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A t i i ■! I. ■> 3 A ii -j o I
The Museum as Site: Sixteen / Projects
The Museum as Site: Sixteen Projects
Stephanie Barron
Photographs by Robbert Flick
Los Angeles County Museum of Art July 21-October 4, 1981
Library of Congress This exhibition was made possible
Cataloging in Publication Data by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.
Barron, Stephanie Art in Los Angeles.
1 Environment i Art)— California — Los Angeles — Exhibitions. 2 Conceptual Art— California- Los Angeles — Exhibitions. 3. Art, Modern— 20th century— California — Los Angeles — Exhibitions, I Los Angeles County Museum of Art II Title 111 Title Museum as site — sixteen projects N6535.L6B37 709 \794'93074019493 81-17161 ISBN 0-87587-102-X AACR2
Published by the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90036-9990
Copyrighl | 1981 by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Edited by Jeanne D\Andrea and Aleida Rodriguez
I It-signed in Los Angeles by April Greiman Assisted by Cheri Gray
Text set in Century Schoolbook
and Helvetica typefaces
by RSTypographicH, Los Angeles
Printed in an edition of 6,200 on Mustang Vellum 50 lb offset book by Alan Lithograph Inc., Los Angele
4 Director's Preface
4 Acknowledgments
5 The Project and Catalog
6 Map
9 The Museum as Site: Sixteen Projects
1 1 Robert Irwin
15 Lloyd Hamrol
1 9 Terry Schoonhoven
23 Karen Carson
27 Jay McCafferty
3i Robert Graham
35 Michael Asher
37 Michael Brewster
41 John Baldessarl
45 Roland Reiss
49 Richard Jackson
55 Michael C. McMillen
61 Jonathan Borofsky
65 Alexis Smith
69 Chris Burden
73 Eric Orr
77 Exhibition Histories
82 TVustees and Supervisors
Director's Preface
On the occasion of Los Angeles' Bicentennial, the Museum's Department of Modern Art presented a two-part exhibition, Art in Los Angeles. The first, Seventeen Artists in the Sixties, organized by Senior Curator of Modern Art Maurice Tuchman, explored particular aspects of work by a limited number of artists from a decade in which Los Angeles artists achieved national and international acclaim. The second, The Museum as Site: Sixteen Projects, orga- nized by Curator of Modern Art Stephanie Barron, focuses on two specific kinds of art that emerged in the last decade and continue to be practiced by many artists who live here: site-related art and in- stallation art.
This is a period of growth for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with expansion planned to include a new building for twentieth-century art. Thus, it is particularly gratifying to celebrate Los Angeles and the high level of creativity that its art- ists continue to exemplify. We thank all of them for their efforts in making this part of the Museum's Bicentennial celebration a success.
Earl A. Powell III Director
By its very nature, the exhibition The Museum as Site: Sixteen Projects has been a collaborative ven- ture. I would like to thank each of the sixteen artists with whom I have worked during the past year to conceptualize, plan, and execute these works. It has been an exciting, rewarding venture and each of the artists has responded with ambition and excellence to the invitation to exhibit.
Director Earl A. Powell III has been a vocal enthu- siast of this project from its inception and through the many months of installation as the artists "invaded" the Museum grounds. Assistant Director for Museum Programs Myrna Smoot balanced the budgeting aspects of the projects, responding with sensitivity to unexpected problems. Head of Technical Services James Kenion deserves special recognition for working with the artists to execute their pieces. Frequently solving seemingly insurmountable dilemmas, Mr. Kenion and the Technical Services, Construction and Maintenance staffs of the Museum responded with understanding and imagination time and again during the past year. Museum photographer Larry Reynolds col- laborated with John Baldessari in the execution of his photographic installation.
In the Department of Modern Art, I would like to thank my colleague Maurice Tuchman, Senior Curator of Modern Art, for his unfailing encour- agement throughout this undertaking. He was always available to me and to the artists for con- sultation. Assistant Curator Katherine Hart and Departmental Assistant Lora Brown worked closely with me in all phases of the installation of the projects. Departmental secretary Donna Wong, with great skill, enthusiasm, and diplomacy, took on the additional responsibilities of navigating our department and the sixteen artists through the past year.
This catalog is the result of the efforts of photog- rapher Robbert Flick and designer April Greiman. Mr. Flick worked with rigor, spirit, and zealous commitment to record the process of creation of each of these works. Rarely does one find a photog- rapher who responds so sympathetically and un- stintingly. My thanks also go to Curatorial Assistant Stella Paul, Head of Publication and Design Jeanne D'Andrea, Publications Associate Aleida Rodriguez, Museum Service Council volunteer Grace Spencer, and to Jack Brogan, Anne Jackson, Vija Celmins, Rosamund Felsen, Christopher Knight, and Lisa Lyons for their cooperation on this project. I would like to acknowledge the examples of Alanna Heiss, Executive Director, Institute for Art and Urban Re- sources, New York; and Mark Rosenthal, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, whose exhibitions. Rooms P.S.I and Surface as Support, respectively, have been an inspiration.
To each of the artists and to their assistants I extend my warmest thanks. Their enthusiasm, un- derstanding, imagination, and dedication to this exhibition have made the projects not only feasible, but an exciting collaboration for the Museum. Lastly, I thank The James Irvine Foundation for their support of the exhibition and this catalog.
Stephanie Barron Curator of Modern Art
The Project and Catalog
Each artist in the exhibition received a participa- tion fee of seven hundred fifty dollars. The Museum assumed the costs of the materials for each project up to a pre-arranged amount. Each artist signed a contract which outlined the responsibilities and work schedule of the Museum and the artist Both parties also agreed that at the close of the exhibi- tion the materials would either be returned to the artist or dismantled.
Since most of the works in this exhibition cannot impart their full meaning outside of the contexts of their particular sites, we must rely on documenta- tion to share these pieces with broader audiences. While each artist had a definite a priori idea about what the piece would look like, it is in the nature of many of these works that only during the final in- stallation did they take finished form. Thus, it was impossible to predict in advance the ultimate ap- pearance of some of the works in the show. For many artists, moving into the Museum space was the culminating step in a long process of prelimi- nary work in the studio. For this reason, the catalog has awaited the opening of the show. Photographer Robbert Flick assiduously documented the process of creation in the studio and in the Museum during the four months prior to the opening. These process photographs are an indispensable part of the record for a show of this nature.
The Museum as Site:
Sixteen Projects
Ahmanson Gallery
5905 W I I
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Michael Ashenb 1943)
Sign m the Park, 1981
Outdoors On the path between the B G Cantor Sculpture Garden and the lake pit in Hancock Park h ii%m..w. 41%in..d. %in
2 John Baldessari(b 1931)
Alignment Series. Two Palms and Two Columns
(lor Newman), 1981
Photographic installation
Two photographs (one color, one black-and-
white),each 15x10 It.
Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
3 Jonathan Borofskyib 1942)
/ Dreamed a Dog Was Walking a Tightrope at 2,715,346. 1981
Mixed-media-and-video gallery installation Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
Michael Brewster (b 1946)
Attach and Decay, 1981 Acoustic sculpture
Outdoors. B G Cantor Sculpture Garden, i section, near circular
5 Chris Burden (b 1946)
A Tale of Two Cities. 1981
Mixed-media gallery mslailatio Ahmanson Gallery, third lloor
i Karen Carson (b. 1943)
Rising Rings, 1981
Acrylic on canvas
h 52 ft.. w. 20 ft
Outdoors: Ahmanson Gallery, south tacade
7 Robert Graham (b 1938) Retrospective Column. Part One, 1981
8 Lloyd Hamrolfb 1937)
Squaredance, 1981
Constructed wood sculpture (Douglas lir timbers)
h 10ft, w 17 ft., d: 7ft.
