, with masterful architectural technique, balance tight precision with defiant complexity. For more information call the gallery or email: press@charlottejackson.com.

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART 554 SOUTH GUADALUPE STREET, SANTA FE, NM, 505.989.868, www.charlottejackson.com Pictured, left to right: 12.16, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches; 12.15, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches; 12.18, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches; 12.17, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches

CHARLES ARNOLDI An exhibition of works from

1998-2001

NOVEMBER 5 - DECEMBER 5,

2010

Punish the Wi cked, 19 9 8, ac ry lic on canv as, 66 x 58 in ch es

Milestone. 200 I cast bronze 67 '/2 X34 x 22 in ches

Get Away. 199 9. acry lic o n can vas. 72 x 64 inch es

I'm Lo sin g Yo u , 19 9 8, acry lic on can vas, 10 4 x 9 6 in ch es

For immediate release:

CHARLES ARNOLDI: Works from 1998-2001 NOVEMBER 5- DECEMBER 5 OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 5 - 7 P.M. GALLERY TALK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 3 P.M.

CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART

Punish Ihe Wicked, 1998, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 58 Inches

In the Railyard Art District 554 South Guadalupe, Santa Fe, New Mexico 505.989.8688 / www.charlottejackson.com

A solo exhibition, Arnoldi: Works from 7998-2007, by Charles Arnoldi will open at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art on November 5 and extend through December 5.

An Opening Reception with the artist will be held on Frida V, November 5 from 5-7 P.M. There will be a Gallerv Talk on Saturdav. November 6 at 3 PM. The

gallery is located in the Rai/vard Art District at 554 South Guadalupe Street.

Bulky bulbous shapes balance precariously; their solid, swollen forms seem to hang suspended in a moment just before falling. Dark imperfect ovals seep upward on canvas, ghosted by gray shadows that swim behind them. The paintings, sketches and sculptures brought to Arnoldi: Works from 7998-2007, Milestone, 2001, cast bronze, 67 1/2 x 34 x 22 inches

come from the artist's Potato Series. The exhibition this November will be a rare opportunity for the public to view these works together as a coherent whole.

For Charles Arnoldi stagnation is death of art. Over his forty plus years of art making his visual vocabulary has ranged and changed widely. Arnoldi is constantly pushing himself to expand. However, despite the enormous differences in his work, it is impossible not to see how each series is in dialogue with the next. As Arnoldi says "You can't escape yourself." It is the will of the artist to break new ground, to not allow himself to settle comfortably into a familiar pattern that gives Arnoldi's work over time such a powerful sense of mastery and balance, of relent less dynamism. Whether it was the fortuitous genius of seeing brush stroke and gesture in the charred limbs of trees on a Malibu hillside which led to Arnoldi's famous stick paintings, or the impulse that led him to venture into negative space wielding a chainsaw, Arnoldi is not on artist who is afraid to follow an intuitive lead.

Gel Away. 1999, acrylic on canvas. 72 x 64 inches

The origins of the Potato Series have a similarly interesting story. A group of school children visiting his studio one morning started it. Looking at a few of his paintings full of voluptuous organic forms, the kids commented on how this or that shape looked like Mickey Mouse, or like Bullwinkle. The associations stuck In Arnoldi's head and he started to see potatoes in some of the bulbous forms. So, like a true artist. Arnoldi took a trip to his local grocery store and spent hours in the produce department. picking up and examining potatoes, filling his cart with nearly a hundred specimens of all kinds (red, white, russet). It was only at the check-out. when people were giving him odd looks that he realized his cart filled with potatoes might seem a bit strange,

Back in the studio he nailed potatoes to his studio walls, studying their shapes, Banger, 7999. acrylic on canvas, 104 x 96 Inclles

noting the Intriguing shadows they made. He put them into clusters and arrangements and noticed how their odd. asymmetrical forms suggested pre carious combinations and wild balancing acts. At first he cast the potatoes in bronze and used black patina, to underplay their potato-ness and highlight their use as formal shapes. From there the series grew, he made sketches with graphite, and then began to expand the size of both the sculptures and later the paintings.

At the time he started the Potato Series, some thought Arnoldi might have gone a step too far. But the work itself quickly undoes that assumption. There is a raw

Same Ball Park. 1999, acrylic on canvas. 64 x 80 inches

energy and substantial presence to the sculptures that delicately balances with a lightness in some of the precarious constructions. Pure earthy weight and gross organic volume meet with graVity-defying levity. In the paintings, which present these organic forms in a more atmospheric and painterly way, the black shapes

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seem to be haunted by their own faint echoes. There is a protean, generative quality inherent in the forms that suggest growth, movement - the beginnings of life underground. Tasty Spuds #38. 1998, cast bronze. 8 x 67/4 x 3 1/2 inches

The precision of the balancing act that Arnoldi pulls off with the Potato Series is indeed masterful. There is a freshness to these dense forms which only their organic origins could give, while at the same time the dark palette implies a careful. formal control. With this new exhibition, Arnoldi: Works from 1998-2001, the public have a chance to see a truly unique body of work by consummate artist Charles Arnoldi.

Questions, contact: lucie Pastoriza, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art 554 South Guadalupe, Santa Fe, NM 87501 press@charlottejackson.com, tel 505-989-8688, fax 505-989-9898 www.charlottejackson.com

I'm Losing You. 1998. acrylic on canvas. 104 x 96 inches

The Evol ti An excerpt from dialogue with the artist

Born in 1946, Charles Arnoldi has been making artfor more than 40 years. His life, it seems, has been an uninterrupted and utterly organic exploration

of material, shape, pattern and color. Described - perhaps branded - as "a natural," Arnoldi has transitioned spontaneously and constantly from one medium to the next. In his new monograph , Charles Arnoldi: 1972-200 8, a provocative and visually stunning book published by Radius Boons, the artist openly and insighifully dialogues with top art experts on the course of his life and pro lific career, which includes collections at some of the world's most renowned museums: the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain.

Stic ks 1 . .. In 1969, I made the first stick piece. . .. The inspiration for these pieces came from a trip up to Malibu with my friend, Jim Ganzer, after a fire. We had gone to steal fruit from a secret orchard that had been exposed to the highway. We were standing

in the middle of the orchard looking out at the Eucalyptus trees around the perimeter. There were no leaves; all that was left was the blackened tree branches. I thought they looked like beautiful hand-drawn charcoal lines, with the sky as the backdrop. So instead of taking oranges and avo cados, I took a bunch of tree branches back to my studio.

UN TITLED, 1970, LATE X, STRING, AND STICKS, 26 x36 x2INCHES

Left: Standinginfront of CORE, DavidLloyd, left, andCharles Arnol di (

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FROSTBITE, 1987, ACRYLIC ON PLYWOOD, 90 x 84 x 3INCHES

Chainsaw Well, yes these [block paintings] did transition into the larger Chainsaw paintings. Of course , the minute I do something on one scale I think, wouldn't it be great to do some big ones? In my mind I had the idea that I should get a block about 12 inches thick and maybe 8 by 8 feet. So after many calls about how to find a piece of wood that big, we finally got through to somebody and they said they could do that, but it would mean they would have to go way deep in the forest, cut down a tree that was like a thousand years old, cut the slabs out of it, helicopter it out, and they would be happy to deliver them at about something like five or ten thousand dollars a slab. I thought, "I can't do that!" I decided I could make them out of plywood . I bought 48 sheets of plywood , several gallons of glue and glued them together piece by piece. I ended up with a chunk of wood th at was 8 feet by 8 feet and 18 inches thick that was glued to the studio floor and we couldn't lift it! Eventually I realized I could make them thinner and that led to the Chainsaw paintings. . .. [Arnold] 5chwarzenegger came by one day and said, ''I'd love to have that painting." I told him it wasn't for sale, and he said "I want it; how much do you want for it?" I told him I wanted $15 million for it (his recent salary for a film). He said, "You can't have that ," and laughed. He event ually bought the paint ing -

126

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but for less than $15 million , of course.

Gestura l In 1988 , my first child was born . My moth er and brother both died with in six months of each other and it made me stop and reflect. My life had gotten rather complicated. I had bought the foundr y where I was casting bronze; I had way too many telephone numbers, too many assistants and too much stuff. So I decided to quit making Chainsaw paintings, or anything that took assistants , and I just started making paintings on canvas. I felt like I had built a personal linear vocabulary, but I really sort of jus t jumped off a cliff without a parachute. These are just about bru sh strokes.

FLAKE, 1989, OILON CANVAS, 80 x66INCHES

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Hawaii In 1990 we built a house on Kauai. At the time I was making black-and white oil paintings, but when I got to the island, I didn 't want to paint with oils. It was jus t too toxic. So I was liter ally sitting in paradise and I'm looking at plants there that are chartreuse on one side and violet on the other side. Everything was so beautiful, so I thought, "Who gives a shit? Why don't I make some pretty paintings?" That's when I started using acrylic paint. With acrylic paint you can liter ally pour it, pee on it, walk on it -

whatever to it because it's plastic. I think that 99% of acrylic paintings look like crap because the medium is not good. It looks great when you're painting with it, but when it dries it loses the richn ess. As a personal chal lenge I wanted to see if I could make a really good acrylic painting, what ever that means. So I kept working on

SPITFIRE, 1995, ACRYLIC ONCANVAS, 104 x96 INCHES

these and they became more and more layered. In my mind , Spitfire is a really good paint ing, but I realize they are pretty paintings, and to say it is beauti ful is even worse.

Medals The pieces on metal that we're look ing at came from the process of making monoprints. We start with an alumi num litho plate painted with oil paint. It goes through a hydraulic press that puts out 700 tons of pressure. After painting and printing on the plates over and over, like eight to ten times, the plates become more absorbent than the paper and therefore won't transfer anymore. The used plates themselves were really beautiful objects, so I saved them and accumulated a hundred or so. They were so beautiful, I decided to make pieces out of them. I called them "medals" because they're kind of a reward for going through the agony of printmaking.

UNTITLED, 2005, OILONCO PPER, 14.25 x11 INCHES

"After a certain point the work just took on a life of its own. You do one thing and it sug gests ten other things, just unlimited possibilities within that one thing." Charles Arnol di inhisVen ice, Califo rniastudio.

Windows Most of my recent work is on can vas. I haven't given up the Medal piec es, ... but I'm also doing some Window paintings. The first one I painted - or what I consider to be the first Window painting - was made right after Agnes Martin died and I titled it Agnes. I had these different sized canvases, and when I arranged them in a certain way, it left a little hole in the middle, a window. I liked this window, espe cially as a metaphor, and so I left it. ... It is amazing. I do see all this stuff as interconnected. Just because these Window paintings are new in some

ways it becomes clear after years that you always make similar decisions as an artist , and there is a continuity. You can't avoid yourself. There is a simi

BRAIN FREEZ, 20076, ACRYLICON CANVAS, 88 x82.5 INCHES

larity in the work whether it's a Stick paintin g, ... or one of these. •

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Charles Arnoldi, N.S.E.W., acrylic on canvas, 2008

PRESS: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE & CALENDAR LISTINGS Charles Arnoldi: Fractured Arc Paintings November 7 - 29 Charlotte Jackson Fine Arts 200 West Marcy Street Suite 101 Santa Fe, New Mexico Reception and book signing: CONTACT:

Friday, November 7, 5:00 to 7:00pm

press@charlottejackson.com or 505.989.8688

Charlotte Jackson Fine Art is pleased to present the opening of the exhibition Fractured Arc Paintings, a commanding new series of multiple-panel paintings by Los Angeles artist Charles Arnoldi. On the same evening, the gallery hosts a book signing in honor of the release of the exquisite text, Charles Arnoldi, with a foreword by architect Frank Gehry and an essay by Dave Hickey. . Some 40 years ago, a band of artists whose paths crossed in art schools, museums, and studios on both coasts were questioning the status quo of the art of the New York School. There, Rauschenberg and Johns were selling combines and bronze beer cans in Leo Castelli’s gallery while Warhol was merging popular visual culture and commercialism to produce an art that has been known ever since as “Pop.” Something was happening, all right, in New York, but a stolid Modern Art maintained its monarchic hold over the city. Challenging the formalism of Post-Painterly Abstraction, on the one hand, and the grid, on the other, were a raucous bunch of artists in Los Angeles, where, as one of them put it, it didn’t matter what you did because no one was paying attention. One of those artists was Charles Arnoldi (b. 1946). In the din of a drumbeat that rolled out the death knell of painting, Arnoldi looked at ruined, charred tree branches from a Malibu fire and began his “stick” paintings. Next, his chain saw roared; Arnoldi made wall reliefs of rough-hewn lumber. Highly architectural in their construction and considerations, it is no coincidence that his neighbor and best friend remains today Frank Gehry, the Frank Lloyd Wright of the contemporary era. Continuing to explore the gamut of artistic mediums and visual vocabulary, Arnoldi began making Arc paintings, multiple canvases placed in squares to form a monumental

whole, covered in broad, bold gestural strokes of color. Reminiscent of both the chain saw and stick constructions, the Arc series was, for the artist, “more emotional, more human.” Now, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe is pleased to present an exhibition of recent Fractured Arc Paintings by Charles Arnoldi. Comprising multiple-panel paintings in a wide range of sizes, Arnoldi has done away with 90-degree angles in this latest series. This, he says, “allows for a greater level of perspective and the illusion of varying picture planes” within each painting. A look at N.S.E.W., for example, reveals a greater sense of organic, even biological, form; while the piece pictured below, Fight, swirls in a pinwheel of action and quietly exploding sensation. Along with the exhibition, Radius Books and ART Santa Fe Presents announce the publication of a long-awaited volume, Charles Arnoldi, with a forward by Frank Gehry, an introduction by art writer Dave Hickey, and conversations with artist Gregory Amenoff, art historian Fred Hoffman, museum director Michael Zakian, and Arnoldi’s Santa Fe gallerist Charlotte Jackson. The artist will be present for the reception and book-signing event on November 7 at Jackson’s downtown Santa Fe location. Charles Arnoldi attended the Chouinard Art Institute in the late 1960s—a dynamic era for Los Angeles artists that produced the likes of Arnoldi, Larry Bell, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari and Judy Chicago, to name but a few. Arnoldi’s work is represented in major international collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Norton-Simon collection, the Albright-Knox Gallery, the National Gallery of Art in Sydney, the Menil Foundation in Houston, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and many others.

