October 10, 2011
Downtown News 15
DowntownNews.com
CALENDAR
photos courtesy MOCA
The MOCA show Under the Big Black Sun explores California art during a particularly heady time, just after the L.A. art explosion of the ’60s. The exhibition is at the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo through Feb. 13. Pieces on display include (clockwise from left) “Rejection Quintet” by Judy Chicago, a Black Flag flyer by Raymond Pettibon, “My Shadow” by Robert Colescott, “Human Rights Day” by Rupert Garcia and “Three Weeks in May” by Suzanne Lacy.
HereComestheBigBlackSun
MOCA Show Reveals a Vibrant Period in California Art by KirK SilSbee
O
ne of the first pieces that greets visitors to MOCA’s new show, Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981, is a wall-size work by the late, gifted trompe l’oeil painter Terry Schoonhoven. In it, he depicted a fantastic scene: the Downtown Los Angeles cityscape — entirely under water. The library’s obelisk, the Bank of California and California Federal buildings and environs sit pickled with marine life swimming around them. Like all of his grand opus murals (among them “Venice in the Snow” and “Isle of California,” showing a ravaged freeway overpass after an earthquake), it’s an absurdly apocalyptic scenario. But Schoonhoven’s paintings were so lifelike, viewers can’t help but ask themselves, “Yeah, but what if?” Ennui, apocalyptic fears and a general sense of loathing hang over this vast, sprawling exhibition like smog over the L.A. basin on a hot day with no air movement. If the 1960s were all about joyous possibilities, California’s art of ’74-’81 (Nixon’s resignation to Reagan’s inauguration) reflected a grim set of realities that included inflation, a depressed economy, diminished American standing in the world, gas shortages, environmental alarmism, the beginnings of Islamic jihad and Jimmy Carter’s malaise. The exhibit is at the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo ntownNews om/L.A.Dow through Feb. 13, 2012. Facebook.c L.A.’s art explosion of the ’60s caught the New York art establishment by surprise. A pool of hungry experimentation gestated here, undisturbed by the disapproving East Coast cultural elite. Wallace Berman’s assemblages, Ed Kienholz’s savage tableaux, Ed Rusha’s word/image icons, Robert Irwin’s light installations, Bill Al Bengston’s lacquered chevrons and other idiosyncratic expression flourished in anonymity; nobody told them they couldn’t do it. They made art because they had to, and they had fun doing it.
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Ruscha’s two Hollywood sign sunsets and Bengston’s on tatami mats. hanging floral banners represent the old guard at MOCA. Self-indulgence — in the name of exploring personal idenLike their contemporaries, affection for SoCal — however tity — permeates so much of the work represented, and the jaundiced — is discernible. There’s very little joy associated practice of obtaining government money for art took off in with the work in Big Black Sun. those years. A room-size video and photo installation of Paul Michael McMillan and Betye Saar gracefully extended the McCarthy playing with his genitals is the worst culprit. Ilene ’60s assemblage aesthetic: he with a miniature room viewed Segalove’s clothes closet inventory was probably only of interthrough a peephole, and she with a mystically evocative tab- est to her. A photo of a waitress in repose is barely noted, but leaux made of everyday objects. Vija Celmins rethought the who knew in 1975 that Karen Finley — staring blankly in the precious object by displaying polished stones and bronze portrait — would go on to be one of the biggest abusers of fragments under glass. Carole Caroompas’ brilliant collage/ NEA grants in the ’80s? paintings compel through their suggested narrative qualiIt’s no accident that so much self-absorbed work coties. George Kaltenbach’s painting of the face of a dying incided with the rise of identity politics. Women, blacks, man with ghostly decorative motifs superimposed is subtly Chicanos, Asians and gays grabbed for their respective powerful. shares of the political pie and that clutching is reflected in Conceptualism, process and post-studio work were all the the art. An undercurrent — if not occasionally blatant plea rage in the ’70s. Drawing, painting, pictorialism and the pre- — of sympathy is part of much of the personal “documencious object were pronounced obsolete. The idea was para- tation,” initiating classes of victims. Subjects like Chicano mount. artist Gronk stare out of photos and seem to ask: Do you see A large room of different pieces grapples with the issue how hard it is to be me? of nuclear annihilation. A platform covered in 50,000 nickNo cultural measure of the era could leave out punk rock els (the number of NATO tanks said to sit on the Eastern and, thankfully, Big Black Sun (from a song by L.A.’s X) covEuropean borders) with match heads on each one was Chris ers it. Videos of West Coast bands like the Plugz blast across Burden’s view. Jim Pomeroy’s canvas with warships looks like a large screen. Garish black and white photos of the legendwallpaper, which was the point. ary Masque club and Mabuhay Gardens and lots of savage Still, a fair amount of drawn and painted work sits in this graphics by Raymond Pettibon remind us that there was an survey. Schoonhoven’s pal Vic Henderson exquisitelyStarts ren- Oct. explosive 7 counter-action to all of the dull, boring video art dered realist drawing study of watermelon seeds scattered and ice-melting processes that were so rampant in art instituon linoleum is among the best. Judy Chicago’s suite of floral/ tions. One look at the headbangers with blood in their eyes in vaginal meditations in Prismacolor pencil shows her fine front of Black Flag or the Screamers and you know it was a design sense, although the accompanying text, cataloging her heck of a time to be alive. rejections, no longer wears well (all adults have to process reUnder the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981 runs jection and failure, and artists more so than most). A characthrough Feb. 13, 2012, at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary, 152 N. Check Our Website for Full Movie Listings LADowntownNews.com teristically sublime Masami Teraoka watercolor speaks in the Central Ave., (213) 626-6222 or moca.org. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. ancient woodblock vernacular, but of McDonald’s wrappings Mon.-Fri.: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thurs.; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
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