Outdoors Upper Plaza, in front of Leo S. Bmg
Center
9 Robert Irwin (b 1928)
An Exercise on Placement and Relation in Five Parts. 1981 In each location
One steel plate- h 13 It . 6 in , w 2 ft , d 1m One sleel bar-h: 4 ft . w 6 in.; d 6 in One stainless steel bar-h 13ft .,6 in .,w:1Y*in ,d 1 a) Wilshire Boulevard entrance, b) Lower Plaza, in front of Founders' Wall, c) Upper Plaza, in front of Frances and Armand Ham- mer Wing, d) Upper Plaza, in front of Ahman- son Gallery, e) Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
Richard Jackson (b 1939)
The Big Idea. 2. 1981 3,000 stacked canvases diam 16 ft Ahmanson Gallery Atrium
11 Jay McCaHerty(b 1948)
Between, 1981
Painting in three panels
h. of each panel 52 ft.; w of each panel: 8 ft
Outdoors Ahmanson Gallery, east facade
12 Michael C.McMillenlb 1946)
• Central Meridian, 1981 Mixed-media environment Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
13 Eric Orr(b 1939)
Prime Matter, 1981
Column ot flame and fog
h: 20 It
Outdoors Upper Plaza, in front ol Ahmanson
Gallery
Roland Reiss (b 1929)
Wew World Stoneworks, 1981 Five objects on five pedestals a) Leo S. Bmg Theater, lobby, b) Ahmanson Gal- lery Atrium, under stairs, c) Ahmanson Gallery. Plaza level, near elevators, d) Ahmanson Gal- lery, third lloor, stairwell, e) Ahmanson Gallery, fourth lloor, near elevators
15 Terry Schoonhoven (b 1945)
Outdoors Ahmanson Gallery facade, north
16 Alexis Smith (b 1949)
Cathay, 1981
Mixed-media gallery installation
Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
By the end of the 1960s, the art object qua object began to be de-emphasized as artists became in- creasingly interested in the processes by which art was made and the contexts in which new art could exist. To this end, the seventies has been described as a decade characterized not by one particular style but rather by pluralism, in which the way art looked assumed a myriad of guises. It was a dec- ade in which traditional painting and sculpture took a back seat to the mixed-media environment, massive-scale sculpture, earthworks, video, perfor- mance, site-related work, and experiments in sound and light. Recognizing the great diversity of new forms, it became evident that a survey of the seven- ties in Los Angeles would be an unwieldy and ulti- mately inconclusive endeavor. Instead, we decided to focus on two of the aforementioned ways of work- ing— the site-related work and the mixed-media environment or installation. These are two kinds of work that are generally difficult to exhibit in a museum context and by definition are not com- monly collectible. To link them, I conceived of the Museum itself as site and invited artists to create works specifically for indoor and outdoor spaces and locations. The works would remain on view only for the duration of the exhibition. There is an energy and intensity generated by a work made for a given temporal situation — a priori uncollectible, unre- tainable — that is captured in each of these examples.
less frequently noticed aspects of the buildings or of the grounds. Curiously, this museum, the Temple of Culture on Wilshire Boulevard, which for so many years has been considered a white elephant, became in the context of this exhibition an aesthetic and intellectual challenge. The experience of encounter- ing a scattering of unusual and sometimes jarring, sometimes playful works of art, or of viewing in- stallations that employ non-art materials or unex- pected motifs in nontraditional art spaces, is an unfamiliar one to most museum visitors.
Site-related or site-specific art is art conceived only in relation to a given location and related to it for its context and meaning. Works in this show by Michael Asher, John Baldessari, Michael Brewster, Karen Carson, Lloyd Hamrol, Robert Irwin, Jay McCafferty, and Terry Schoonhoven respond to the extant Museum architecture and landscape, which necessarily determined the physical boundaries of the pieces. While most of the artists responded to the building as a physical site, a few, Michael Asher, Richard Jackson, Michael C. McMillen, and Roland Reiss responded to the "museumness" of the site — the museum as a repository of the history of .art. These works vary greatly in their response to the challenge of creating site-related art; several of the artists invited had a history of such work, some did not.
Since it opengd its doors in the mid-1960s the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has been consid- ered by many artists to be an architecturally awk- ward and unsympathetic space for contemporary art. Currently, the Museum is engaged in an exten- sive program of expansion, renovation, and replan- ning with the architectural firm Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. At a moment of such great change it seemed appropriate to use the Museum and its grounds to recognize a type of artmaking that has emerged here in the past decade. Several artists have taken the buildings and the grounds and treated them as formal objects which can be explored in a variety of ways. Many of the artists have talked about the desire to alert the viewers to
The second aspect of the show is the environments that have been created within the Museum grounds by Jonathan Borofsky, Michael C. McMillen, Alexis Smith, and Chris Burden. These artists have created private worlds by using a variety of media and approaches — drawing directly on the wall, using sculpture, found objects, video, sound, light, and architecture to convey their meanings.
Plaza Leve
Third Floor
Robert Irwin
Attended Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles. 1948-50; Jepson Art Institute. Los Angeles, 1951, and Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles. 1952-54.
In each location.
One steel plate— h: 13 ft., 6 in.; w. 2 ft.; d: 1 in One steel bar— h* 4 ft., w 6 in . d 6 in One stainless steel bar — h 13 tt . 6 in ,
w; V/a in., d. 1V4 in a) Wilshire Boulevard entrance, b) Lower Plaza, in front of Founders' Wall; c) Upper Plaza, in front of Frances and Armand Ham- mer Wing; d) Upper Plaza, in front of Ahman- son Gallery, e) Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
Robert Irwin is the only artist who has participated in both parts of the Art in Los Angeles show. For more than a decade he has been known as a pioneer of site-related work. Irwin's contribution to this part of the show is An Exercise in Placement and Relation in Five Parts, a didactic, clear example of site-related work. In each of five locations, begin- ning at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance to the Museum complex, continuing through three more outdoor sites, and ending in a gallery in the Ahmanson building, Irwin has arranged three steel elements in different configurations. Each location of Irwin's piece determines the formality or in- formality of the steel configuration. In one, the steel pieces lie casually on the ground as raw materials running the risk (intentionally, of course) of being confused with construction materials. In the stark, white-walled gallery, the warm modulation of the raw steel surface assumes a painterly quality; the steel elements are elegant, formal, and highly structured. This piece not only serves to bring to- gether the variety of indoor and outdoor spaces in- corporated by this show, but it also relates the two main buildings, thus linking the art of the sixties with the site-related show. Thus, by following the path of this particular work by Irwin, the viewer is introduced to the possibilities and intention of site-related art.
11
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Lloyd Hamrol
Squaredance. 1981
Constructed wood sculpture (Douglas fir timbers)
h: 10 ft , w- 17 ft . d. 7 ft
Outdoors Upper Plaza, in front of Leo S Bmg Center
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Lloyd Hamrol's sculpture Squaredance is a wooden propylaeum located on the Plaza near the entrances to the three "Temples of the Museum": the Ahman- son Gallery, the Frances and Armand Hammer Wing, and the Leo S. Bing Center. Composed of sixty-eight interlocking Douglas fir timbers which are cut from twelve-inch by twelve-inch logs, the four-doored, open-roofed structure is seventeen feet square and nine feet high. Hamrol's sculpture intro- duces the notion of structure on the Plaza, relates to the three buildings, and yet is in striking contrast to them. Visually, texturally, and gesturally, the rough-hewn wood surfaces and playfulness of the concept set up a contradiction with the three other buildings. While the Museum buildings are verti- cal, rectilinear, and static, this piece is horizontal; and with the implication of movement made by the skewed doorways, Hamrol causes a disorientation in the viewer. The skewing of the entrances to Squaredance produces an unusual, discomforting ef- fect when the viewer is inside looking out at the Museum complex. From the inside, the work's ver- tical relationship to the Plaza seems reinforced; from the outside, the work appears unbalanced in its spatial orientation. Squaredance is a work that examines its site at the Museum, addresses the cumulative architecture of the three buildings, and attempts a dialogue with them.