Charles Arnoldi, Fight, acrylic on canvas, 2008

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From left . Charles Arnoldi: Fight. 2008 . acrylic on ca nvas . 72 x 60 inches and N,S.£. w.. 2008. acrylic on canvas . 60 x 51 inches: courtesy Charlott e Jackson Fine Art

Charles Arnoldi: Fmetun:d An: Paintings, Charlot te j ackson Fine Art , 2 00 w: Marcy St., Sui te 101. 98 9-8688; th rough Tu esday, Dec. 9 This review is twofo ld: it looks at an exhibitio n of work by Los Angeles artist Charles Arnoldi - on view at Charlolie Jac kson Fine An - and at a book on th e artist n ewly published by Sant a Fe-based Radius Books. W hat's tough is knowing whe re to begin; both th e exhibition and th e m on ograph arc wort hy of first -p lace honors . However. lookin g at th e real dea l always takes pr ecede nc e over fupp ing through images in a book (bu t th at's not to imply tha t the latter is an y less satisfying ). Cha rles Antoldi : Fracturcd Arc Paintings is lik e tak ing one chapte r ou t of the bo ok and han gin g it on th e wall. Begu n in 2005. th e Arc painting s are an ongoing series in whic h the art ist pieces toget he r mul tiple shaped canvases int o rect ang ular cornposiu ons . But this feat of im peccable cra ftsmans hip is secondary to th e pa in ting itself. More tha n j us t the tailor-fitt ed constructs - th e co njo ined pans are revealed only up on clos e sc rut iny - it's the tru n cat ed (frac tu red) sw eeping ges tur es within th e painti ngs that lend Arn oldi's wo rk its s triking ch aracter. Like segm ents of gia nt pa inted pi nwh eels reassem bled in calc ulated j ux tapo sitions, Arn old i's work is ultimately n on objective. and anything seen as recogni zab le is in the viewer's im agina tio n . Forem ost. aspec ts of process, tex tural qua li ty, and dynam ics of m ove m ent come to mi nd. The work see ms to be in sp ir ed by broken po ttery shards - thesimple design elements. limited color schemes, and th e no t-qu it e seamless transi tion s fro m o ne shaped canva s to the nex t rem in d me of suc h . Arno ldi's applicatio n of paint is proficient bu t thin - th e weave of the canvas shows throu gh. 11 is also app arent th at th e artis t uses masking tape to defi ne hi s arcing edges; altho ugh he canno t be acc use d of being ove rly conce rne d ab ou t prod ucin g precise contours. Trac es of bleed and drip save the wo rk fro m bein g purely dec orat ive. But what gives

December 5 - 11. 2008

Arn old i's pa int ing s their m ost em oti onal and tactil e impac t are the vert ical and horizontal scrape mar ks tha t tend to ground the paintin gs in some ethereal fra mework that echoes the rectan gul ar for mat of the overall compo sition . In a scum bling tech nique that results in scu ff ma rks on th e sur face of the paint ing s, a wi ndow appears that add s a pec uliar perspective to th e wo rk. In short, th ese ma rks we re intentional and not gros s n egligence on the pan of incom petent gallery gru nts. Slli/ller (2008) an d Figh t (2008) - situ ated in the front gallery - are prime exa mp les of all that has bee n said , Sta /ller, pain ted in varying d egrees of black and crea m color, is vis ually activat ed by the fractured arcs yet is sym m etric al in layou t and stabilized by th e inc idental fram ework wi thi n . Fight - paint ed in autumna l shad es of buttersc otch tendin g to raw umber - has th e sam e elem en ts of arrested mo tion imp osed by sym metry and intermi tt en t righ t-an gled scu ff ma rks . Th e back gallery feat ur es two rela ted paintings: N .5.E.\V (2008) and Double Diamond (2008) . Jac ks on was sma rt n ot to in stall these in th e front space. as the y se em less rich , less in viting than th eir mo re aggressively titl ed brethren. Double Diam ond is too fundam ental in its us e of straight-out -of-the tub e Mars Black and Titan ium White. while th e gar ish cha rtre use th rown in th e mix for N.S.E .\V h as too lou d a voice for my se nsibilities. But th e two gouaches in th e show - see mingly studies for th e paintings - arc sweet lilli e d illies tha t are bo ld in person a ye t un derst ated in the ir muted to naliti es and smaller sca le. In to tal. the sho w consists of on ly seven paintings , incl ud ing the two gouaches - a sparse presentation by an y mea ns - but the re is m u ch to cons ide r, and I com me nd Jackson for her conservative installa tion . On the ot her ha nd , Charles Arno ldi the book - wei ghi ng every bit of 7 pounds - is loaded with work: 138 pieces. But the beaut ifull y produ ced pu blica tion - wit h im ages one to a page, along wi th a few detaii shots and ph o tos of Arnold i at wo rk in his studio - d oes no t seem overd on e. Monog raphs

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are us ually ja mmed with reprodu ctions pa ired wit h an overwro ught tex t wi th far-reaching pro fundities that lead to the detriment of th e work, not to mentio n th e ar tis t. Bu t the design team of David Sko lkin an d David Chickey go t this pi tch perfect. Also comm endable is the book's readability. Avoiding th e standard chro no logy - "Arn oldi was born in ... went to schoo l at ... met so-and -so," etc. - as well as a peda ntic series of essays, th e pu blishers in stead incorpor ated an ongoing dia log ue amo ng Arn old i and four people who persona lly know him and his wo rk, includin g gallery own er Ch arlott e Jacks on . Taped during a rou ndta ble discu ssion . the transcrip t serv es n icely as the tex t. Unscri pt ed ;- th e grou p responded to th e artist s work throu gh a progression of slide images that covered all ph ases of hi s career, beginning in the 1970s . The conversa tion is lively. cri tical in th ough t. and w ell paced. Ad ditionally, the introd uction by Dave Hickey - former execu tive editor of Art ill AIIICli ca and profess or of Eng lish at th e University of Nevada. Las Vegas - is w ell in form ed and enligh ten in g; h e talks abo u t Arnold i the person , his West Coast aesth etic , and his art istic accomplishments . Bccom ing acquainted wi th Arnold i's work - an d hi s so m etimes bizarr e m et hod s - was interes ting. Fro m his sculpt ur al Sudl series to th e chain -saw paint ings to his po tato p hase and h is ellips es , grids , arcs , and wi ndows , I apprec iated ho w th e bo ok effortlessly segues fro m one phase of Arnoldi's de velo pme n t to an o the r, giving ea ch eq ual tim e. Most peop le agre e that a book is alway s better tha n th e film it's ba sed on . But in th is case - give n the b ook and th e ex hi bi tion - i t's esse nt ially a toss up , I stand by m y pr eferen ce to see ac tua l wo rk , but bu y th e book for an in-d epth lo ok at a prolific artist whose pro gress ove r n earl y fou r decad es has resulted in so me incredib le w ork. Also kee p in mind tha t 7 po unds of beautifu lly bou n d im ages wo rks grea t as a doors top . - Dou glas Fairfield

Not longago, Santa Fe gallery owners show ed large abstract paintings in intimate spaces. They had nu choke. The renovated old hous es that often served as galleries had too man y load-bearing walls to be opened up into expansive, loft-st yle showrooms . This week alone , two mammoth an spaces make debuts. Gebert Contempo rary opens a 6,OOO-square-[oQ[art pa lace in the Railyard District. And Charlotte ja ckson Project Space, which comprises two buildings totaling 5,000 square feet for storage and exhibition, opens near Airport Road. Like slices cut from a gigantic frozen chocolate-cream concoction, Jackson's light-brown buildings rise from a grassy field . On a recent morning, Charles Arnoldi's 8-by-8-foot pain ting A necdotes leaned against a wall, its cardboard shipping box still spread on the gallery's concrete Iloor. Light streaming through Project Space's skylights, windows. and glass-and-steel roll-up doors filled the cavernous room and accentuated th e depth of A necdotes' foggy grays. Across the room , vivid orang es in Marks seemed aggressive yet tamed by th e space. A half dozen oth er big paintings', all Iearurin g fragment ed arcs stood propp ed against oth er walls. Charles Anw/Ji: The Arc Paintings, whi ch occupie s Project Space and Char lotte Jackson Fin e Art's downtown gallery, opens with publi c receptions at both venu es on Friday.j uly 6. Th e artist app ears at Proje cr Space, which shows his large paintings; it is open by appointment after Friday's Elizabeth Cook-Romero I The New Mexican reception . The downtown gallery; housing Arnoldi's smaller paintings, maintains regular hour s. Both spaces featur e his paint ed-alu minum wall reliefs. "I love to make art that is larger than me ph ysi cally," Arn oldi said during a phone interview from his Los Angeles stu dio. "Its almost as if you can walk int o it." Huge paintings have become associ ated with modernism , perhap s beginning with jackson Pollock and other mid-20th-cent u ry New York School artists, Arnoldi explained. "But they also made large art during th e Renaissan ce. David is not a small sculpture ." To und erstand and appreciate a big painting, viewers need space to back up and take in th e composition in its entirety, bu t, acco rding to Arn oldi, that's only half the experience . "l Iove to get within arm's distan ce of a painting. Th at's where the art ist made it, and from there I can see how he handled the brush. " Bur Arnoldi noted that he is as serious about making a small gouache as a wall-size acrylic. For the past year and a half, Arnoldi has worked on two bodies of work Simultaneously : the "arc" series and wan reliefs he calls "geometric :' which are constru cted of colored squares and rectangl e, "The arcs are much mor e emotiona l; they're more hum an . Th ey allud e to things. I love the geomerric paintings -"- don't get me wrong - but ther e is a cold detachm ent about them." Their dispassiona te stance, Arnoldi con tinued , is a statement about the art world. "Most art today is recycled images from the Intern et. It's kind 01 distu rbing to me - and at the same time. 1wanted to play with that. So, the geometric paintings are about rhe synth etic approach to making paintings." Tostay fresh , Arn oldi said that he like' to keep himself a little off balance. He makes a few somber, dark paintings like Anecdotes, then light ens up . "I have to be very careful because T get real good at making thing s in a hurry, which is dangerous. So every once in a whih [like to do something like pain t an orange-and -blue painti ng, whi ch is about as corny as you can get."

-ump f t rI

Charles Arnoldi: Untitled, 2007, gouache on paper, 26. 5 x 24 inches continued on Page 36 Top. A necdotes, 2007 , acrylic on canvas, 96 x 96 inches Images courte sy Charlotte Jackson Fine Art

Ju ly 6 - 12, 200 7

Walking Rain, 200 7, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches

Charles Arnoldi, conti nued from Page 34 Midcarcer artists like Arno ldi, who have collectors and regular shows, can easily fall into traps that sap the vitality from their work . "I don 't wan t to be making products for sale." Arnoldi said. "I have found that those peopl e who fall in love with their careers and their success basically suffocate their art. They arc afraid to make changes and push themselves: So, they work in tigh t parameters. ... Th e art world rewards thos e who repeat themselves. I'm afraid of that. so if I want to mak e an orange-and-blu e painting, I'm just going to do it." Several times during the interview, Arnoldi said that he is driven by a simpl e and elusive goal: to mak e good paintings. But, he admitted, defining or even recognizing good painting is subjective. Arnoldi, like many artis ts, also talks about his paintings takin g on lives of their own and resisting the artist's will. "It becomes a struggle because you can't make the thing Itself as perfect as your imaginati on . As the paint ing progresses, you realize its shortc omings, and you believe the next painting is going to be better." Once a work is linish ed, Arn oldi said, h e no lon ger feels a personal attachment to it. He talks about his older pain tings as if someone else mad e them . But his relationship to curr ent work is qu ite differ ent. " I'm real sensitive to what I'm working on now. It's living and breathing. I'm Sitting here, looking across the stu dio at the painting I'm working on. It's almo st as if it's looking back at me and yelling, 'Will you get off th e ph on e and come back to work7'" ...

details 'Y Cha rles Arnold i; The Arc Paint ings 'Y Opening rece pt ions 5-7 p. m . Friday, July 6: exhibit s th rough July 'Y Charlotte Jack son Fine Art , 200 W. Marcy st., Suit e 1.01., 9 89-8688 'Y Charl ott e Jackson Project Space, 75 11 Mallard Way, buildings B & C, 989·8688; by appointment only after July 6 •