15
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Terry Schoonhoven
h: 11 ft ;w 11ft 2 in
Outdoors Ahmanson Gallery facade, north
of entrance
Muralist Terry Schoonhoven has created a painting that has as its subject the building facade. Alone, and as a member of an art group called the L.A. Fine Arts Squad, Schoonhoven in the past few years has created several large- and small-scale murals in the Los Angeles area, which respond to the envi- ronment in arresting, humorous, and critical ways. At the Museum, Schoonhoven painted Generator (A Study in Copper and Grey), a trompe Voeil scene, directly onto the east facade of the Ahmanson Gallery, immediately to the right of the entrance. The image he selected is what one would see if po- sitioned directly in front of the mural and then turned ninety degrees to the left toward Wilshire Boulevard. Schoonhoven responds directly to a given architectural site. Here, he takes the strong architectural detailing — rigorous columnation occurring at intervals — and uses it to his advantage. By subtly altering the viewer's perception of the space, in this instance by clever disorientation, Schoonhoven calls attention to an otherwise undis- tinguished part of the building. The eleven-foot- square acrylic mural shimmers with a luminescence partially caused by the layering of paint and the textured stucco surface provided by the wall. He in effect punches a hole through the monochromatic, otherwise bland, gallery wall with his loggia within a loggia. His mural bears a strong relation to those of the Renaissance masters — in both his traditional method of working and in his fascination with and concentration on the effects of perspective.
Large-scale outdoor mural painting has recently attracted widespread interest in Los Angeles and throughout America. Often highly colorful anti- dotes to impersonal urban architecture, they appear on the sides of parking lots, banks, fences, and along roadsides. It has become a "people's art," sometimes involving scores of community partici- pants in a single project. Frequently, mural subjects are drawn from characters or incidents of con- temporary life. The murals are for the most part temporal, lasting only as long as the landlord, the painting material, or the neighborhood graffiti permit. In this exhibition, Schoonhoven creates his "public art" within the confines of the art museum. The success of his project show that it is not just the urban eyesore that can accommodate mural art, but that the sensitive merging of art and architecture can enhance the viewer's feeling for most buildings and spaces.
19
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Karen Carson
Born in Corvallis
B FA, University ol Oregon. Eugene. 19 Claremont Graduate School. M FA , Uni sity ol California. Los Angeles, 1971
Rising Rings 1981
Acrylic on canvas h. 52 ft ,w: 20 ft.
Outdoors: Ahmanson Gallery, south facade
Painter Karen Carson's single fifty-two-foot-high by six teen -foot- wide canvas, Rising Rings, which hangs on the Wilshire Boulevard facade of the Ahmanson Gallery, is a bold and gestural abstract statement. For several years Carson has painted in a manner related to Abstract Expressionism, although for the most part her paintings have remained within a studio scale. In the mid-1970s, she executed a large billboard as part of a series of billboards displayed around Los Angeles sponsored by the Eyes and Ears Foundation. The opportunity to work again with an expansive canvas appealed to the artist, as such occasions are necessarily limited. The proposal to create a fifty-two-foot-high painting to be seen from a distance is a challenge for any artist unaccustomed to such scale, but even more so for one whose work is based on the careful, colorful, and gestural manipulations of surfaces. The fluorescent, saturated coloration that Carson employs in her painting at the Museum plays off the scale of the monochromatic building surface, and the emerging image — rising rings — stands in direct contrast to the austere, rectilinear figuration of the building. It is a remarkable feat that the intimacy of the brushstroke and the dripping paint, characteristic of action painting, have been main- tained in a work of this scale — an image to be seen from cars whizzing by on Wilshire Boulevard. Both Carson's and McCafferty's large outdoor paintings deal with the scale of their site and, along with Schoonhoven's mural, take their origin from the ar- chitecture and the detailing of the building surfaces.
23
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Jay McCafferty
B A , California State University, Los Angeles, 1970, M F A., University of California, Irvine, 1973
Patntmg in three panels
h of each panel 52 ft., w of each panel 8 ft
Outdoors Ahmanson Gallery, east facade
The strong, architectonic detailing of the Museum buildings provided not only Schoonhoven but also painter Jay McCafferty with the impetus for his site-related work. The vigorous columnation that rises over sixty feet and repeats itself across the vast concrete expanses of the Museum could have been an impediment for artists. Instead, McCafferty chose to confront it and make the architecture work for him. His triptych Between hangs on the east facade of the Ahmanson Gallery. Each panel of the triptych is fifty-two feet high by eight feet wide, and is installed in alternate bays to the left of the entrance. The brightly colored surface of the three- part painting, rich in line and detailing, was achieved through carefully controlled solar burn- ing, painting, and patching of the immense canvas.
For the past decade McCafferty has worked on paper, using the sun's rays as his medium. On the rooftop portion of his studio McCafferty uses the sun's rays to burn patches, holes, or large abstract areas in a single sheet or in layers of paper. His "automatic" way of making art, which became popu- lar with the Surrealists, has intrigued McCafferty for many years. This triptych is his first work on canvas and his most ambitious project to date.
27
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Robert Graham
Attended San Jose State College, California 1961-63, and San Francisco Art Institute, 1963-64
Retrospective Column, Part One, 1981
Wax
h: 15 ft, w 30in.d 30 in
Ahmanson Gallery, Plaza level entrance
Robert Graham's majestic fifteen-foot-high wax sculpture, Retrospective Column, Part One, is a pro- posal for one of two columns for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Part of the Museum's expansion will include a third-story link between the Frances and Armand Hammer Wing and the Ahmanson Gallery. Graham has proposed that two cast-bronze columns sheath the columns supporting this link; the wax column in this exhibition is the maquette for one of these columns. Recently, Graham has designed large-scale bronze doors and a series of wall panels, each covered with his characteristic figures in half-relief. This work com- bines an interest in the symbiotic relationship between art and architecture with a self-confident presentation of the body of images he has used in his sculpture during the past fifteen years. Graham's column is an audacious work, containing as it does in its vertical and horizontal registers the history of these images. For centuries, the column has been a fascinating bridge between art and ar- chitecture. Renaissance artists covered large-scale bronze doors with dazzling combinations of images. In the late nineteenth century Rodin created the magnificent Gates of Hell. For Rodin this magnum opus served for several years as a creative font as he continued to create full-scale sculptures from in- dividual details of the massive gates. For Graham, the Retrospective Column functions in reverse as it contains within a single work images that he has already used for many years. It is a strong sum- mary statement for him that merges sculpture and architecture.
Photographer Larry Reynolds
lichael Asher
Sign in the Park, 1981
Outdoors On the path between the B G Cantor Sculpture Garden and the lake pit in Hancock Park h 11% in , w 4144 in d % in
One of the purest examples of site-related work in the exhibition is by Michael Asher, who for many years has done conceptual and site-related art that deals with subtly changing one's perception about familiar places and subjects. Asher's piece consists of two parts. The first is the reinstallation of a "Dogs must be kept on a leash" sign in Hancock Park. The second part of the piece is a printed poster, forty by thirty inches, which is on view on the lower Plaza. The poster depicts a scene in color and in black and white from the Hollywood movie The Kentuckian, starring Burt Lancaster. Pictured in the two stills are Lancaster and a young boy with a dog on a leash, which relate in a literal way to the sign in the park. On the poster Asher has written that 1) his piece for the exhibition was the reinstallation of a county sign, and 2) the painting The Kentuckian by Thomas Hart Benton is part of the Museum's permanent collection. When the Museum visitor reaches the American art galleries, he or she can find the The Kentuckian on exhibition.
The painting The Kentuckian was created for the film and was owned by Lancaster until he donated it to the Museum in 1977. Asher's site-related piece deals with and calls to our attention the reasons for the creation of this painting and the fact that it now hangs as part of the permanent collection. He has used the Museum's site in a very specific way. His piece does not just deal with the architecture, or even with the institution's "museumness," but very specifically with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, its own site in Los Angeles, and its relation to Hollywood.
35
Michael Brewster
B A , Pomona College, Claremont, California, 1968, MFA, Claremont Graduate School. California, 1970
Attack and Decay. 1981
Acoustical sculpture
Outdoors B. G Cantor Sculpture Garden, east
section, near circular staircase
Michael Brewster's acoustic sculpture Attack and Decay is an invisible work, free from any encumber- ing object. Through the medium of live synthetic sound, it describes and defines an outdoor area in the Museum's garden. For the past decade sculptor Brewster has used sound as his medium. While most sculpture is three-dimensional, the viewer is limited to perceiving it from a few aspects. Sound sculpture, by contrast, can be experienced from all directions. The viewer moves through Brewster's sculpture, through its volume, encountering dense and sparse aspects of a seemingly empty space. A distinction that Brewster draws between his acous- tic sculpture and contemporary or experimental music is primarily in the viewer's attitude. Brew- ster's sound sculptures are not meant to be listened to from a single, seated vantage point, as one listens to a concert, but rather they are intended to be experienced as the viewer moves about and through the sculpture. It is this viewer participation that is critical to Brewster.
In Attack and Decay, Brewster has constructed a black box which hangs from a tree in the garden, a sound pulsating with an alternating frequency of 1000-1020 Hz. is aimed at the path that traverses this garden. The sound lasts for a few seconds and is followed by a few seconds of silence; the cycle repeats itself continuously during the hours the exhibition is open. Brewster describes the experi- ence of encountering the piece: "It's like walking through swiss cheese, you come to pockets of density (sound) and then move to areas that are punctured (silence), and one can actually walk through this piece." Like light, sound exists spectrally, and each portion of the spectrum exhibits unique qualities. Low frequency sounds have long wave lengths, are volumetric and omnidirectional, and high frequency sounds are monodirectional and linear. Brewster's acoustic sculpture A Hack and Decay responds to the architectural and volumetric site it inhabits. The sculpture that results is a field of sound volumes of differing sizes, densities, and rates.
37
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John Baldessari
Photographic installation Two photographs (one color, one black-and- white) each 15x10 ft
Ahmanson Gallery, third floor
John Baldessari's photographic installation Align- ment Series: Two Palms and Two Columns (For Newman) is a witty and effective example of site- related art. The site Baldessari selected is in the Ahmanson Gallery, a building which houses the permanent collection of the Museum. In the center of the building a large atrium creates a perimeter of gallery spaces on each of three upper levels. On the third floor, Baldessari has chosen a gallery that is seen across the Atrium from the elevator access to the floor and that also can be viewed at intimate range. The gallery is punctuated by two floor-to- ceiling columns. Baldessari chose an architecturally disparate and awkward space, confronting these elements with his piece. He has installed two fifteen-foot-high photographic blowups, one black- and-white, one color, of a single palm tree. From the first vista, the viewer sees a floor-to-ceiling gray rectangle and a blue rectangle, each punctuated or bisected by a white column of the building. This zip-like division of the color field recalls the abstract paintings of Barnett Newman, to whom Baldessari refers in his title. As one moves six feet to the right or left, and ultimately around the gal- lery to the photographs themselves, these two stark but whimsical trees assume increasing pres- ence. Conceptual artist Baldessari conceived the idea for this piece and then worked with profes- sional photographers, enlargers, and mounters to execute his work. He has said that he is much more concerned with the idea than with the physical process of executing that idea. Although he super- vises every stage of the project, he does not become physically involved as a craftsman or technician. With a single gesture, Baldessari has effectively activated an otherwise awkward, difficult space within the Museum.
41
Roland Reiss
New World Stonewc ■'- 1981
Five objects on a) Leo S. Bmg Theater, lobby; b) Ahmanson Gal- lery Atrium, under stairs, c) Ahmanson Gallery, Plaza level, near elevators, d) Ahmanson Gal- lery, third floor, stairwell, e) Ahmanson Gallery. fourth floor
Roland Reiss deals with the idea of the "museum- ness" of his site. In New World Stoneworks, Reiss has created five sets of small-scale simulated stone artifacts which he placed in traditional museum pedestal cases and then located in five disparate sites throughout the Museum. Encountering a case containing odd-looking, stonelike palm trees, people, animals, and tract house sliding-glass doors "buried" in the Chinese art galleries next to pedes- tals containing ancient ritual bronzes is a confound- ing, humorous, and engaging experience. Reiss' New World Stoneworks are a kind of ancient relic of the future; coming upon them in the lobby, stairwell, or among the art of true ancient cultures posits ques- tions in the minds of viewers about the historicity of objects and their context in a museum setting.
Reiss' sculpture employs a variety of contemporary icons that by their juxtaposition within each dis- play case comment on aspects of the culture of the seventies and eighties, As artists in earlier eras had "memorialized" objects and symbols of their cul- tures, Reiss' sculptures are humorous commentaries on the transitoriness of our lives. The distillation of cultures into selected images or objects has intrigued artists throughout history, and here it becomes the subject of Reiss' work.
45
. . .
Richard Jackson
The B/g Idea 2 1981
3,000 stacked c
diam 16 ft
Ahmanson Gallery Atrn
Painter Richard Jackson has created a single monu- mental painting called The Big Idea 2, a sphere constructed of almost 3,000 painted and stacked canvases. Jackson meticulously stretched, primed, and painted each of these canvases, and then stacked each one face down to form a gigantic sphere, sixteen feet in diameter, which is located in the middle of the Ahmanson Gallery Atrium. Initially, The Big Idea 2 looks like a Magritte come to life, and for many years Jackson has professed a fascination with the Surrealists. For Jackson, as for the Surrealists, the process is an essential part of the creation of a work of art. Looking down at The Big Idea 2 the viewer sees the sphere's platform covered with the paint drips built up in the four weeks it took to assemble the work. Curiously, Jack- son approached this painting in a very traditional manner. He stretched each canvas himself and covered each with gesso, even though they were inev- itably buried within the mass of the piece. When asked why he works this way, Jackson responds, "That's the only way I know to make a painting!"
Jackson's work suggests a variety of concerns: that all artists make the same painting over and over again, that the museum is the ultimate warehouse, and that art is process. He affirms, too, the attrac- tion the "grand machine" has traditionally held for artists. Jackson's colorful, painterly work is an awesome accomplishment that totally disarms the viewer and provides a humorous and arresting counterpoint to the bland architectonics of the sur- rounding spaces.
49
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lichael C McMillen
B A , San Fernando Valley Slate College, California. 1969, M A , University of Califor- nia, Los Angeles. 1972. M.F.A., 1973
Central Meridian, 1981
Four of the artists who have chosen to work in- doors have created environments or private worlds within the Museum. Generally custom-built to the artists' architectural specifications, these rooms of Jonathan Borofsky, Chris Burden, Alexis Smith, and Michael C. McMillen differ greatly from each other. Installations of this type are normally tem- poral and charged with the energy of working intensely and directly in a given space and a specific time frame.
In McMillen's Central Meridian we experience the analogy between a mid-twentieth-century Ameri- can garage and cultural tomb. In the garage thirty by sixteen feet that McMillen has had constructed in the Museum, the viewer encounters, first through the dusty, cracked window and then in per- son, a 1964 Dodge Dart, resting on a bier-like plat- form. McMillen sees a direct relation between this work and aspects of ancient Egyptian or Chinese culture. Surrounding the car, the garage is filled to the point of bursting with relics, newspapers, and detritus, all carefully selected and positioned. The immediate impression is one of intruding into the garage of a neighbor, perhaps of an eccentric, but then quickly one begins to recognize familiar ob- jects. Yet this environment is more than an engag- ing recreation of a garage. As ancient tombs were aimed at the afterlife, twentieth-century man, bred in technology, saves and stores remnants of his own culture. Entering McMillen's garage one has the feeling of entering a modern tomb. The artist car- ries his metaphor throughout; the chariot buried in the tomb is now an American car of the sixties. The icon — the car — is a centering element in the piece which we, who live in an automotive city, instantly recognize. While the ancients were buried with tab- lets covered with writing depicting their family life, our modern tomb is crammed with lawn mowers, old radiators, bowling trophies, scientific laboratory materials, a 1950s Sylvania "halo lite" television set, old newspapers and magazines, phonographs — all "stored" and buried in this dimly lit, musty garage. Within the actual museum, McMillen has transformed a gallery space into a veritable museum of collectable objects — personal, evocative, and mysterious.
McMillen sees his environment as a portrait of one aspect of American culture after the Second World War. He hopes the viewer will enter this timeless garage as he would a tomb that has been sealed for a long time. The detritus, cas toffs, and found ob- jects that fill the garage are cumulative clues which help to evoke the personality of the owner. The per- son whom this garage represents is complex — some- one at home in a mini-laboratory, who gathers both right-wing political and religious material, and sur- rounds himself with relics of our technological era.
For several years McMillen's work has been evolv- ing from small-scale environments toward more complicated, full-scale tableaux. Central Meridian is his first large-scale work in several years. Tab- leaux have a special history in Los Angeles. In the 1960s Edward Kienholz executed a series of well- known environments: Roxys, The Beanery, and The Back Seat Dodge '38. McMillen's environment, while lacking the biting social commentary of Kienholz' pieces, is heir to those now historic tab- leaux of the sixties.