0~/27/2007

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Charles Arnoldi at Modem sm

rtworks are complicated these days, their raisons d'etre often obscure even to art fans habituated to staring down "anxious objects" (Harold Rosenberg's term for objects of ambiguous artistic meaning) without flinching. The history of modernity has taught us, after all, that no idea, however seemingly absurd, can be dismissed out of hand, and so today we tread warily 'twixt the Scylla of faith and the Charybdis of doubt, and the monster of enraged rejection and the maelstrom ofblithe acceptance, respectively. It's hard work; sometimes we envy the ancient philistines of a century ago who safely vented their baft1ed outrage. It is refreshing, then, to find beautiful and lucid art that makes its own case with complete conviction, with logic and imagination in perfect balance, aesthetically self-sufficient and clear, but still complex and challenging. Charles Arnoldi's latest abstract paintings have a serene clarity that combines intellectual rigor with painterly gusto; they synthesize what are usually considered mutually exclusionary realms, or complementary modes of thinking -Iinear and painterly, conceptual and perceptual, reason and imagination -into a rich new abstraction. The paintings, measuring about five-by seven feet, are comprised by eight to twelve smaller canvases butted together to form what resemble large puzzles made of sliding parts (although they do not actually move). Each of the variously sized constituent rectangles has a monochromatic background, and the larger background field consists of Tetris-like irregular groups of blocks and simple rectangles juxtaposed; one to three 13 - 14 Jun 2007 Artweek

ARNOLDI STUDIO

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harmonious colors are employed The panels

thus combine to form cool geometric abstractions (Arnoldi makes vibrant color grid paintings as well). The more complex arrangements suggest real-world images generalized or pixilated to the point of illegibility, like that familiar optical illusion pattern of rectangles that transforms into Lincoln when you relax your gaze. Superimposed on this architectural framework is the artist's "writing"; large, curved brushstrokes generally monochrome., medium-dark to dark against the lighter backgrounds. They follow the same format throughout: a large 0, or set of parentheses, cropped so that we never see the complete image, and seemingly rendered from different angles and distances -a bit obsessively, like Cezanne's and Hokusai's repeated paintings of mountains. Each pair of strokes which appear to be thickly painted over taped stenciling, is contained within its panel, but we read the "writing" in adjacent blocks as cohering into larger units and gestures that animate the greater field. Typography and typesetting come immediately to mind; so do schematized eyes, solar orbs, coffee beans, flower petals, cowrie shells and the women's lips in Man Ray and Tom Wesselman. These symbols are richly ambiguous. The overall calligraphic rhythms recall cubism, de Kooning and Pollock, but the simplicity of Arnoldi's motif and its varied repetition (suggestive of anamorphic projections and observers moving around to different vantage points) connote detached scientific observation rather than the creative ecstasy of the artist-shaman. . Several other features complicate and enliven these visual conundrums. The division of the painting field into smaller panels brings to mind comic strips (especia '1 modem ones, with their irregular layouts) and, thus, narrative. The repeated central motif tempts viewers to imagine shifting position in order to capture the differing views, as Mark Tobey imagined his eye as a

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Charles Arnoldi, Pushy Woman, 2007, acrylic oncanvas, 82" x 66", al Modemism, San Francisco,

fly buzzing around his studio. The typography is cropped in every frame. so we interpret one frame as closer to us than another, or newer. But, as we shift our gaze, a new sedimentary and spatial order emerges and no consistent reading is possible. Finally, the linear orthogonals, which appear to have been made by blotting the wet paint with a long sponge or a towel wrapped around a stick, create an implied atmospheric perspective and space behind the frontal plane. Yet, they also contradict that reading, since they remove paint from the typography, and thus come forward. Furthermore, they read as shading within the frames, like the receding planes in analytical cubist works, or as the highlights of a slightly flexed plane that is slightly too large for its allotted space. These works do not sit on the wall basking placidly in our admiration, but rather appear primed to snap shut or blow apart; they're sprung traps -anxious objects indeed, for all their witty, refined beauty. The humorous titles (Phone Full a/Money, Poke. Vaccine, Pushy Woman, Survival, Jackknife) seem to verify that sardonic reading.

-DeWitt Cheng Charles Arnoldi: Recent Works closed May 5 at Modernism, San Francisco

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13 - 14 June 2007 Artweek

DeWitt Cheng is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.

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FI Chuck Arnoldi, best known for his asse mblages and paintings o f eucalyptus branches, unveils large, multipanel paintings (page 32) that explore cl as sic figure-ground relationsh ips .

O.UO C .

California heavyweights headline Imago Galleries' season opener

BY STEVEN BILLER 30

Palm S p r ings Li fe

I D ec emb er 200 4

h u c k Arnoldi 's large, mult ip anel pain tin gs o f co lorfu l, interse ctin g orbs and Fletcher B enton 's bold, abstrac t ste el sculpt ures wit h figurative moti fs do m inate Im ago Galleries' first exhibit ion of th e seaso n . Cas ual o bse rvers m igh t re co gni ze the m es that help ed elevate the C aliforn ia art ists to icon stat us, but a clo se lo o k at th e new w orks revea ls the ways th ey p ress forwa rd, innovate , an d ne ver compro m ise. w ww .palms p ri ngslife .com

Benton 's F(l/ded Ci rcle and F(l/ ded Square Alphabet scu lp t ures w er e am on g hi s fir st d epa rtures from the kin etic art world, w h ic h ha d es ta bl ishe d hi s n am e in tern ati ona lly. Over th e years, the new Constructivist would cast all 26 lette rs, A thro ugh Z, and cardinal numbers, th rou gh 9, in geometri cally sop histicated Folded Squares. H e sto p ped man y times to create oth er series, such as his

Steel W atercolors, Olle-Legged Tables, Blocks on Blocks, Balanced/Unbalanced, and Plane to Edge.

F I e /

Fletcher Benton uses a limited geome trical palette to bui ld his Constructivist scultpures .

Y et th e Alphabet sculptur es co nt in ue to ch all en ge hi m ; h e recast m an y afte r seein g sha rpe r so lutio ns to pr obl em s eac h let te r presents. "Wh en yo u do th at m any pie ces, th ere w ill be wea k on es," says Benton, w hose fo urt h boo k , du e for early- 20 0S rel ease, fo cus es so le ly o n th e Alph abet sculptures . "Over th e yea rs, I feel I co uld do better. I pro ba bly redid 10 or 12 pi eces. If I live lon g eno ug h, I'll prob abl y d o th em all again. I always told my studen ts that if th ey' re no t wi lling to thr o w aw ay the ir m o dels at th e doo r, ge t

out now. We' re no t go ing to m ak e b o ok ends in here." In add itio n to selected Alph abet pi eces, th e Im ago ex h ibitio n will includ e B en ton ' s new Botanical and Ru sted Indian scu lp tures. Benton , wh o li ves in Na pa Valle y, sta rte d th e Botanicals during the 19 80s " w he n I go t sic k of the Alphab ets," h e says . T he elonga te d, ban ana -sh aped , geo m etrical pl ant s to w er with w eed -lik e ste ms, so me o f w h ich re ach 7- fee t in he ig ht. www.pa l ms pri ngs l i fe .com

" I' m a ver tical sculpto r," he says, noting th e use of balls as seeds "to deal with the hereafter of the plant - th ey all have littl e balls and o ne big ball. Some of th e little balls hang o n th e ed ge, w hich imp lies m ot ion an d pr obably goes bac k to my ki neti c art ." Hi s Ru sted Indians w e re in spi red by o ne o f his wa terco lo r paintin gs - an d th ey 're neith er ru st ed n o r reco gni zabl e as Na tive Am eri cans . Rat he r, th ey commu n ica te a limited geo me trica l p alette he ~ o nt e n d s could b e foun d in any tribe's earliest ve ssels and cr ea tive p ro du ct s. December 2004

I Palm Spri n gs Li fe

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r n o ld i - th e V eni ce-based artist b est known fo r hi s genre-busting assemblages of eucalyptus branch es, which he also represented in paintings and c hainsa w ed, carved-wood reliefs comes to Palm Desert wi th tall (up to 8 fe et ), multipanel ed paintings that break from hi s lin ear form s in favo r of colo r fields in w hich orbs app ear to flo at in cla ssic figur e-ground explora tion . In hi s n ew paintings, Arn oldi, 5 8, uses th e same b asic shapes th at have marke d hi s paintin gs sinc e the ea rly 1990s. In fact, the orbs see m rel at ed to hi s 1997 p otato sculptures and paint ings . " I lo o k ed at 100 potatoe s," he says. "I took th e beau ti ful ones an d ca st them . They also cast bea utiful shado w s, whic h I used in the wa y a lan dscape pain ter w ould u se the landsc ape ." He so m e tim es uses the enti re form, and sometimes he crops it. E ach of the new pa intin gs consists of 20 p atterns - five sets o f four panels. " I w ork out a pattern of rec tan gl es, set up a dire ct ional field, and fig ur e o u t a col or sche m e, " Arno ld i says. "Th ey look sim ple - tw o ba sic col o rs on canvas ~ but it' s very calc ulate d and difficu lt . I so m etimes have to paint ove r sli ghtly w et paint. " An y p an el could exist independently, but these gro u pin gs fu el the vi sual e nergy of the w h o le. The raw power comes from the li n gering question of th e orbs ' fat e o r th e movement of mass in spa ce. T he optimistic co lors on th ese undu lating orbs offer a p layful distracti on from m ass-m edi a an xie ties . ew Y ork artist E uge ne . B ro ds ky and Los An gel es pho togr aph er E d F re e ma n (oppo site pa ge ) jo in Benton and Arn oldi in th is gro u p ex hib itio n . Brodsky works in a va rie ty o f me dia, co m b inin g el em en ts to crea te reli efs th at blur th e lin e between abs trac t painting and sc ulp tur e. Fr eeman re centl y pu blish ed D esert R ealty, a book co n tain ing unaba shed ly manipu lated ph otogr aphs taken in th e Ca lifo rnia d eserts (see " T he Fabulist " in Palm Springs Life ART+ C ULTURE , page A C4) .

Arno ldi develops a pattern of rectang les and arranges them in a directional field, leav ing the viewer to dete rmine the fate of the orbs in space.

e nt on is w orking on a fifth book, which will do cument the birth of his sculp tures and foll ow th eir gro wth, fini sh ing, and delivery to gall er ies and installation venu es. Indeed, B ento n's sculp tures reflect his calculated add ition s and subtractions of elements. When on e "rings ," he pres ses forw ar d to see ho w far he can take it. Wh en h e goes too far, he redu ces unti l the pi e ce rin gs again . "When yo u look at m y wo rk , I h op e yo u think nothing can be add ed and nothing can be take n aw ay. " T h e wh ole process is so mu ch fun and so pre ci ous to m e - just ge ttin g th e stee l delivered ," he co n tin ues . "I liv e on a one-way street. Wh en semi -trai lers carrying to ns of steel co m e in, it's qu ite so mething. I think pe ople sho u ld know that stuff."

Palm Spr ings Life I Dec emb er 200 4

A ll artist recepti on is set f or D ec. 11 at Imag o Ga lleries, 45-4 50 Highway 7 4 , Palm D esert. C all (760) 776-9890; ww w .imag ogalleries.com . •

March, 2003

limited palette of prima ry co lors: red, yellow . blue. black and white. The selection s on view are representat ive highlights from Jense n's vast oeuvre (Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica). Cha r les Arnoldi is an estab lished master of the quick paced, interwoven straight edge . In this series, which include s monotypes, gouaches and so me g rap hite-o n- pa pe r work s. Arno ldi introduces an atypical theme : the gestural arch or circular line mov ing though abstract comp ositions with the sam e e nergy as his signa tu re stippled skeins. Don 't ass u me that it's the sam e old fare (Bobbie Greenfield Gal lery. Santa Monic a). Richa rd Brulands East ofwest em show is uncom promising in its pursuit of the " fl at , picture plane" on the wall, af ter Clement Greenberg' s articula te insistence of the late 1940 s. The viewer is directly presented with lovinyiv handc rafted fl at object s that are mou nted on a wall. They asse rt themselves as artificial obj ects with an alien primacy. A you move back and forth. a physical spac e within the pic ture plane seems to percep tually co here. a three-dime nsiona lco ntainment of haze and atmos phere. Using an unde rcc .uing of grad ua ted tertiary color overlayed with a text ured clear mediu m, the art ist applie s a second coat of di tfc re III seconda ry or tertiary hues over the sandw iched clear me dium . With a sandin g block he then proceeds to eve n out the raised areas o f the clear med ium and to gradually e xpose the undercoat ing. This pro cess of percep tual disco very. of layer ing and revela tionof accidental shapes as the bumps in the surface are worn a",· y. co ntinues for a viewer lookin g at auc " through" the random filigree of shape s prod uced. A sense of explo ration inform s these works and though they may seem to sugges t image ry such a', road ways goi ng off into the haze of .he distance, or upper and lower atmospheres of the sky, they remain resol utely and elegantly j ust what ;/ley are: handcrafted flat ob jects. mysterious touchstones that ques tion how we see the world, which point at once away from it and towards

Richard Bruland, "My Lagoon,"2003, acrylic onboard, 24 x 48"

it. There is a power ful, almos t mo nas tic. se lf-sufficie ncy in all of this (Gal lery 825 Anne x. Santa Monica). It is a nice idea but one that will have post structur alist fem inists fur rowing their brow. Shouts, Whi spers and Chee rs is the title of a six woman. diverse media show curu ted by Dr Irina Costache . T he words refer to the modalities with which wome n speak or are heard in [heir creative and per so nal lives: they are bold. they are suhtle and they are triumphant. So unds pretty good, ifnot all that subtle or vast a range of e xperience. The good news is that the works by these six artists are more than solid. Some have been aroun d for a long time and show pa ra digm pieces--for exampl e Laura Hull' s photo gr a ph s of hush ed do me sti c spaces . Also of interest are the multi media works of L.A. vetera n Barbara Drucker, and Samantha Fields' paint ings that do "shout" their message (Mount St. Mary' s College. West Lo-, Angeles). Two long time co llaborators in non traditional body art. Don Ed Hard y and Bob Rob erts date back to SF iauoo parlors that predate the current craze . Serious abourthis a, an artlorm . Hardy studied body marking in Japan. and is still based in SF. Roberts makes his home here in LA. This show features works not on skin but in wa tercolor. The delicious designs feature comple x signs and symb ols that yoke pop to grunge, Asia to tattoo flash. Everything that comprises the post modern blur of exper ience--from sex to violence to T ibetan Buddhi sm-vis woven into image s that both artists approach with the "one chance/fi nd the form " strokes that tattoo ing re qui res (T rac k 16 Gall e ry. Sant a Moni ca). Suza n ne Willi am s ' draw ings and

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Oscar's original pro snded outduring the ized Oscar along Walt Disneyfor .cademy of Motion lireBlvd., Beverly un.,noon-6p.m.; thru

STUMEDESIGN les from lastyear's :hio, The Lord of the FashionInstituteof d Ave.; Mon.-Sat., 10

10. Joll'Artists' is the 'ing more than 15 nporaryblackdoll IIiamGrant Still Arts lb.28.(323)734 ltennial tribute via rom variousU.S. sof thecomedic leg ssince WWII. )Presidential Dr., June 7; $5, $3 se .10-8354. rench and :l relationship be

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J, Walt Whitman, atsand anthologies arv; Mon.-Thurs.. 8 1 a.m.-5 p.m.: Sun..

19 History and y and Ourselves, a multimediaexhibit Ito make adiffer al and written text isis in LittleRocKs the city's'Central lit are theaccompa re, which profiles 'oung Artists { local students. vn.: thruMay4; 10a.m.-6 p.m.; Sun.•

nds, Osears, pastel Jngressional Gold personal belongings rary, DavidL Wolper Iry; Mon.-Fri., 9 am yed alongsidethese WilliamRobert •Field, horns of the lackieRobinson ma; Mon-Ihurs., 8 ly 11.(6261791 teur photographers fe in Southern i Valleypark's land iorial Park,6150 8:30a.m.-4:30p.m.;

IN Some 30pho cesofthisEast ggest festival, the Jiversity, Suite 870, 1., 3-6p.m.; thru Lost of 9/11 loA. nearly 4Opha lissing personsno :ity afterthe terror 1 St., dwntwn.;. oa.m.-6p.m.; Sun.•

.CHARLES ARNOLDI, WERNER DREWES Charles Arnoldi is at the 'same time t he qutntesse ntlal post-minimal Los Angeles ab stractionist and something of an odd man out. Rat her t han pressing against local and New Yor k styles...,... althouqhthes e do figure in Arnoldi's development - his recon siderations have been mostly of Euro(.>ean models, from Futurism and Constructivism t o the baroque simplicity of late Matisse. Furthermore, Arnoldi reconsiders these ex uberant models in a usually beautiful but just as usually sober, even introspective man ner, always moving fo rm and colo r a little bit away from the gorgeous and t owa rd t he mysterious - toward a stilled motion and brilliant murk that finally seem no more oxymoronic than does Matisse's "baroque simplicity." This 30-year retrospective of •works. on paper - primar.i1y monoprints and gouaches - evinces the persistence of these 'complex qualities, from the early stick-network compositions to the latest arrangements of colored ovals moving in; aro und and against blocks of color. More than 70 works, some of them I?retty big, compose this'show, and it does seem cu rated with a shoehorn, but the s alon-style hanging of the earlier work can't suppress the tumultuous murmur that ru ns throughout. · . . Arnoldi's love of texture, modified but still luminous color, and un-rigid geometric form finds coincidental but fortuitous precedence in the work of German-born,. Midwest- and East Coast-ba'sed abstractionist Werner Drewes. Drewes studied at the Bauhaus in Germany and taught at its Chicago reincarnation, so you'd expect his art to reflect the architectonic language spoken at that legendary school. But Drewes'· masters were Klee,Kandinsky, Feininger and Johanriesltten, everyone a "soft" .geometrizer - indeed, covert (or "lct-so-covert) figurationist - and Drewes' own eon .structivism .is vibrant, painterly ..nd (however stylistically consistentl thoro...ghly idiosyncratic. In fact, this micro-survey begins with etchings depicting skyscrapers and even a person or two. Drewes, a co-founder of the American Abstract Artists as sociation, worked for a solid six decades, which means Arnoldi is at the halfway mark. Charles Arnoldi at Bobbie Greenfie ld, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., No. B6, Santa Monica; thru March 15. (3101 264-0640. Werner Drewes at Tobey C. Moss Gallery, 7321 Beverly Blvd.; thru Feb. 28. (323) 933·5523. . -Peter Frank Wealso recommend: ElinorMilchanat i. ouis Stern; Alison Saar at Jan Baum; The Distance Between My House and the Beach at Occidental College; Text at Raid Projects; Slobodan Dimitrov at A Shenere Velt; John Virtue and Deborah Bl!tterfield at L.A. Louver.

. tanks and a shark and jellytank. as well as a rornN terand microscope lab. Open Sat.-Sun., 11a.m.-5 p.lr, : $3. chil dren under 3 free. (3101 393·6149. -Siran Babavan

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GROUP EXHIBITION ofworks byHannelore Baron, JosephCornell, Robert Motherwell and others. Manny Silverman Gallery, 619N. Almont Dr.; thruFeb. 22. (310) 659-8256. JOHNRAIMONDI: TheJazzSeries: Sculptures and Drawings, abstract portraits inspiredbythemusic of ~iUie Ho~iday, _JohnC~ltrane andother jazz artists. Forum

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2003 E31

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S YN COPAT ION: A Charles Arnoldi gouache on collaged paper plays with interrupted shapes. ,:

On occasion Arnoldi's work The work does falter, but it sneaks into another artists' ter never stops exuding an air of dis ritory : A 1974drawing looks like covery. Arnoldi - who is welles a Craig Kauffman, for instance. tablished as a painter and sculp But Arnoldi's more obvious tor - shifts between media, if weakness is making work that is .testing several languages to .hear their different music. His newest "Charles ArnoldJ : Works on derivative of his own. Paper: A Thirty-Year Survey, A wall filled with his linear works, gouache paintings on.eol 1972-2002" is a big, dense, uneven ' work begins with images ofbrac laged paper, partner colors; ill show. CUrated by art historian ing simplicity and integrity. A stunning combinations: crimson and dealer Fred Hoffman for 1975 drawing presents a taut , and 'gold,violet and orange:~Tbey Bobbie Greenfield 'Gallery, the scaffolding of lines, a field of pure play with interrupted sh(l.pe~ show samples Arnoldi' s work in energy, Jackson Pollock's skeins and syncopated rhythms, :.,''a.nd pastel, gouache, monotype, pulled tight. Shadowy erasures prove that, even when Arnoldi lithograph, woodblock and char echo the firmer lines, creating a exhausts himself in one area; hf! coal. In the 70-plus works here, sense of depth and space. ' rises phoenix-like in anotherf • By the late 1980s, however, ' :. :; Arnoldi riffs on jus t. a few recur ring motifs - linear webs (relat Arnoldi has quoted his linear Bobbie Greenfield Gallery, Ber~t ing to his signature stick paint theme to death, and the im Station, 2525 Michigan Ave" sjrnta ings), plant-like forms and fiat mediacy ofthe decade before has Monica: (310) 264-0640, through March 8. Closed Sunday and Monday. turned clumsy and labored. discs set against shittini(planes.

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Arnoldi's .abstracts invigorate

C4 .§an ,!francisco Q;~ronidr

Multipanel works play with light, color arid space

... GALLERIES

By David Bonetti

GALLERIES David

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From Page Cl

• C H RON ICLE ART CR ITIC

outhern California artist CharlesArnoldi is best knownfor his woodwall reliefs, many vigorously carved and painted, but during the '90s his attention turned to paint ing. His experiments in applying acrylic to canvas, now at Modernism, should please those attracted to the decora tivebranch of Southern Cal ifornia painting. Light, color and space are its hallmarks, in the line of Sam Francis and Ed Moses. Bonetti The workat Modernism developed out of the mural- , scale painting Arnoldidid for the new 101 Sec ond St.tower but exhibits confidence in the. ' ability of a fewmotifsto carrythe picture. But if the work in the galleryis lessbusythan that enormous lobbypainting, it is far from mini mal. Arnoldi adroitlydeploys abstract paint ,ing's full arsenal of trickswith invigorating

Charles Arnoldi's "Jump Start," (20 01), acrylic on linen, with its colors and shapes, follows the tradition of decorative SouthernCalifornia painting.

results. Each ofthe works is multipaneled. Each panel could exist independently, but the en semble gainsforce and complexity by the grouping.The typical panel features parts of two circles or ovals in proximity.The simple arrangement allowsArnoldi to play with clas sic figure/ground relationships. For instance, in some the ground appears to advance while .. GALLERIES: Page C4 Col. 1

CHARLES'ARNOLDI: Paintings.ThroughOct. 27. Modernism, 685 Market St., San Francisco, . (415)541-0461. YAVOI KUSAMA: Paintings. Through Nov. 7 at line Real Art, 1 Otis St., San Francisco. (41 5) 503-1981. NEVERLAND: NEW PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER BYTIMOTHYCUMMINGS: Throughtodayat Catharine Clark Gallery, 49 GearySt., Sa,n Francisco,(415) 399 -1439 ,

the figuresrecede, Arnoldifavors high-keyed color,and his combinationsare eye-pleasing but not ' formulaic.Pairsof complementaries,pri maries, secondaries and a single color in darker and lighter shadesare among his repertoire.Studyingthe picturesclosely could provide an educationin color theo ry. The resultsare upbeat and cheerful, but not mindless. These picturesmight proveto be exactly what peopleare look ing for at this time ofanxiety.

}, e··e··e,;:.e · No longer at

the center of the .. g9.lJery sceneand art world buzz- mid-ca reer artists face special marketas well as creative challenqes. Tt1.~ wo rst pa rt is, it's not clear that anvoneout side their studio ".',.:. even cares. E3,V Steven Vincent I .,

. .

HARLES ARNOLDI IS N OT YOUR TYPICAL ARTIST,ATLEAST

not one of the faineants of Puccini's La Boheme. A strapp ing 54-year-old, married to a beautiful wife and living in L.A.'s h au te bourgeoisie playground of' , Malibu, . Arnoldi counts among his friends celebritiesDennis Hopper, Mick]agger and Meryl Streep. His art, which ranges from brightly-colored abstract paintings to sculptures made of tree branches and chain saws, fetch es between $20,000 and $60,000. He has sold works to hundreds of collectors nationwide , including advertisingmoguljay Chiat, tel evision producer DouglasCramer and Gap clothing chain founder-Donald Fisher, as well as such instit ut ions as the Mus eum of Modern Art in New York; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and-t he San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He drives a Mercedes. He surfs . He is, by his own account, extremely fortunate. Why, then, is Charles Arnoldi dissatisfied? "I've never been considered hip or cool. I make a huge amount ofwo.rkthat the public doesn't see," complains the artist, who is currently in between gal leries in L.A. and whose work is represented in New York by the Charles Cowles Gallery. "No one has wri tten critical articles about my art, and curators ofsurvey shows go to the hip galleries but overloo kme and the 30 or so other older artists .. who are doing great work. It makes me feel ter rible." . Welcome to the plight of the mid-careerartist. Neither the brash.freshface ready to turn the art world on its head, ndr ;t h e venerable old master accorded respectful museum retrospectives, the mid-career artist faces the challenge of sustaining the promise of his early career and building toward some .sort.ofpro fessional climax, even as the autumnal chill of middle age sets in. "The difference between artists who are f,~,m o u s and those who are not is great~ : .~

ART & AUCTION 169

, P E T E R P L~ G E N S . 59

ImedaJinsakt (TIme far Raq,a),1998,mixed media

"on canvas,'from.the Nancy'~offrllan Gallery, New York.,:: ',, "What holds back many ,mld';C:lueer artists Is the it's to disownyout-own style."