55
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Jonathan Borofsky
B.F A , Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. 1964; M.F A . Yale School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut, 1966
Painter Jonathan Borofsky has created an environ- ment, / Dreamed a Dog Was Walking a Tightrope at 2,715,346, consisting of words and multi-scaled images and objects that cover the floor, walls, and ceilings. Like the Surrealists, he draws his imagery from his dreams. Because Borofsky fills the room completely with a whorl-like covering, the viewer feels he has entered the mind of the artist. Borofsky covers his walls with his own iconographic vocabu- lary— the running man, a videotape with a dog who endlessly walks back and forth on a tightrope, a cutout large-scale automaton who hammers end- lessly, a ping-pong table complete with paddles and balls inviting viewer participation, a ceiling-wall- floor bug-eyed, rabbit-eared character with a pul- sating strobe light, and whirling, twirling rubies, fish, and other seemingly unrelated figures. The ef- fect of these images, combined with political, social, and economic slogans, graffiti, and phrases scat- tered throughout the room, is both one of total dis- orientation and of being wholly within a space conceived of and "programmed" by the artist. Borofsky's piece attends three of our senses in an arresting way.
Borofsky's painting method — working directly on the wall and filling the space in a horror vacuii manner — puts very little between the viewer and the psyche of the artist. His working method carries through his critical intentions. Armed with several boxes filled with over a hundred eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white drawings on acetate, Borofsky uses an opaque projector in an attempt to decide which images best fit particular sections of the room. As he selects an appropriate drawing he then paints or draws the image directly on the wall, filling in de- tails free-hand. Occasionally, images will emerge during the development of the piece. In this in- stallation, for example, Borofsky used a large lad- der and scaffolding. While he was working, the scaffolding cast a particularly haunting shadow on the wall which he then incorporated into the fin- ished work. Similarly, Borofsky's interaction with the staff and crew involved in his installation can also evolve into an image or phrase in the finished work; here the phrase, "The most powerful thing in the world is your mind. R. Lockhart " comes from a Museum painter assigned to work on this installa- tion. The striking images and the unmistakable signs of process convey in a compelling and forceful way the energy of Borofsky's attitude toward art.
61
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Alexis Smith
B A , University of California, I
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Alexis Smith's mixed-media environment Cathay, through a combination of words, images, and ar- chitecture, calls into question aspects of "old China" and "new China" cultures. In the past. Smith has executed multipartite narratives by linking to- gether a series of eight-by-ten-inch sheets of paper with sequential lines from a particular literary work typed at the bottom, with suggestive or com- patible collages on the same page. Thus, Raymond Chandlers Los Angeles, Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain,, "Sinbad," or George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess have become the subjects of her work. Confining her work at first to individual sheets, Smith progressed to series of several pages, then to entire walls, and finally, here, to four walls, floor, and ceiling. This installation is a breakthrough for Smith. Instead of texts which read sequentially around the room. Smith has intricately woven sev- eral "strands" of ancient Chinese philosophy, Charlie Chan, "Chinatown," contemporary Chinese politics, and oriental film culture into a richly tex- tured series of collages that envelop the room. This non-linearity first appeared in a recent performance Smith created, Stardust, a recitation based on lines from several sources of American literature, song, and film.
Smith has had constructed a room with a portal and window inspired by ancient Chinese architecture. Circular and square holes have been cut in the sur- face to expose an understructure — a bright red, interlocking structure, giving the viewer the idea that this runs throughout the room. Inside, the walls have been painted a pale pink and the joints have been painted a pale green — an underpainting done as if it were a primer coat with the green "mud" left spotted across the walls. On top of this Smith has painted, on each of three walls, a large image — a bright red firecracker, a tiger's head, and a green chalkboard. As the final layer. Smith has affixed various collages, each with a typed phrase on the bottom edge of the paper. The groups of collages usually are punctuated by the addition of a China plate, which functions visually to divide the groupings of collages. Scattered around the floor in the four corners and hanging from the ceiling are everyday objects — a shopping cart, a broom, a rose, and an iron — each trans- formed by bright-colored paint. Smith's installation, her most ambitious to date, is about the layering of surfaces, literally, philosophically, and texturally, embodied within Chinese culture. Smith uses the visual objects in the room to interpret the text that she has created. The complexity and ambitiousness of this environment extends a finite narrative to the entire ambient field of the room. All of the "clues" which Smith employs together evoke the feeling of "China." It is a tour-de-force piece charac- terized by an immediacy of texture, color, and image.
65
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Chris Burden
A Tale of Two Cities, 1981
A Tale ofTivo Cities is a fantasy environment created by Chris Burden which uses hundreds of small toys. Burden's environment is made up of two miniature cities at war. Each city is nestled be- tween six- to eight-inch formations and full-scale rich foliage, all set on a sand-filled desert land- scape. Visually and texturally this is a beautiful and rich piece, but these qualities belie its sinister implications. Burden has been known nationally and internationally for some years for his provoca- tive and often newsmaking performances that de- pend for their tension on the artist's relation to his audience. In one piece. White Light/White Heat, of 1975, created in a New York gallery, Burden con- structed a corner shelf above the viewer's sight level. The viewer could walk into the otherwise empty gallery and see the shelf but not see all the way into the corner. The implication of the piece was that Burden was living in the gallery, on the shelf, for the duration of the exhibition. Gallery goers never were quite sure if Burden was there (observing them) or if the whole piece was a hoax. A mystery and tension emerged. Recently, Burden has been interested in exploring social systems (money, banking, and power) and aspects of international affairs and global warfare. Here, working within the confines of a Jungian room-size sand tray. Bur- den has assembled two warring cities in miniature.
Initially, the viewer is enchanted with the execu- tion of a childlike fantasy of hundreds of toys in a sand box. But quickly a kind of tension sets in as the viewer cannot really see in detail what is going on since the tableau is on a sand base and the viewer is kept at arm's length. Details do emerge — the "city walls" are actually dozens of bullets standing on end; hundreds of small soldiers and tanks continue to literally emerge from the back- ground. The only way the viewer can actually see the piece in detail is through the binoculars sup- plied by the artist. Again, that tension of the artist erecting an invisible barrier between himself and the audience emerges. The war games that Burden enacts transcend a particular time or place; the environment is filled with creatures from the an- cient past, relics of our contemporary society, as well as inhabitants and weaponry of a futuristic society.
69
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Eric Orr
Attended University of California. Berkeley. University ol Mexico, New School tor Social Research, New York. Ecole de Pataphysiques, Paris, and University of Cincinnati. Ohio
Prime Matter, 1981
Column of flame and fog
h 20 ft
Outdoors Upper Plaza, in front of
Ahmanson Gallery
Eric Orr's twenty-foot-high column of fog and flame. Prime Matter, rises majestically in front of the Ahmanson Gallery. Set on a six-foot-high pedestal, this thin column has a constant line of flame rising the length of its shaft; the flame then disappears into a thick cloud of vapor. The force and direction of the wind, of course, directly affect the sculpture, which becomes omnipresent for the Museum viewer. For many years, Orr has executed pieces that deal with the elements and with phenomenol- ogy. Air, fire, water, and the properties of certain metals le.g., gold) have become both subject and material for his art. Orr is always concerned with bringing these elements together in a way that is extremely beautiful and often enigmatic or mysti- cal. The interest of the ancients in these elements and their properties is shared by Orr. This column of fog and flame is ethereally beautiful and engag- ing. Technologically, it is an ambitious endeavor, yet fortunately the simplicity of the two elements belies the sophistication of the systems necessary to make it work within the public setting of the Museum.
Positioned directly across the upper Museum Plaza from Lloyd Hamrol's Squaredance and next to one part of Irwin's installation, Orr's piece deals, too, with its relationship to its site. While Hamrol has emphasized the horizontal in his work, Irwin and Orr both choose to reinforce the verticality and col- umnation of the buildings' structure.
The cloud of steam emitted by Orr's column inevi- tably touches the nearby viewer to create an awesome, even spiritual, feeling not unlike that pro- duced by a splendid natural wonder. That Orr accomplishes this amidst the concrete and steel of the Museum is all the more remarkable.