fac:tthat

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est in mid-career," muses dealer emeritus Andre Emmerich. "When you are young, ' you are hopeful that the lightning offame will strike. When you're old , ambitions " :i·'. leave you. You make your compromises, accept your f~te. Meanwhile, you see your " ~f'c oll e a gu e s rac e ahead;" ' Indeed, for every artist on the dinner-party A-list from Beverly Hills to the Hamptons, there are hundreds of others who once showed promise but now labor ,in the relative obscurity of positions at second-tier art schools-or have simply van ;"),'fsh ed. While some of the same issues confront people in other professions-being. , mid-career in the commercial gallery system can be especially trying. ~ "Society does not allow artists theright to retire : It expects them to continue .'::,m aking art," says Ann Freedman, president of the blue-chip contemporary and " ~ po s twa r gallery Klloedler& Company. As Emmerich relates, "Robert Motherwell ' " once said to me : 'In Europe, if you're a master, you 're a master. But in America, you're only as good as your last show.'" There are exceptions, of course. The recent retrospective of epigrammaticalartist ' Barbara Kruger, age 55, at the Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art in New Yprk, illus . trates the heights of popularity that can be reached by a mid-eareer artist. And certainly, no one is worrying about such middle-aged figures as Chuck Close (60), ' ,;,Robert Gober (46), or Cindy Sherman (46). Nor should one confuse the struggling . mid-career artist with such pueri aeterni as Jeff Koons (45) and Mike Kelley (46), whose art is as willfully adolescent as that of recent School of Visual Arts graduates: But those are artists whose talent, career savvy and good fortune have carried them to the pinnacle of success , and kept them there. For countless others, the

. 170 ,NOVEMBER 2000

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"i ~tory is much different. Says Newsweek art critic Peter Plagens, 59,"Have you heard ..<t he ol d adage? It's easiertofindnewartists for old clients than new clientsforold artists. Collectors tend to ask their dealers, 'What's new?' instead of 'What great ' ~rt canyou show me?'" .' ' ... i,' "Th e history ofart sincethe rnid-1800shasbeen about newness," adds Plagens , .c;:,·,wJ:io is also a well-respected abstract artistshowing at the NancyHoffman Gallery ) n New York, where his large paintings sell for around $15,OOO~ "Now that artists , n o longer preach morality to the illiterate masses or present pictures of the king, ';::" t h eir OJ:llYfunction is novelty.Iike .the fashionindustry," . .. ' .·· Alo ng with collectors and dealers, museurna--especlally.in the U.S.-:-frequently ;'/ 'gi~e ' rnid-c~ree r artists the brush-off.While m~seum directors in Europe often have ", more 'controlin spending their acquisitions budgets, theirAmerican counterparts . " "' freCJu~l1tIY niustaccommodate the wishes of museum trustees. \ S~ys NewYork-based abstractionist Sean Scully, 5'1:; whose paintings are well ,,(repre s~nted in such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum ofArt in NewYorkand , . .; t~E! Hii-shhorn Musellmand Sculpture Garden dn\o\Tashington, D.C.,"In America, it's · ·· "·/'·easyf or a museum trustee to contribute, say, $5,000 for a work by an emergiIlg artist. , These pat~ons are alsowilliIlgtoband togetherto purchase a multi-million-dollar ; , ',work by,s ay, jasper johns, because its value is'already proven. But the mid-career . , artis~\",~ose >\lark is neither cheap nor a sure thing; fallsthroughthecracks~" ~ '> , . 'Nomen ~rtistsin particular have visibilityissues<is they age, even in .this politi ' , . calli c()rre~t era.Oldenvomen artistswho'rilay not possess the looks of~l1th , ' ,;: cu rrent media darlings as thirtysomething artists Cecily Brown and Inka ,, :. ' EssbIlhigh have a hard time catching thepublic eye; "It's a part of an ove rall social problem, but a lot of women artists find that as soon as they aren't perceived as attractive, their sales drop and they become in~isible," notes Plagens. "It's worse when speculators get into the market," says John Cheim, whose New York gallery, Cheim & Read, represents many mid-career artists, including Pat Steir (61), Donald Baechler(44) and Lynda Benglis (59). Because society often puts

I' I

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a ower pnce tag on wor s y women artists, hi~ notes, "buyers I00 kimg to art fior its financial value tend to disregard female artists. " 1

SEAN SCULLY, 54 ; •. , Wallof Light orang~, ,1999, ;i • oil on linen fromKnoedler& ,;:' Company, New York: ' ,'; . ,

"[When museul'TIs ,~r. ; , buying], the mid-career ' artist, whose,Ylorli;Js' , neither cheap' nor sure thlng"fallsthrough th~ o, cracks."

the Chelsea gallery district. mounted a retrospective of the artist's work from the '; mid·1960s to the 1980s. And Color Field painter Noland is poised fora comeback as . well. thanks to another set of shows taking place this fall. In September. Lennon. Weinberg showed his work. priced between $75.000 and $95.000; alongside mid '' ' career artists such as Valerie Jaudon and Gwen Hardie: And in December. ArileringerfHoward in New York is showing new Noland circle paintings. priced . between $48.000 and $95.000. "People in their 30s and 40s are coming into our gallery saying. 'I'd rather have ;" a work by Noland than one of Damien Hirst's spot paintings." says gallery co director Loretta Howard . "This mid-century modernism is hitting a chord. It seems strong. classic. " In the end. while mid-career artists may wince at the epithet "older and wiser. " their hormonal and philosophical distance from youth has its advantages. "You think: Hey. I had my shot. I peaked-now I'm going to do the kind of art I want to do instead of dealing with some current aesthetic problem." Plagens muses. "It's a kind of liberation." "I used to care about being radical," Fishman says. "Now I realize that the nature of my work is not going to change the world. but hopefully it will change individuals." ' " Or. as Sultan puts it. "After a while. you feel you 've seen it all before. For exam ple.Tve been through the so-called death of painting twice-in the late 1970s and early 1990s. But painting is still here. And eventually. you look at yourself and real "'.ize that even in your best years . the apple of success was always just out reach. The "best you can do is work ha rd to ensure your place in the history books. " "Still ," he adds. after a moment's pause. "I have to wonder when I see a major museum survey show-and I'm not in it ."

;,t

STEVEN VINCENT, 44, is the senior correspondent of Art & Auction.

KENNETH NOLAND, 76 Mysteries: Afloat, 2000, . acrylic on canvas, from Amer lnger!Howard, , New York. "You can't rely on other , people's oplnlons. ,The , Inner necessity of making ; art Is what It's all about."

ART & AUCTION 177

Review Magazine

This intriguing installation provokes the hardest, perhaps unan swerable, questions: In these days of ideas - poetic, metaphysical, sociological - what kind of art lies beyond thinking? And how do we share it?

Charles Arnoldi Recent Works Charles Cowles Gallery through january 29 BYJOHN GOODRICH

NE WOULD LOOK IN

JanlAry is, 2000

backgrounds of tonal washes. (Traces of yellow and green are apparent, but these paintings are basically monochrornatic.) The dark ovoids glide and shift in space, differentiated by their overlappings and by a surface sh een that ranges from oily to absolutely matte, and especially by their textures: opaque, stained, scraped, blotted . These paintings are more iron ic than Robert Motherwell's rhetorical flourishes, and more in-your-face than Joan Mira's lyrical blobs-and-lines, and the most muscular of them, STATIC, 1999 packs the biggest punch of this exhibition. The artist's elliptical h umor, however, is the most consistent element on view, Arnoldi's interest in the potato clearly is more than a passing fancy (one bronze is titled ,TASTY SPUDS #45), but finally its rhyme and reason must remain, it seems, a riddl e.

vain to the ex hibition title for a .clue about Mr. Arnoldi's current obsession with potatoes, but his work on the walls and floor of the Cowles gallery shO'NS that he pursues it with humor and savvy. The artist employs several media and approach es. A series of several wall-mounted bronze sculptures (titled TASfY SPUDS), all depicting potatoes inexplicably joined in threes and fours, Warp Zone Section 2 are so lifelike in size and detail that Jack Tilton Gallery through February 5 they might have been cast from the real BYJOHN GOODRICH thing. Also adorning the walls are three two-dimensional counterparts: HE PRESS RELEASE graphite and acrylic renditions of reveals that these eight potatoes in silhouette. "invented video On the floor, two bronze sculptures landscape" paintings, of monster-sized conjoined potatoes along with a single strike a more cartoony pose, suggesting sculptural installation, comprise the Pop Art or a Jeff Koons work. Their : second part of a larger, four-section titles are PuMPING IRON and, more project, Warp Zone. The text explains, enigmatically, -NINE LIVES. "Finley's work is user-friendly, designed But in terms of formal interest, the for viewer participation, and demands seven acrylic paintings, ranging in size to be taken apart and reconfigured." from medium to large, 'steal the show. Friendly or not, these cartoon-like paintings reconfigure themselves Here the potatoid forms have been rendered more geometrically as black before our eyes, their brash enamel colors whipping up worlds of piled and and sometimes translucent ovals on

Chris Finley

fragmented shapes: bugging eyeballs, dog food dishes, monarch butterflies, brittle flam es and countless other unidentifiable sha pes. (For good measure, one butterfly is actually "in flarnes.) Finley seems to have a predilection for hanging spittle, though other renderings of drips might as easily be blood , pus, tears or sweat. On a subtler note (subtlety being relative here), two paintings depict portions of Aframe houses see mingly th e artist's i~on ic asides about suburban domesticity. The sculptural installation, WITHOUT A DoU/IT WARP ZONE TRANSFER POD, 1999

consists of two mailboxes joined end to end on the floor, their insides stuffed with fork-impaled tennis balls. The paintings reflect real, if impatient, talent. The schema of blues around the convoluted central figure of DROOL FISH, 1999 nicely capture the dull weight of floor, the vacancy of the

THB NB W .YORK TIM BS, FRIDA Y. JAN UARY 1. 200<

A RT IN REVIEW

Galleries: 50Ho CW,RLES ARNOLDL Charles Cowles. 74 Grand Street, (212) 02.5-3500 (through Jan. 29) . Mr. Arnoldi sets up a tunny tension be

tween pain terlyabstraction and sculptural represeetatton. In two free -standing works, tiant potatoes made of bronze are [otned In gravity defying configurations . In the palnt Ings, fiat potato-shaped but nonrepresenta

tional ovolds palnte<l glossy or matte black: fioat over !ields or atmospheric gray'g, lnjng (Johnson)

NATIONAL

R E V I E W S

and relishes the idea of cross-cult ural referenci ng. Roll ing hills evoke the verdan t Italian countryside, and dusty fields . th e barren ter rain around EI Paso. where he was born . Colors hint at earthy pre-Co lumbian pottery, fiery wes t-Texas sunsets, the blue skies of Ren aissanc e Italy, and j ewel to nes of P er s ian min ia tures . Bru sh strokes altern ate ly resem ble the rhyth mic pulse of Arabic script, the sweep ing ges tures of Abs tract Expressionis m, and the graffi ti-like scribb les of Cy Two mb ly. The conv erge nce of compet ing forces creates a pa lpable tension, as does the inco ngruou s play between fore grou nd and background , whic h is particularl y evid ent in Reveles 's mos t recent work, where great er atten tion is paid to th e unde rpai nt ing. One of his most amb itio us 'pictures , titl ed Journey Asc ent.Desce nt , treats the subjec t ofChrist 's birth and death by j uxta posing images of a Madon na and a saint fro m two di fferent Old Master pai n tings , then enve lo ping them in se n suo us veil s of bl ood y red s and rusty oranges . Rev eles' s odd blend of instinct and intellec t , d is ta nce a nd in t imacy, met icu lo us detail and bravado ges tur e not only engage s the obse rver b ut prov ides muc h to ponde r. Hi s paintings are mood pieces-best felt -s-I anet Kutn er rather than read.

Gael Stack M OODY

Houston Gael Stack, who supported herself eariy in her career by working as a secretary, likes to joke that the only peop le who could under- r.. stand her paintings were other secre taries ; . familiar with shortha nd. These Abstract Ex pre ssionis t work s were charac terized by my steriou s dark pool s of paint and cry p ti c wh ite mark s. Now , al mos t 40 yea rs later , Stack' s use of letter like fig ures on a dark background has ripened into a personal calligrap hy. In th is latest sho w o f si x pai nt in gs, th e s e c all igr aph ic m ark s t ak e o n a Japanese character, lined up as if to corn ment on the scene de picted in the paint ing. Some of those scenes feature the del icate outlines of a gei sha girl retrea ting do wn a corrido r or a g roup of men in kimo nos gathered aro und an urn. And ill all th e works, St ack ren de rs flo ra arc fauna as though they .were mathematical formulas and architectural bluepr ints. Deep marine blue and blue-black backgrounds are a constant, offset by the occasional shade of russet and sea gree n. Certain mo tifs, such as a repeating daisy 124

'; ~ •. Il

APRIL J9 99 / A RTN EWS

cha in, a Chag all -in spi red goat' s he ad, and a bon s ai tr ee pop o ut with grea t clarity, suggesting tha t eve n in th is puzz lin g expan se of paint , it's possible to find details. In the end , Stack is either having a bit of fun with the Japanese sense of balance and form , or she is attempt in g to cha rt th e u nc hartabl e: Eastern versus W est ern vie ws of - Megan Hal verson . the wo rld. Sam Reveles, Journey Ascent/Oescent oil on canvas, 47" x 65".

Gerald Peters.

Gael Slack, UntiUed, 1998, oil on canvas, 60" x 76". Moody.

Charles Arnoldi, Punish the Wicked, 1998, acrylic on

canvas, 66" x58". Chac-Mool.