73
Photographer: Larry Reynolds
Michael Asher
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1977 Siedelijk van Abbemuseum. Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Claire Copley Gallery Inc., Los Angeles and Morgan Thomas Gallery. Santa Monica, California
1975 Otis Art Institute Gallery, Los Angeles
1974 Claire S Copley Gallery, Los Angeles
1969 La Jolla Museum of Art, California
Selected Group Exhibitions 1981 Westkunst, Cologne. West Germany
1977 Los Angeles in the Seventies, Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas, (traveled to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska) Faculty Exhibition, California Institute of the Arts. Valencia
Skulptur, Weslfalisches Landesmuseum fur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Munster. Wesl Germany
Michael Asher, David Askevold, Richard Long, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art.
1976 Ambiente, Venice Biennale. Italy
Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, (traveled to National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. D C )
Via Los Angeles, Portland Cenfer for the Visual Arts, Oregon
1975 University of California, Irvine. 1965-75. La Jolla Museum ol Contemporary Art, Cahtornia
1972 Documenta 5, Kassel, Wesl Germany
1969 Spaces, The Museum ol Modern Art, New York
Anti-Illusion Procedures I Materials. Whitney Museum of American Art. New York.
John Bafdessari
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1981 The New Museum, New York
1980 Folkwang Museum. Essen. West Germany Sonnabend Gallery, New York (Also in 1978, 1975. and 1973)
1979 New Work. Installation with Photographs, Ink. Halle fur Internationale Neue Kunst, Zurich, Switzerland
1978 Portland Center for the Visual Arts. Oregon
Baldessan New Films, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
1977 Julian Pretto Gallery, New York
Matrix, Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford, Connecticut
1976 James Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles. Cirrus Gallery. Los Angeles. Ohio State University, Columbus Ewmg and George Paton Galleries, Melbourne, Australia
1975 University of California, Irvine The Kitchen, New York Stedehjk Museum, Gemeentemusea, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1971 Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax
Art and Proiect, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1968 Molly Barnes Gallery, Los Angeles
1962 Southwestern College, Chula Vista. California,
1960 La Jolla Museum of Art, California
Selected Group Exhibitions
1981 Westkunst. Cologne, West Germany
1980 The Photograph Transformed, Touchstone Gallery, New York
Pier and Ocean, Arts Council ol Great Britain, London.
Contemporary Art m Southern California, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
1979 Attitudes. Santa Barbara Museum of Art. California
Words, Museum Bochum-Kunstsammlung, West Germany
Concept, Narrative, Document, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, (traveled to Los Angeles County Museum ol Art)
1978 Artworks and Bookworks. Los Angeles Insti- tute of Contemporary Art Art about Art. Whilney Museum ot American Art, New York
Narration, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
1976 Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, (traveled to National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC)
Rooms, PS t. The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, Long Island City, New York.
1974 Profekt 74. Cologne. West Germany
1972 Documenta 5, Kassel, West Germany. Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (Also Whitney Biennial, 1969)
1970 Information, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Software, The Jewish Museum, New York
Jonathan Borotsky
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1978 Corps de Garde. Groningen, the Nether- lands.
University Art Museum, University of Califor- nia, Berkeley
1976 Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Connecticut
Selected Group Exhibitions
1981 Twenty Artists, Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven. Connecticut Westkunst. Cologne, West Germany Whitney Biennial. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1980 Visions and Figurations. Art Gallery, Califor- nia State University. Fullerton Dame il tempo di guardare, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy, Drawings. The Pluralist Decade, American Pavilion. Venice Biennale, Italy
1979 Sixth Anniversary Exhibition, Artists Space. New York
Tendencies in American Drawing of the Late Sevenf/es. Sladtische Galene im Lenbach- haus, Munich, Wesl Germany Born in Boston, De Cordova and Dana Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Ten Artists I Artists Space, Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, Purchase.
1978 Minimal Image. Protech-Mclntosh Gallery. Washington, DC
1977 Surrogates /Sell-Portraits, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York
Critics' Choice. Lowe Art Gallery, Syracuse University, New York
1976 Soho, Akademie der Kunsle, Berlin. Wesl Germany (traveled to Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek. Denmark). International Tendencies '72-76. Venice Biennale, Italy
1975 Lives, Fine Arts Building, New York.
1974
1973 Artists Space, New York.
1970 557,087, Seattle Art Museum, Washington (traveled to Vancouver Art Gallery. British Columbia. Canada )
1969 No 7. Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
1966 Wadsworth Alheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
77
Michael Brewster
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1980 Slow Step S>de Shuttle. Tyler School of Art. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The Air in the Skyway. Minneapolis College of Art and Design Gallery. Minnesota
1979 Clue Blear, Art Gallery, California State University, Long Beach Floating in Coincidence. Four Phasing, and Pulsing Overlap. Gallena del Cavallino, Venice, llaly
Sfop Gap. Modern An Gallene, Vienna, Austria
Hit and Run. Lauwersmeer Bij Oostmahorn, Fnesland (produced by Corps de Garde, Gronmgen, the Netherlands) Surrounded Sharp Point Ringing. Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles
1978 Concrete Two Tone. Marum Overpass-Kw IX A (produced by Corps de Garde, Gronmgen, the Netherlands)
1977 Synchromesh. Meyer Gallery. La Jolla
Museum of Contemporary An, California. Inside. Outside. Down and Soliloquies. Baxter Art Gallery. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California An Acoustic Sculpture and a Clicker Drawing. Artists Space, New York
1971 Standing Wave. Space F, Santa Ana, California (Also Fixed Frequency and Number 013)
Selected Group Exhibitions
1979 Sound atPS.1, The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, Long Island City, New York
Sound, Los Angeles Institute of Contem- porary Art
1977 Los Angeles m the Seventies. Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas (traveled to Joslyn Art
Museum, Omaha. Nebraska)
1976 Sounds, Newport Harbor Art Museum, New- port Beach, California {Also New Art in Orange County, 1972)
Selected Performances
1978 In Venice Money Grows on Trees, California C B TV Jo Einstein. Air France SST Concorde Flight between Pans and Washington, DC
1977 CBTV . Documenta 6, Kassel, West
Germany (Also at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts New York, 1977)
1976 Shadow, Ohio Stale University, Columbus. Do You Believe m Television'?. Alberta College of Art, Calgary, Canada Natural Habitat (with Alexis Smith), Portland Center lor the Visual Arts, Oregon
1975 Yankee Ingenuity. Stadler Gallery, Pans
Art and Technology, De Appel, Amsterdam,
the Netherlands
Oracle. Schema Gallery, Florence, Italy.
La Chiaraficazione. Gallena Alessandra
Castelli. Milan, Italy
Doomed, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago
White Light/White Heat, Ronald Feldman
Fine Arts, New York
1974 The Visitation, Hamillon College, New York. Velvet Water. School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Trans-Fixed. Venice, California Back to You, 112 Greene Street, New York
1973 Through the Night Softly, Mam Street, Los Angeles.
Fire Roll, Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco (Also / Became a Secret Hippy, 1971)
1972 Deadman, Riko Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles. Jaizu. Newport Harbor An Museum, Newport Beach, California
1971 Shoot, Space F, Santa Ana, California (Also 220. 1971; Prelude to 220, or 110, 1971. Shout Piece. 1971)
Five Day Locker Piece. University of Califor- nia, Irvine (Also Bicycle Piece. 1971)
Selected Exhibitions/Installations
1980 Chns Burden— C B TV. and The B-Car,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Southern California Drawings. Joselotf
Gallery, Hanford An School, University of
Hanford. Connecticut
The Big Wheel, Devil Drawings, and
Sculptures, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New
York (Also at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los
Angeles, 1979)
First Person Singular Recent Self -Portraiture,
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.
1979 Video Artists, Books, and Guest Performers, Kansas City An Institute. Missouri Born in Boston, De Cordova and Dana Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, The Reason for the Neutron Bomb. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York (Also CB TV . 1977; The B-Car. 1977. and in 1975, 1974)
1975 Bodyworks, The Museum o( Contemporary Art, Chicago
Projects Video, The Museum of Modern An, New York
Galene Stadler, Pans (Also in L'Art Corporel, 1974)
De Appel, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Gallena Schema, Florence, Italy. Gallena Alessandra Castelli, Milan, Italy Riko Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles (Also in 1974).
Karen Carson
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
Selected Group Exhibitions
Decade Los Angeles Painting in the Seventies, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. California Abstractions, San Francisco An Institute
1979 1978
LA Women Narrations. Mandeville An Gallery. University of California. San Diego A Point of View, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art
1975 Drawings. Newport Harbor Art Museum. Newport Beach, California
1972 California Women Painters. Lang An Gallery, Scnpps College, Claremont, California The Wall Object. La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California 15 Los Angeles Artists, Pasadena Art Museum, California
Robert Graham
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1981 Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Minnesota Gallery Six, Robert Graham. Five Statues, Los Angeles Counly Museum of An (Also in 1978),
1980
1979 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. New York
Galene Neuendorf, Hamburg and Cologne,
West Germany (Also in 1976. 1974, 1970.
and 1968)
Robert Miller Gallery, New York (Also in
1978)
Gimpel & Hanover Galene. Zurich. Switzer- land (Also in Basel. Switzerland, and in Zurich. 1974)
Felicity Samuel Gallery, London (Also in 1974)
1974 1971
1970 1969 1964
1980 1979
Texas Gallery, Houston
Kunsfverem Hamburg, V
Sonnabend Gallery, Nev
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London Kornblee Gallery, New York (Also in H Lanyon Gallery, Palo Alto, California Selected Group Exhibitions
Whitney Biennial. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York {Also in 1971, 1969, and 1966)
Painting and Sculpture in California The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (traveled fo National Collection of Fine Arts. Smithsonian Institu- tion, Washington, D.C.) L.A.8. Painting and Sculpture 76, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
1975 Sculpture American Directions, 1945-1975, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
1974 71st American Exhibition, Chicago Art Institute
1972 USA West Coast, Kunstverem Hamburg.
West Germany (Also traveled to Kunstverem Hannover; Kd'lnischer Kunstverem, Cologne, Wurttembergischer Kunstverem. Stuttgart)
Lloyd Hamrol
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1969 Installation, Pomona College, California
Selected Group Exhibitions
1980 Across the Nation Fine Art tor Federal Build- ings, 1972-79, National Collection ol Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. DC (traveled to Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga. Tennessee) Architectural Sculpture, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art
Sculpture in California. 1975-80. San Diego Museum of Art
XI International Sculpture Conterence, Washington, DC.
Urban Encounters I Art Architecture Audi- ence, Institute ot Contemporary Art, Univer- sity of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia
1977 Los Angeles m the Seventies, Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas (traveled to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska)
1976 Painting and Sculpture m California. The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (traveled to National Collection ot Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington. DC) Artpark, Lewiston, New York
1975 Three LA. Sculptors, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art Site Sculpture. Zabriskie Gallery. New York.
1968 West Coast Now. Portland Museum of Art, Oregon (traveled to Seattle Museum ot Art. Washington, San Francisco Museum ot Modern Art, and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery)
1967 American Sculpture of the Sixties, Los
Angeles County Museum of Art (traveled to Philadelphia Museum ot Art, Pennsylvania)
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1977 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1976 Walker Art Center. Minneapolis. Minnesota Riko Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles (Also in 1974 and 1972)
1968 Pasadena Art Museum, California (Alsi
Selected Group Exhibitions
Contemporary Art in Southern California, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Georgia.
Andre. Buren, Irwin, Nordman: Space as Support. University Art Museum, University of California. Berkeley
Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (traveled to National Collection of Fine Arts. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D C )
The Last Time I Saw Ferus 1957-1966, New- port Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach. California
Projects for PCA, Philadelphia College of Art.
Pennsylvania.
Venice Biennate. Italy
200 Years of American Sculpture. Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York
1972 USA West Coast, Kunstverem Hamburg, West Germany (traveled to Kunstverem Hannover, Ko'lnischer Kunstverem. Cologne. and Wurttembergisher Kunstverein, Stuttgart)
1971 11 Los Angeles Artists. Hayward Gallery. London (traveled to Musees Royaux de Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, West Germany) Art and Technology, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
1970 Permutations Light and Color. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Bell /Irwin /Wheeler, The Tate Gallery. London.
1969 Kompas 4 West Coast USA, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (traveled to Pasadena Art Museum, Califor- nia, City Art Museum of St Louis, Missouri; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Fort Worth Art Center Museum, Texas)
1968 Late Fifties at the Ferus. Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Documenta 4, Kassel, West Germany 6 Artists, 6 Exhibitions. Walker Art Center. Minneapolis, Minnesota
1965 VIII Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil
The Responsive Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (traveled to Pasadena Art Museum).
Richard Jackson
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1980 Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles (Also in 1978)
Galene Maeght, Pans (Also m Zurich,
Switzerland, 1979)
Forum Kunst. Roitweil, West Germany
1979 D A A D Gallery, Berlin, West Germany
1977 Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine
1976 Riko Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles (Also in 1974) University of California, Davis.
1974 Bykert Gallery, New York
1970 Eugenia Butler Gallery, Los Angeles (Als< in 1969)
1968 Gallery 669, Los Angeles
Selected Group Exhibitions
1976 Painting and Sculpture in California. The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (traveled to National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC )
1975 Current Concerns, Part I, Los Angeles Insti- tute of Contemporary Art Both Kinds: Contemporary Art from Los Angeles, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley
1974 Fundamental Painting. Stedelijk Museum. Gemeentemusea, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Margo Leavm Gallery, Los Angeles
1972 Los Angeles 72. Sidney Jams Gallery, New York
John Baldessan /Francis Barth /Richard Jackson /Barbara MungerlGary Stephan, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas.
15 Los Angeles Artists, Pasadena Art Museum, California
79
Richard Jackson
1971 The 32nd Biennial Exhibition of. Contempo- rary American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington. D C.
24 Young Los Angeles Artists. Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Jay McCafferty
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1980 Baudom Lebon Gallery, Pans
Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles (Also in 1979, 1977, and 1975)
Grapestake Gallery. San Francisco (Also ir 1978 and 1976)
1976 Galene Krebs. Bern, Swilzerland.
1973 Fine Art Gallery, University of California
Selected Group Exhibitions
1976 New Selections: New Talent Award Winners. Los Angeles County Museum of Art Basel Art Fair, Switzerland. Bologna Art Fair, Italy.
1975 University of California. Irvine, '965-T975, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California
Southland Video Anthology Traveling Show, Long Beach Museum ol Art, California DeLapMcCatlerty Baxter Art Gallery, California Institute of Technology. Pasadena, California
1973 Festival of Contemporary Arts, Allen Art Museum, Oberlm College, Ohio.
1971 Fiber as Line. California State College, Los Angeles (Also Small Images Exhibition)
Michael C McMillen
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1980 Asher/Faure Gallery, Los Angeles
Project 29 Michael McMillen. An" Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
1977 Inner City. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (traveled to Whitney Museum of Ameri- can Art, New York. 1978)
Selected Group Exhibitions
1980 Architectural Sculpture, Mount St. Mary's College Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles (produced by Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art)
Sculpture in Southern California 1975-80, San Diego Art Museum. California In a Major and Minor Scale, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (Also The Artist As Social Critic— 1979; and Other Things That Artists Make. 1978)
Tableau, Los Angeles Institute of Contempo- rary An (Also in Art Words and Bookworks, 1978, 100+ Current Directions in Southern California Art, 1978; Imagination, 1976; and Collage and Assemblage, 1975)
1978 Artists Books —Bookworks. Ewmg and George Paton Galleries. Melbourne. Australia (traveled to Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Experimental Art Foun- dation, Adelaide, Undercroft Gallery. Perth, and Geelong Art Gallery, The Sculpture Center, Sydney)
Eccentric Los Angeles Art, Arco Center for the Visual Arts. Los Angeles A Proposal for a Children's Museum, Baxter Art Gallery, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (Also in two-person show, 1975) Seyond Realism, Otis An Institute, Los Angeles
1977 Miniature. California State University. Los Angeles
Los Angeles in the Seventies. Fon Worth An Museum, Texas (traveled to Joslyn An Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, 1979)
1975 Sounds: Audio-Visual Environments by Four L A Artists. Newport Harbor An Museum, Newport Beach, California Eight Artists from Los Angeles. San Fran- cisco Art Institute
Crucifixes, Betty Gold,' Fine Modern Prints. Los Angeles
1974 First Annual California Sculpture Exhibition. California State University, Northndge
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1981 Neil G Ovsey Gallery. Los Angeles
1980 Silence and the Ion Wind, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Infinite Gold Void. Los Angeles institute of Contemporary Art