Charles Arnoldi CHAc-M oOL

West Hollywood A new ser ies of sculpt ures and handsome large-scale paintings by Charles Arnoldi has the humble potato as its subject, but these pieces are no more about pota toes than his earliest wor k was about twigs. Arnoldi first cam e to prominence in the I960s with hi s as se mblages of twi gs and branch e s , som e of th em pai n te d, which challenged ass ump tions abo ut the relationship between painting and sculptur e. In his new paintings. the potatoes are all bl ack. Vastly ove rscaled, they app ear singly or in gro ups, in high gloss or matte acrylic again st washy backgrounds with occ asional splash es of atte nuated colo r. While at first sig ht they inv ite co m par ison wi th Don ald Sul t an ' s le m o n s , c lose r attention sugges ts that these paintin gs are about the dangerou s move ment of ma ss th ro ugh space. the co llis ion of quasi-pl anetary bodies, and b lack suns in a cos mo s th at alwa ys se ems ab o u t to wo bb le tow ard th e b rin k o f c h aos . Th ei r appea l is in their energy, at once pow erful and unnerving, proj ecting toward the view er som e of the same intima t ion s of v io le nc e as s ugge st ed in Arnol di' s earlier chainsaw assault s on lamin ated surfaces of plyw ood. indeed, without the bron ze sculptural groupings included in th e ex hibit ion , .we might not have eve n associated the painted forms with the pota to. Varying both in scale an d in repr esentat ion al intent , th e sc ulptures are in sisten tly playful and benign: some are massive. ot her s, no b igger than yo ur average supermarket spud; some are conten t to be lifel ike pot at oes- ey e s and all while othe rs are stylized into rounded sc ulptu ral fo rms as pl e a s in g as a Buddha ' s be lly. Their re la tionsh ip to th e pa intings, thou gh, is perplexin g : th e ir ene rgy remains re latively static and risks detrac ting from the more volatile power of Arnoldi's masterful canvases . - Peter Clothier

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1999

LOS· ANGELES TIMES

By ClAUDINE ISE SPECIAL TO TIlE TIMES

Fun With Potatoes:· Charles Ar noldi may not' be the most consis tent artist in Los Angeles, butheis ~urely o?e of the most consistently

mteresting ones. Known for the in novative twig and stick-based con structions he made in the 19708 and for later works in which here- . ~ peatedly slashed his plywood paintings with a chain saw, in' the early 19905 Arnoldi began to make large-scale abstract paintings of a more .personal ~~ture. The buoy ant painterly gestures thatant mated these bold, inquisitive works' couldn't have been more different from what came before, and as such announced an impor tant shift in a career that has al ways thrived on change. Arnoldi's latest acrylic paintings) drawings and cast-bronze sculp tures at ChacMoolGallery depict unwieldy forms clustered in un likely states of equilibrium. You immediately notice the paintings) severelyreduced palette. . . Black, irregularly shaped ovals suggesting pebbles, eggs or planets float, intersect and gently collide within murky white grounds stained with watery grays and charcoals. This cloudy quality con trasts sharply with the opacity. of the black shapes, giving the latter the flat two-dimensionality of cut

outs.

These stolid, endearingly clumsy forms seem to be seeking out ways to comfortably share the same .space. A similar idea "reappears in the sculptures, where the ovoids assume the earthbound presence of pockmarked, bulbous potatoes. Arranged in twos and threes, these q

spuds are' suspended by a cable from the ceiling, stacked one atop .the other, or arranged in precari ;ous and surprisingly graceful con

figurations. It takes a degree of self-confi dence-or is it faith?-to make something beautiful out of a po tato. Arnoldi seems to be having fun with the idea that this homely tuber (which is also considered to be one, of nature's "perfect foods") provides the inspiration for his lat est artistic statement. His new works are just as comfortable in their own skins, yet they also im plicitly acknowledge the awkward, fumbling stages that are a neces sary part of growth and renewal. • Chac Mool Gallery, 8920 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 550-6-792, througb Feb. 13. Closed

Sundays and Mondays.

F25

Reviews & previews of current exhibitions in New York February 15, 1997 $3 Charles Arnoldi T ONY S HAFRAZI G ALLERY

through March 8

Th is is an enormously impressive bravado d ispl ay of big new, big b old , colorful works by C harles Arn old i. No twigs and br an ches here, only the mo st vestigial rem n ant s o f h is pr eviou s trademarks. 1n fact these incorp ora te a great deal of th e con cerns, int erests, for ms; and assu mp tions of o the rs displayed to less effect over th e recent p ast. There is a bit of pattern, som e organ ic forms, shapes that emerged as convention in th e eigh ties, in fact th ere is not hing new, but a grea t deal th at is spectacu lar. T he wor k is not just b ig b ig is 78" x 162" - but also complex, often far mor e so than easily imagined: several of the wo rks seem to be a lightly pa inted, meld o f a few organic forms until one sees just how complicated is the layer ing of th e forms, the mix of elements, the clash of colors. T he se are not patterns bur · pain tings, no t bo rrowed (orms Of borrowed idea s bu t Arn old i in 1997, Arnold i now. And in the h uge pain tings the layers are full, th e form s appea ling, de co rativ e and swish , eve n the d ribbles are splendid . The wor ks are layered , some over and over , some less so, each ' is different and all similar. The works are b iomo rph ic ana patt erne d and decorative, co ntain graffit i an d sometimes gr ids . Most visible of all th ere is a freedom of tr eatment, a swish and swirl of colo r hardly as randon , as see ms and to grea t effect .

T hese works feel exubera n t, thick with delight and patterns. ' Each indica te a variety of deft painterly means if not the wisdom of th e ages. Each looks spon taneous, free, a dance across th e wall', out each is pu t together with a wise hand , and for th e ult imate purpose. T he re is no easy rid e here for the hard eyed, on ly much to savor. What they are not , however, is n ew-new. Ther e is a shock of recogniti on that much on th e wall h as in some man ifestation been seen on other walls by other hands. Yet , no thi ng is lo st to com pe tito rs or ances tors, to othe r examples: Ta ffe wh er e is thy sti ng? Arn oldi h olds hi s corner, holds th e whol e gallery. In th is case, in Tony Sh afrazi's big, white roo m, Arn oldi reveals that taking on wh at is th e scene , and adding a lifetime of practice, can pr od uce massive, compe ll ing work. Arnoldi h as imposed himself on th e patterns and designs of th e times. The result is h and some - bea u tiful with out being ch arming - an d op en to long scru tiny. Here the re is no need to wait for a form to emerge , rely on a sm all zing o r a single line; no need for a hand out filled with id eas about the surface and explanat io ns of sources. Her e o ne walks into size and skill and the tim es. Here you get what you see. and wh at you see are -big, beaut iful all bur tr ad itional pain t ings, New York, New York 1997. W e regroup for th e next ce n tu ry, and so await · more fro m Arnoldi.

WALTHAM, MASS.

"M ore Than Minimal: Feminism and Abstraction in the '70s" ROSE ART MUSEUM , BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

his sho w successfully ex ploded two co m m on ly hel d ass um ptio ns . The first is that Mirrimalism, the apex of art is tic modern ism , was a " male" movem ent, and that M inirnalisrn's qual ities- tough ness. coolness, rationali ty, abstraction are inhere ntly masculine. T he second as sumption is that art by wome n is usually fig ur ative, narrati ve , and ex c lusi vely autobiographical. . A s "M ore T han M ini m a l" dem o n strated, art is ts rare ly fit into such neat categories. The exhibition revealed how a certain group of wome n art ists, most bom in the early 1940s, cre ated influ en tial work that was both intelle ctuall y rig orous and anim ated by th e v ita lity o f lived experience . Numero us works here used Min im al ism as a springboard but departed from it in crucial ways. There we re four pieces by Eva Hesse, arguably the originator of po st- M in ima lis rn. A s ea r ly a s 19 67 , Hesse was making innova tive works like One More Than One . H ere are all th e esse ntial Min imalist elements-symme t rical geom etric forms made of synthetic materials and arranged in serial prog res sio n. Ye t H esse subverted this form al pur ity with ta ng ib le evi de nce o f the artist' s hand and with surreal referen ces to the fem ale bo dy. Em ployin g sub tle ,

enigma tic strokes , she replaced Min imal ism ' s potent neutralit y w ith her own em otional resources . In mu ch the same way, Jack ie Win sor' s ex plici tly m etaphorical and un abashed ly handmade Fence Piece both nods to and revises Donald Judd 's literal, industri al boxes. And in Lynda Ben glis 's For Carl Andre- a mass of black slime ooz ing from a corner- Minimalism 's au tonomous object is hilari ou sly decom posi ng , corro de d by a tid al w av e o f nature and sexuality. Some of the art her e wa s ex plic itly femi n is t, like Ana M en d iet a' s gri tty incarnations of the female body, or Han nah W ilk e's pe r m u ta tio ns on fe m ale genitalia. Mostly, though , this still under recogn ized work w as as dive rs e as the ind ivid uals who made it. It encompassed Nancy Graves' s explor ation of paleon tolo gy, Dorothea Rockburne 's mating of pr eci se ge ome try and raw ma ter ial s , Jackie Ferr ara's humani zation of archi te ctural s tr ucture, M ichelle Stuart 's evocation of etherea l space by means of su rfaces s u ffuse d w i th ea rt h , M ary Miss's spatial probes , and Ree Mort on 's marriage of logic an d whi ms y. In th is ambi tio us exhibi tio n , honesty, idiosy n cra sy, and passion pr evaile d ove r bo th M ini ma li s t o r th o d o x y an d n arrow ideo log y. NANCY STAPEN LOS ANGELES

Charles Arnoldi FRED HOFFMAN

harles Arnoldi has been a fixture .of the Los Angeles art scene since the early 1970 s, when he gained recogn ition fo r s p a re, linear sc u lp tur es an d wall pieces made of sticks, bamboo, rope, and twine. At the time, his trademark works ha d a tensi le str eng th enlive ne d by a

Eva Hesse, One More Than One, 1967,

acrylic, papler-macha, plastic cord, and wood, B"k" x 15%" x 5%". Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University.

Charles Arnoldi, Pig, ca.1973, acrylic on sticks, 4B" x 48". FredHoffman.

138 ART ne ws

Sept ember 1996

se nsi bility th at struck v iew er s with its slightly funky sense of adventure. Arno ldi's ap proach has chan ged qui te dra maticall y ove r the last 25 year s. He has moved from bare-bones structures to complex masses of painted sticks. rough c u t c h u n ks o f woo d, and-mo st re ce ntly-lyr ic al abstract pain tin gs . He also has waxed and waned from tough ness to relative slackness-as in the late 1970s, when his paint ings seemed to be d e c o ra ti v e sha dows of e a r lie r s t ic k pieces. But these formal shifts and occa sional lapses of energy belie the fact tha t Arnoldi has created a body of work that is exception ally co nsistent in its hands-on mu s cu la r it y a n d ph y s ic a I be a u ty . W hether th e art ist is build ing lip way ward grid s w ith sticks or using a chain saw to goug e blocks of wood, he gener ally crea tes tautly defined forms in high relief and stro ng color. Th ere is rare ly a dull momen t in A rn old i' s w o rk-a nd there is certainly never an ugly one. Th ese viv id impression s were among the prim ary revelations of thi s 60-pi ece. m id-career retro specti ve. It was illumi nating to see the largely forgo tten . innov at iv e wo rk s th at lau nc h e d Ar nold i ' s career. But hi s talen ts ap pea red particu larl y rem ar kab le in Pig (ca . 1973 ). a sq uare con struc ti on of hor izo nta l tree branc hes tha t bend s natural form to an artist 's will. Also espe cia lly memorable was Evidence of Shadows ( 1983). a dip tych of mult icolored cros sha tc hing thai pairs a panel of painted sticks with a sim ila r rec tan gl e o f s o l id wood . He re . Arno ldi juxtaposed oppos ite methods of arrivi ng at cl ose ly related ima ges. This delicate disclo sure of the co nsistenc y that subtly flows through change mig ht very well have serve d as the keynote work in the survey SUZA NNE M UCII NIC

[EWEEKLY -------------------- l-lLeA . i:. ENDAR"il L

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ED MOSES, CHARLES ARNOLDI

Althou/lh la rgoly UmnM In paint, Ed MOlu' MOCAIllld:in makn Il o~ldlltnt thllt ;;;; <II MOI.,I I. I ·plper lhlnk.r,~ work ing hi. Idea. out In ootlltlonal al '111'011 •• pRlnt.rl~· fo mllrl u 'nd often elaborating them In print ~nn III well . Twa g.lIery gathe,fngl of MOIOI' d,awlng. lind Mltlon. blllr thll a lit . On. grouping In particular (lit Qro ennoldj re voa ' i tho M11IlItufe of MOI.s ' ~lg(IJou. vl'lI'" r9allQ nln!C, gathering mo re Ullin two do zen Ilnf'lmed dr ow lng. from Iho 'at or ·71l. In II ~ornpl&~ IInanll.mont balanc~1 betw.en tho luddlt)' of a curlltM show a nd tho knowing clrao. o f an IIrtl.t'l Itudlo wan. EI Peeially preMnted thuI, the d,awing. demonltrato how MOI.I hlmaolf lookll t o medlato blttweon ord o, and palilon , betwoon the yin of II cl early rullHI grid IInll ' ) .. i t ho ya ng of ICtatch)' IInoa Bnd flllldl of molllot! mo nochromo. TI1010 llpp ro ael1ol amI , ' I f, .~ .ffoct& roeur wUh a dlffe,ent Id nd of logi c , mo,. Itepwllo and loglcal,"emlruc, In ' .' vrlli o ul othol worka (notabl)" pri"tl} from t ho IIlt or '70a . n<! o ..rl)' ' 80s (a pe,lod allght~1 b)' tho rnvseurn Ihow}. The exhibit of f&C o nt Mosoll plIl"ti"gt fill. enot her l} :..,. ..•....... .....I .t~ ~ . ~o.d: theth,• • '6010 ollamples lit MOCA of the artl,t ' . now fllK lnBtlon with orbs f1oerl· Ing on nebula"'. ground,. are hug. and om inOLilly \'IM:UOUS, whUe tllIl '6Omewhot 10$$ lmmenM canVaHlI filli ng a gallery space range In aplrlt , from brood ing and qUIIII· mYlltlet!1 t o pla yful an d oven g.rgantuBnly. winningly l illy. An oven larger gllltllry "ltlee It fille d with II quarto,-ee ntury of wo rk by o ne of MOle.' ,"ollt hwontlve InbOrllor• . like MO!lol. Chorlell Arnoldi Will committed to p lllrrtlnl1 O~." when not plll ntlng, and hll ll-Qulph"al exp."lmo"tl of tho '70. I u me .~ tho aplndly agitation of fr.ohorN! dlo,..lngl. Arno ldi mllintaln,", t hl. ompl lIl. on ma rk and c on tour all ho tran.lt&d hom t re" bnlllchol to full wood .Iabl In the ' SO... 11 was n not'1IoO-lnoaky way of comi ng ha lf Wily back 10 pnlntlng, lind - de t plt o for "yl Into o'1uIIII)' rough·hown b,onl05 - In , e e ol'll yeB'" Arno ldi 1'1" Nlturn4'd fUlly t(J Deteil rfom MoseS' · WII II of 29 D'o wlngs: 1975·1979 ca nva l . The rocont paintings a re volu pt uou l and gloriou s o~on when ronder od 1" blnc k Alld ..... hlta. It '. canfullng ..I f1r.t to SDO th"lo Mntl a ....gn o...col()J..f1Dhl ob.trllC:11onl lnt u•• po,,,ed with e~rH D' wo r k , In ~ludl nll fr91l-"tllndlng piece s ; lho crowdod Ihow I, not hung ch, onololtic ally . But the ana ch ,o n l~U " dl.play - Inc lud ing hi. earllalt , s t a , kly ,01l1lY lC ufptur09 And a 198G-81 .erles of co at .. woo<len blocks pll tnhtd in brlnlanl monochrom"l - £1001 n rVDOr Arno ldi's pe lnt in'

'· 1

h.u"t.

Ed MOISe. "At 70 Fro m t ho ' 70 s " at GrClenfiold , 25:lS Mlc hlg nn Ave ., No. 8-6, t hn. Aug . 31: mo ro work . on papo, B1 Clrru e , 542 S . Ah,m e dll St .\ thru Aug. 31 : 9Elpoep Ebolg." now work at L.A. Lou~ur , .6 N. Venlea BlVd., Ve nlco , thru July 21 , Churlel Arnoldi 8t HoH man , 1721 Stowart St., Sinta Monica, t hrLl ALlg, 10, -Peter J'l'I nk Wo atso recn m m en d. no.nl: Hone.\ t ; ,CMA: TIW> N.... w. u ane HlroMPIf' 311 h ~ Norl on Simon Mliseum : /(0".." Arl . 1Jt" " .... S.. nu tloll at Koraen Cutt ur at CPonlor: lull . S~dlor ....... 81 Sab ini Loe: S.t.Il.R. dl Now MiS/od on; S ~ I" D••" 9/ Thomas Solomon; Eu,,,n. Flo... a l Galqano; John Currin al f\egen PrOIB<:IS: OOu.... BuuII a t H ~y.l< I .. g.

132

.1\:\''1' l !)JI I!.Y ::' .. I 'I~ )I ;

anes ,-.

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Even though artist Charles Arnold]. was born in Dayton, Ohio, his .C!',i. They were actually kind of interesting. I got int o .so me,resin pieces art career was nurtured in Califo rnia. He attended Choinard Art that I over-catalyzed-put nails in the wall, then soaked strips 'o f fiberglass, Institute in the Sixties and by the Se~enties was having exhibitions p~t~t in resin that ~~·over-catalyzed . I had about three m inutes maxi ~f prestig io us galleries across the US. ~!'l ' was also collecting awards: muD:: to work , so I'd 'm ake a drawing with this mushy wet lime and it would . the ,LA County Museum of Art's You ng Talent Award, two NEA fre eze~ All the gravity arid the gesture would be frozen in space irnrnedi Artist Fellowships in '74 and '82, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a atelyA ,h ad su ch aJimite4 time to work, that I couldn't premeditate.the Maestro Grant from the California Arts Council. image;~H was all I¥d ofh¥ady, silly art world kirid ofmentality. . Jo a~ :Agajanian Quinn: Did all of th eseawards help you when it JAQ: Did twi gscome next? . <. '. . , .. " , .' " CA: The~ tree b,r~nches thi~g was e~r1y ' in my art schoo l stu ff, I was out came t~ ,m aking art? , . C.harles Arnoldi: In. a fun ny way they do because there's always some aftera fire;with'another artist friend of m ine, Jim Ganzer, we were stealing oranges th~t didn't burn in financial support involved in them and, basically.iartists need money so fire. I noticed that all th e tre es around the they can produce art . { or chard h ad burned and th e only thing that was left w ere the tree "c'., . JAQ: So besides being pre stigiou s, it is a helpful way for artists to contin branches. They were burned and they looked like p erfectly drawn ue their career .',..." . 't charcoal lin es against the sky. The line quality was beautiful. I broke them CA: Oh, absolutely: Th~difficult th ing to find is time, and the only thing off and appro priated from riature, took th em back to my studio and th at can provide time is money. So we n eed all th e grants, arid all thf thought, "God, they're beautiful lines. What can I do with them?" I played mon ey we can get. .. .... ., . " .~ ':" arou nd with them and made linear con struction s. JAQ: The private sector has to help the 'artist. Did som e of those grants JAQ£Whendid you start paintirii them? and awards come in the form of commissio ns? ,', CA:A piece seven 'or eight -foot square.js painted in various ways. I made CA: Yes, butactuaIly: i don't like it when th ere's a commission involved them rectilinear so that yo u'd hang 'th~ on a wall and look at them like a with it. If ~; ;pecific piece of art is attache d to the money, then you ar e painting. That was an alternativeway of making a hand-drawn or hand.,"" "working:for ·som eone. I like to make art just because I want to'makeiit. brushed painting. The tree branches led to various othe r things like the • When yo u ~;i'to fulfill somekin ~ of requirement, it affects your creativitY: ·, chainsaw paintings. JAQ: . S6~ Y~u like the award s thathave no strings attached. " JAQ: Chainsaw? ,. CA:-;that's th e best way to get th em: They give you th e money, and say, ' x :CA : If you make a mark with a paint bru sh that's a dr awn line . A tree ~~jus(keep working." Those actually:are th e best to get, because th at's branch is a three-dimensional object. In my twisted logic, I thought th at if ','what you 're looking for-for freed om-and you want to pursue your I :toot a chain saw ~hd c~t' a negative hole in a piece of wood, I would ·' th oughts with no restrictions. Th at 's a very difficult th ing to do unle ss-r: hav~ '"aline in the negative sense instead of the positive, like a tree branch. . ,:i .',', In my mind , th ey were ~ll the same thin g. I th ink I did the first chain saw you have the financial support. JAQ: Did you always want to be an arti st? painting in '82. i' CA: Well, I was a little confused growing up. I didn't know what I was JAQ: Do you really use a chain saw? going to do. I did have an uncIet~atwa s an artist, a po rt rait painter, and I CA: I really did use a chaih saw; Yes, the funn y thing is at one point I had romantic memories of him in his garret with his beret and goatee. He probably-had ten chainsaws. I had big ones, and little on es and ones with was th e black sheepofthe family. custom-made chains with carbideblades. Each one did a various job. Like little paint brushes and big ones. I saw it very much like actual pain ting. JAQ: Hereallylooked like that ? CA: Here3IIY lookedlike that ! I'd go down to his studio and the smell of tur So~e people interpret thisch~in saw thing like a macho aggressive act, and pentine ~d :oil paintwas always kind of a great thi ng . I loved the mess I suppose there was that element, ' ca us e I've always b een a ma cho and the bm"sh,esandthe whole thirig: I had a kind o (twistedchildhiiod: I aggressive guy. ..' . spent a iot of time alone. Wh en I was alone I would do thi~gs like draw JAQ: Why do your~fer to the chain saw as your bru sh? and paint, and make things, whether it was tree forts an d stuff, sometim es CA: It was drawing in the negative space. If you look at the tree-br anch . drawings, I got a lot of pr aise from people. I think that prai se replaced a pieces, they werevery flat in the beginning. It took me a year to get th e lot' of love I expected from my parent s. personal freedom to get these things to corne out off th e wall twelve inches, then I thought that th ey needed to be free standing. So I made free JAQ: Was that in Ohio? CA: Yes. So, making things was a way of getting attention for me in a standing tree -branch sculptures. Asldid the se thin gs I realized that what funny way. was there, was the negative and as important as the phy sical part, namely JAQ: At Choinard, you used various kindsof materials.Starting with Plexiglas. the tree branches. CA: If you naively walk in to a school situation yo u have all these JAQ: Aieyou satisfied withyourwork! romantic visions in your head, The ultimate art is pain ting a picture, but CA: I geta vision in a sen se. It's not a great vision, but you get a thought the minute you get to an art scho ol th ey start telling JOU, "well, you can' t and it's perfect in your mind. Then you go about trying to make that thing paint picturcs.that's not a valid activit y an ymor e," at least back in th e real. The problem happens when you take it from a m ent al state to real reality: I don't know any artist who s ays, "Oh , th is is gr eat , th is is a sixties, so you start looking for alternatives to make a valid art statem ent. In my case it led to experimen ting with lots of material s. I was experi masterpiece and I love it." It's not the thing so much. Art for me and, I think for most artists I admire, is the pursuit of something and you never meriti ng with light refraction and shadows with the Plexiglas paintings. Then after th at I did som e po lyurethane pa in tings that involved pow quite get it. That's why it's a lifetim e deal. Ther e's no retirement in art. dered pigment and met allic stu ff th at clung to th e su rface by static You don 't get off on Saturdays and Sunday and you don 't get out at sixty five. And so here we are. • electricity and gravity. You could crumble them up or turn th em over and they'd have a different image. Charles Arnoldi; M id Career SUlVey: 1970· 1995. M ay 2- June 29 at Fred Hoffm an Fin e Art JAQ: Weren't they.big sacks? in Santa M onica.

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C HA R L E S A R N0 L D I

V ERY

M U C H an artist of his era an d culture, and , at the same time, a

sin gu lar artist with a distin ctive , unique voice . He migrated to the West Coas t as if by chan ce, seeking liberatio n from th e cu ltu ral vacuity and oppression of provincial Ohio in th e 1960s, a young man who had never given se rio us tho ught to makin g art as a way of life . And fro m th e tim e he assembled his first expressive, deceptively simp le twi g and stick p aintings -

soon after entering th e Chouinard Art Institute

and th en w inni ng the Los Angeles Coun ty Museum of Art 's Young Talent Purchas e Award -

the driven,

experimental artist never look ed back.

Arnoldi 's caree r e volv ed w ith a sur p rising co nfidenc e an d co he rence from suc h earl y works as th e ethereal Untitled of c . 1970 (Pl. 3) - p erhap s his br eakthrough artistic stat ement -

to th e mor e co mplex

st ick con str ucti ons, such as Pig , 1973 (Pl. 7), and on to th e more visceral , sc ulptu ral forms of the 1980s. Mos t re cent ly he has re-engaged a bstrac tio n in large-sca le , diaphano us paintings th at are exu berantly co loristic, evocative and mo re intuitive in method and inspirati on . Th ese w ork s seem to refl ect in a more p ersonal exp ressio n the flux and ch aos of co nt empora ry life , aug mente d by alternat ely joyfu l and m ed itat ive respo n ses to his ow n psyche and poetic fanci es.

That init ial fo ray into twi g- and then stick-based p aint ing led in th e beg inning to a structured formali sm that establish ed a sensitive, but always precarious , balan ce between precision and serendip ity; pure form and lu sci ou s, painterly color; expres sive ret icence and visceral risk-taking. Based o n a modified grid , Arnoldi 's early st ick paintings were arranged stru ctu rally in cross hatching p atterns that evoke j ap er Johns' c riss cross p ain tings beginning around 1970 . In less assured hands, the ran ge evide nt in Arnoldi 's 26-year oe uvre might seem too wid e and incl usive to grasp w ith an y sense of cohe re nc e. Set in th e co ntext of an eve r-ex p anding body of work, ho w ever, his hig hly original stick paintings exhi b it a sup e rb sense of tension amon g diverse elements, and a shift ing dynamic of development, o fte n between polar opposites: what appear to be formal strategies final ly insinu ate th emselves as a distin ctive force of narure .