1979 Chemical Light. Janus Gallery. Los Angeles.
1978 Drawings for the Gold Room, Cirrus Gallery. Los Angeles (Also Sunrise. 1976, and in 1974)
Seasons of the Fountain. Larry Bell/Enc Orr, Delahunty Gallery, Dallas, Texas (traveled to Marion Goodman Gallery, New York)
Salvatore Ala Gallery, Milan, Italy University of California, Irvine. Eugenia Butler Gallery, Los Angele Selected Group Exhibitions
1975 1973 1968
1981
1980 Nothing Special. PS 1. The Institute for Art
and Urban Resources, Long Island City. New York
Fire as Prime Matter. Libra Gallery, Claremont Graduate School, California Lead/Gold Reliefs and Season of the Foun- tain, Neil G Ovsey Gallery. Los Angeles
1979 California. University of Hartford, Connec-
1977 Los Angeles of the Seventies. Fort Worth An Museum, Texas (traveled to Joslyn An Museum, Omaha, Nebraska)
1975 Transparency Exhibition, Long Beach Museum of Art, California Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California
Sound Tunnel, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (traveled to University of Southern California, Los Angeles).
1970 Sound in Shape of Pear, Museum of Con- temporary Crafts, New York
1969 357 Magnum, Dusseldort, West Germany,
Search Light Sky Shapes, Baxter Art Gallery, California Institute ol Technology, Pasadena Volumetric Sound, San Francisco Art Institute
1968 Dry ice. University of California. San Diego
1967 Fresh Air Space, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
Roland Reiss
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1980 Ace Gallery, Venice. California (traveled lo Ace Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
1978 South Alberta Art Gallery. Lelhbndge, Alberta, Canada Calgary Museum, Alberta, Canada
1977 Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles
The Dancing Lessons/12 Sculptures, Los Angeles County Museum ot Art
Selected Group Exhibitions
1980 Architectural Sculpture, Mount St. Mary's College Fine Arts Gallery. Los Angeles (produced by Los Angeles Institute of Con- temporary Art)
Roland Reiss and Sam Richardson, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California. Los Angeles Art, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
1978 Rooms, Moments Remembered. Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California
Miniature Narratives, University of California, San Diego.
1977 Private Images Photographs by Sculptors, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles in the Seventies, Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas (traveled to Joslyn Art Museum. Omaha, Nebraska, 1979)
1976 Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum ot Modern Art, California (traveled to National Collection of Fine Art, Smithsonian Institu- tion, Washington, D C ) Attitudes, California State University, Los Angeles
Imagination, Los Angeles institute ot Con- temporary Art
1975 Whitney Biennial. Whitney Museum ot American Art, New York. Masterworks in Wood, Portland Museum of Art. Oregon Private Spaces, University ol California, Irvine
Terry Schoonhoven
Selected One-Person Exhibitions
1980 Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Downtown Los Angeles Underwater and Other Proposals, ARCO Center for the Visual Arts, Los Angeles
1975 Terry Schoonhoven Paints a Mural for the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Har- bor Art Museum. Newport Beach, California (traveled to Colorado Springs Art Center, 1976, University Art Gallery, Arizona State University, Tempe, 1976, E B Crocker Art Center. Sacramento, California, 1977, and California State University Art Gallery, Chico. 1977)
Wall Paintings Executed Alone
1979 Study in Silver. Century City Mall. CaliforniE
1976 No River, Walker Art Center c Minneapolis, Minnesota
Adobe Gillis, Thousand Oaks Shopping Mall.
California
Study in Chrome and Gray, Rose Avenue
and Lincoln Boulevard, Venice, California.
1975 Sons of the Desert, Newport Harbor Art Museum. Newport Beach, California SPQR , Bunche Hall, University of Califor- nia, Los Angeles
Selected Group Exhibitions and Wall Paintings 1981 California — The State of Landscape. New- port Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach. California (Also in A Drawing Show, 1975, and New Painting m Los Angeles, 1971) LA. Seen by LA Artists, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
1977 illusion and Reality. Australian Council
1971 Hippie Know How, Biennale de Pans
Isle of California, Butler Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles
Alexis Smith
Selected One-Person Exhibitions and Performances
1981 USA, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York (Also window mslallation, 1980, The Magic Mountain, 1979, and in 1978 and 1977)
1980 Raymond Chandler's LA, Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Los Angeles (Also Medium and The Magic Mountain, 1978)
1979 Stairway to Heaven. Steirescher Herbst. Graz. Austria
Through the Looking Glass, De Appel, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Autumn Sonata. Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (downtown window)
1978 The Art of Magic. Close-up (with Tony
DeLap), Baxter Art Gallery, California Institute
ot Technology, Pasadena
Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles.
1976 Scheherezade the Storyteller. CARP, Los
1974 Riko Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles.
Selected Group Exhibitions and
Performances 1981 Stardust, Los Angeles Contemporary
Exhibitions (LACE) (Also performed at Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (Also in 1979 and 1975)
1980 Tableau, Los Angeles Institute of Contempo- rary Art (Also in Narrative Themes I Audio Works. 1977 and Autobiographical Fan- tasies, 1976)
Southern California Drawings. Art School, University of Hartford, Connecticut
1979 Words and Images, Philadelphia College of Art. Pennsylvania
Paper on Paper, San Francisco Museum ot Modern Art
Decade in Review, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1978 Narration, Institute of Contemporary Art,
Boston
Southern California Styles of the 60s and 70s. La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art. California (Also m University of California, Irvine, 1965-75, 1975).
1978 American Narrative IStory Art, 1968-78, Con- temporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas (traveled to Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. Louisiana. Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba, Canada, and University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley)
1977 The American Section of the Pans Biennale, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York Pans Biennale. Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Pans
Contemporary Miniatures. Fme Arts Gallery. California State University, Los Angeles AnVsfs' Books. Mills College. Oakland. California
1976 New Selections. 'New Talent Award Winners. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Also in Margaret Lowe, Barbara Munger. Alexis Smith, Margaret Wilson, 1972) Los Angeles. The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Via Los Angeles, Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Oregon
1975 Both Kmds: Contemporary Art from Los
Angeles, University Art Museum, University of California. Berkeley Four Los Angeles Artists Foutkes, Goode, Smith. Wheeler, Visual Arts Museum, New York (traveled to Corcoran Gallery of Ameri- can Art, Washington, DC, and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut)
81
Board of Trustees
Mrs. Howard Ahmanson William H. Ahmanson Howard P. Allen Robert O. Anderson Mrs. Anna Bing Arnold, Secretary R. Stanton Avery Norman Barker, Jr., Vice President Daniel N. Belin Mrs. Lionel Bell Michael Blankfort Sidney F. Brody B. Gerald Cantor Edward W. Carter Herbert R. Cole Justin Dart Joseph P. Downer Charles E. Ducommun, Vice President Richard J. Flamson III Mrs. F. Daniel Frost, President Julian Ganz, Jr. Arthur Gilbert Stanley Grinstein Dr. Armand Hammer Felix Juda Hoyt B. Leisure, Vice President
Harry Lenart
Eric Lidow
Robert F. Maguire III
Mrs. David H. Murdock
Dr. Franklin D. Murphv
Mrs. Edwin W. Pauley
Daniel H. Ridder,
Treasurer
Henry C. Rogers
Richard E. Sherwood,
Chairman
Nathan Smooke
Ray Stark
Hal B. Wallis
Mrs. Herman Weiner
Frederick R. Weisman
Mrs. Harry W. Wetzel
Dr. Charles Z. Wilson, Jr.
Robert Wilson
Honorary Life Trustees
Mrs. Freeman Gates Mrs. Alice Heeramaneck Joseph B. Koepfli Mrs. Rudolph Liebig Mrs. Lucille Ellis Simon John Walker
Edmund D. Edelman, Chairman
Michael D. Antonovich
Deane Dana
Kenneth Hahn
Peter F. Schabarum
Harry L. Hufford,
Chief Administrative Officer
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