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There seems to be, for example, a boundless gap between works essentially based on "found" objects simple twigs collected in nature, or sticks -

that the artist made his own by a careful process of

sm oothing, painting, and delib erately recomposing , and the far more explosive wood-based pieces of the early 1980s, formed in a labori ous process of discovery, frenetic amalgamation and uninhibited coloration. Finally, the crude and mach o shaping of these works with a chain-saw made risk and danger an implicit element of the work, despite Arnoldi 's frequ ent denials that any such idea or a perverse impulse of violence played a part in the choice of implement or the making of the w ork.

Similarly, those initial statements ba sed on inn ovative found objects - honed branches and shaped stick s strewn acro ss th e canvas like jack straws - embody at first glance a fragility of spirit and an elegance not imm ediately discernible in the pa intings of th e nineties, the delib erately clumsy, if evanescent, Pl easures You Get (Pl. 30). This rather lush and intriguing work, so full of interesting contradictions, and made in a

year of creative afflatus, 1995 , is reminiscent of Matisse cutouts to some degree. More importantly, it refl ects the mixed moods of despair and j oie de uiure, resolv ed finally in a profound sense of renewal, precipitated a few years earlier in his own life by a sequenc e of fundamental changes. In a rapid and dizzying series of personal traumas and mysterious fulfillments, his brother was diagnosed with AIDS at the end of the 1980s followed almost immediately by his disheartened mother's death . At about the same time, he experienced the joyous birth of his first child, a son , followed two years later by the birth of a d aughter. Shaken to the core by the emotio nal force of these events, he st epped back from the complexities of his studio operations and ree valuated his life and commitment to art.

Arnoldi 's recent work directly and indirectly refle cts those "death bumps" on his path, as he wryly puts it, in the form of a new, more emotionally charged emphasis on the personal. Yet in the context of its own precedents, influences and invention, his new work cont inue s to be the logical and exciting outgrowth of a vital career still very much in progress. It is a ca reer th at, surp risingly, includes related examples of

brilliant ar chitectural design and co ns truct io n, be st defined by th e ge ne ro us , light-filled spac es he co nfigured for his Venice stu dio , and his even more remarkable Malibu h ome which the discerning New York Times critic, Paul Goldberger, lauded without reservation in a rec ent Architectural Digest feature.

Exac tly a dec ade ago, in her essay introducing his on e-man exhi bition at The Arts Club of Chic ago. j ane livingston, the chi ef curator at th e Corcoran Gallery of Art , identified th e driving im p ulse th at under girds and informs Arnoldi's wide-ranging shifts in style , medi um and technique: "As w e study th is sixteen -year

body of wo rk we at first appear to be absorbing a stra nge, sometimes h alt ing, j ourney," she w rote in 19 8 6 "Yl?t, as w e exa m ine th e d eeper issu es implicit in tb e differen t su b-styles, a n d th e tran siti ons f rom one to tbe otb et; w e discover a classical artistic progression Arno ldi seems to ba ue m oved from a self imposed separatio n of opposing impulses -

tbe affecti ve and tbe cereb ra l - to their unification in a

newly decorative m ode. The n ext sixteen yea rs m ay well p rovide ep iso des that will illuminate a nd en rich the extrao rd inary a ccomplishment in way s only tb e a rtist can glimpse. " 1

Ms. Livingston 's remarks, sprin ging as th ey did from an aw ar eness of Arnoldi 's p aintings and sculptu res onl y through the year 1986, have proved most timel y and p rescient, yet under stated . Arnoldi gave little sens e of th e artistic drama about to unfold when he crea te d his first supremely un assuming , if witty, stick construction , Untitled of 1970 (Pl. 3), co ntrived from latex , string and wood and co nfig uring a cru de "M" lying on its side, and measuring a mod est 2 by 3 feet . The more atm ospheric and apparently alea tory

Lead Window of 1971 soon follow ed , a seq uence climaxing in suc h bre akthrough dipry ch s as Volcano Logjam of 1980 (Pl . 14) and the maverick monolith, Un ti tled (Pl. 16) of th e following year, a memorable, ch unky, wall-hung wooden block p ainted sky-blue . This brief but fascin ating series ori gin ated with the throwaway pieces of loggers' cuttings in th e w ood s which Arnoldi p icked up sere ndip ito us ly on hi s stick an d-b ranc h-gath er ing expeditions. With these interesting vari ation s o n a woodcutter's th eme, Arn oldi

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co ntinually allowed his oe uvre to evolve without losing creativ e momentum, or his un canny aptitude for till settling the viewer.

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P ERSO NAl. H ISTORY AND A STRONG surviva lis t mentali ty pl ayed

a sig ni fican t p art in hi s choice an d

ela bo ration of his unu sual woode n forms , and th e ass ured, unh esitatin g way he m anaged hi s art istic career. Arnoldi , w ho at age 18 fled Dayton, Ohio and a difficult , abusive childhood, arrived in Los Angeles as it stood on th e brink of a cultural explos ion. In 1964 , the year he migra ted West, th e Los Angeles County Museu m of Art was rising on Wilshire Boulevard , and the distinctive artists of Los Angeles of the sixt ies - John Altoon, Larry Bell, BillyAI Bengston ,]oe Goo de , Robert Irwin , Craig Kauffman , Ed Moses and Ed Rusch a- w ere in th eir prim e , at the hei ght of their ex pressive powers. Th e n ew Californian , admittedly a somewhat relu ct ant joiner of the pack, soon became part of a wave of eager young people h eading out to the coas t to make their names an d rep utati on s.

If the mid-sixt ie s w ere turbul ent socially, w ith su rfing and the e mergent drug culture clas hi ng in

California , th ey also brought a fresh and electrifying arti stic awareness . Arnoldi spe nt two years at Ven tura Ju nior College before earning a full sc holarship to the Art Center School in L.A., w here he entered so p ho more le vel classes . He remain ed only two w eeks -

outraged at bein g forced into th e narrow

confines of illustration , he left to enroll at Chouinard. Th e free and mo re enligh ten ed ap proach at that sc hool ope ne d door s for Arn oldi, w ho within a few months won the p res tigious LACMATalent award .

ROUGH CUTS: AN INTERVIEW OF CHUCK ARNOLDI ON THE OCCASION OF HIS SHOW AT DESERT CENTER LOS ANGELES December 5, 2018

Some interesting facts about leopards: they are solitary animals that hunt in open terrains, they are difficult to track in the wild, they are extremely adaptable to new environments, and they often leave claw marks on trees to mark their territory. In Chuck Arnoldi’s expansive Venice Beach studio, a dusty, taxidermied leopard is perched, mid-roar, above the kitchen alcove. There is something strangely symbolic about this once ferocious, now inert genus of panthera. Arnoldi is not a hunter, but he is quick to note that this leopard is one of the best examples of taxidermy in the world. Among the Cool School cohort of artists, like Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, and Larry Bell, Arnoldi may be the lesser known, but he may also be the most prolific. His chainsaw

sculptures – which can be quickly described as chunks of painted wood with blade marks slashed into them – are his most well known, his Girl From Ipanema. They are dangerous and allude to his misfit youth. These hyper-mystical geometries can also be seen in his Machu Picchu paintings, which mimic the mysterious architecture of the ancient Incan citadel. Arnoldi’s latest show at Desert Center, entitled Rough Cuts, includes a number of recent chainsaw paintings made in and around the Yukon. A day after the Woolsey Fire broke out and threatened the artist’s home in Malibu, we sat down at his studio for a chat. OLIVER KUPPER: First off, I want to talk about the fire because it came very close to your property in Malibu, what did you do to fight off the fires?

CHUCK ARNOLDI: We weren’t going to leave because I have so much art in the house--I have a little Warhol I got for nothing...that is worth two million dollars, you know. We felt comfortable, because the house is quite high up there. We knew if the fire came, we could always go to the beach. If you go up to our roof, you could see the stuff coming. They looked like atom bombs, flames a hundred feet tall. I didn’t think my house was going to burn. I took the Calder and the Warhol...I got a lot of stuff, about a hundred-fifty pieces of art at least in the house. I took it all outside and put it in different places. It took me 25,000 steps to take it out and 25,000 steps back to take it back. KUPPER: The fires tune in to your work in a way, because some of your most well known works deal with using discarded materials or recycled materials, like your stick paintings, which came from a burned down orchard, can you talk a little bit about that?

ARNOLDI: I had an artist friend from Malibu and he told me one day, there is an orchard...and it had oranges and avocados and he told me to go steal some fruit. It was his special little thing…he’s an odd guy. So we were out there stealing oranges and avocados. The perimeter had all these leaves that had burned off, and they looked like charcoal lines. I thought those are beautiful, so I took my sticks back to the studio. The first piece I made, I took four sticks and tied them together at the end and I put two nails and hung it on the wall. It’s really about something being the sum of its parts, gravity.

KUPPER: Is it true that some of your stick paintings have come from your childhood home in Ohio? ARNOLDI: No, but you see those thorns up on the wall? When I was a little kid growing up, those were from a tree in Ohio. So I made those paintings from thorns. I’ve been avoiding Ohio like the plague. I have a very dysfunctional, bad family.

KUPPER: What was it like growing up there?

ARNOLDI: Most of my buddies are dead, a lot of them went to prison. I was just in a bad place. I had no art history at all in my childhood. I have an uncle who was a portrait painter, he wore a beret and had a little painting studio. I used to go there and I really liked the smell of oil painting.

He was my only exposure to art and at one point I got a modeling job at an art institute. I was broke and they would pay me to pose. One of the directors convinced me to take my clothes off and then he wanted me to get a hard on. This fucking guy, I’d like to meet him today. No fucking way.

When I was a kid, I made tree houses and forts and if I saw a Tarzan movie, I would make bows and arrows and spears. As I got older I got involved with cars. When I graduated, a teacher told me, “You are the most talented with the least amount of vision of anyone I have ever met,” and it made me feel terrible.... See, when I was growing up, I got attention for doing stuff, I was really good with my hands. KUPPER: Seems like the whole Venice School came from places like Dayton, the mythical American city, what was it about LA that was such a beacon for you guys?

ARNOLDI: I was a senior in high school and I had gotten in a little bit of trouble, they were gonna put me in a foster home. My father was living in Southern California with this woman he ran away with and he flew me out to California. I had never seen a freeway. It blew my mind. When I got back to Dayton I wanted to move to California. After I graduated high school, my mother had about six dollars and twenty-eight cents, so she gave me that and I left with four buddies of mine. I had a ‘55 Chevy with a ‘53 engine. We were terrible thieves.

KUPPER: When did you get serious about art?

ARNOLD: While in Los Angeles, it was time for me to go to school. I drove out to Ventura and I chickened out, I just couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t even go to an art history course. It was way over my head. I would just go to the art classes, ceramics for instance. The guy who ran the art department, Mr. Deets, saw my work and he came to see me and said, “You know son, since Picasso, everything is bullshit. You need to be an illustrator. I can make you one if you do what I tell you.” I could draw perfectly. I had the skills. KUPPER: How did your later experiences at Art Center influence your perspective?

ARNOLDI: I’d be doing a painting and the guy would come and go, “That’s done.” To me, it wasn’t finished, but to them I was ruining it. They would take your work away from you. In painting class the first thing they taught you is that you have to wear a tie and how to wear it so you don’t paint on it. This was all bullshit to me. I’m sitting there thinking this is fucked and I quit. KUPPER: You seem like a bit of a daredevil – can you talk about your chainsaw sculptures, because those sort of put you on the map in a way?

ARNOLDI: I just liked the way it looked. But one little slip and it’s really bad. I’ve been doing the Machu Picchu thing...these multi-paneled paintings. But the chainsaw sculptures were just one of those things that was on my mind. I don’t like to make sculptures because they are bulky. But these sort of made sense. KUPPER: Some of the work at your current show was made in the Yukon?

ARNOLDI: I went up there not expecting to make work, but I was sort of coaxed into it. The guy who owned the property has a gold mine. He asked if we wanted to get to work, so we go down to a river to find some wood. There were these two rough kids – one of them had recently slit a wolf’s neck that tried to attack him. So we are up there and they start to cut down some trees for me to make a sculpture. One kid said, “What do you want me to do?” I tell him to cut five slabs off and to get me some kind of platform. I said, “Kid, you’re good with the chainsaw. I’ll draw the line. You want you to give me this much of an angle.” (makes the vroom, vroom, vroom sound of a chainsaw) I look over and the other kid wants to do it too (vroom...vroom...vroom). We worked for two hours and made a few pieces. By the end, we made nine... and the new chainsaw pieces were painted in red, black and yellow. When I used to make the old chainsaw paintings, there would be splinters all over, so I would torch them away. I went and bought a serious blowtorch and all the kids were so excited. The kids cut trees down like crazy, and never thought of doing anything beyond that. I bet that within a year these kids would be making furniture and shit out of logs.

OK: Your upcoming show at Desert Center is called Rough Cuts – there is a connection to your work and some of the other Venice artists to music, the improvisational nature could be compared to jazz? CA: Somebody once told me something and I felt rather flattered: “Your chainsaw paintings are the closest thing I can think of to Pollock.” The reason is....Pollock in a sense did a dance, it was spontaneous, you know--he was physically involved. Man, then you start cutting in references

and you are making hundreds of decisions a second, but it's a physical thing, you’re actively engaged in it. Chuck Arnoldi: Rough Cuts is on view now at Desert Center Los Angeles, 7466 Beverly Blvd. Email for appointments: desertcenterlosangeles@gmail.com. Text and photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

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