OC Art Blog

My Top Ten

Well here's my Top Ten for 2004 in no particular order. As you can see I did a little traveling this year. These aren't easy to put together:

1. Orange County Museum of Art. We snatched Dennis Szakacs from the New Museum and it's been all uphill from there. They finished the remodel of the main building and opened the new media satellite the Orange Lounge in South Coast plaza and have a great line up of shows planned. National/International recognition is not far behind.

2. Francis Bacon in Room 24 @ the Tate Britain- This is just one of those rooms in a Museum I can sit in for hours.

3. The Armory Show 2004- Art & capitalism at it's finest.

4. Lee Bontecou @ The Hammer - Sure it's a great story....but did you see the work?

5. Dieter Roth @ MOMA- Diary of a madman.

6. The Oscene @ The Laguna Art Museum- For obvious reasons.

7. Whitney Bedford @ Art:Concept, Paris- Weird that I discovered this LA based artist in Paris. Her first LA solo show will be at Cherrydelosreyes next year. Remember, you heard it here first.

8. Saatchi Gallery, London- Say what you will, but this guy can move markets on just a rumor, and he is the guy that started all these super collectors opening their own spaces.

9. Laura Owens , Untitled 2000 @ the S.M.A.K. Ghent, Belgium- Owens is the painter they love to hate here in LA but there is a painting of her's in the S.M.A.K. that moved me solidly in the positive camp. Just stood there for quite some time.....I love it when art does that to me.

10. Inka Essenhigh- I covet her new work. Some day...

Honorable Mentions: The Sally Mann & Jenny Holzer shows I caught in Paris were outstanding.

11. Top OC Shows- Because there is some bias here I made it number eleven.

a. Sherie' Franssen @ The Office

b. Tyler Stallings @ Peter Blake

c. Deborah Aschheim @ The Laguna Art Museum

d. Chie Yamayoshi @ The Office

Collector's Resources

This weekend The Office was visited by the Laguna Art Museum's Contemporary Collectors Council. I was able to give them a little background on how The Office came about and Adam Bryam one of the artists in the current show was there to answer any questions they had about the work.

If you are interested in collecting art or just in the artistic process, collectors councils/organizations that are attached to institutions are a great way to get access that you may not be able to get on your own. There are many opportunities to do studio visits and take trips to see working artists in other cities.

I have been bouncing around the idea of doing a young/new collectors group that would hold events in support of local OC art institutions. If you are in the area and would be interested in participating please shoot me an email.

OC Weekly Review of Ulteriora @ The Office

Rebecca Schoenkopf's review of Ulteriora at The Office can be found here.

The Ulteriora boys were interviewed by NPR last weekend and will be featured on a new show on NPR highlighting arts and culture in Southern California. I'll keep you posted. It should air early Jan. 05.

Around the Blogsphere & Kinkade

Mark over at Rarified Air visits The Office and Gallery C and breaks it down here.

And it would seem the Art Blog world is back on the subject of Thomas Kinkade. Jessica at Insurgent Muse discusses the "High Art vs. Low Art" debate here.

And Carolyn over at Studio Notebook get's in the mix here.

I'm sure all would be interested to know that OC held the first "serious" showing of Kinkade's work in a contemporary art space. All the information about the Jeffrey Valance curated show at The Grand Central Art Center can be found here.

I'm not so sure this is something we should be proud of.... but the LA Times picked it up and so did a lot of other press.....all exposure is good exposure.....right??

More Miami

For those interested Walter Robinson breaks down Scope Miami here.

As I understand it Scope is not coming back to LA so that makes artLA in January the only new/contemporary game in town. So be sure to come out and support it.

ABMB Roundup

For a thorough wrap up of the happenings at Art Basel Miami Beach check out Tyler Green's latest here.

So what does Miami have that Orange County doesn't?? Couldn't a successful contemporary art fair be held here, near our beautiful beaches and resorts?? Away from all the major art centers??

Hmmmm...

Joe Diebes @ GCAC

After a very nice lunch at the Gypsy Den in the Santa Ana Artists Village today I was able to catch Joe Diebes video installation at Grand Central. It's a combination of video and audio that is described as:

In Joe Diebes' latest music driven installation work the audience is invited to wander through a labyrinthine arrangement of video projections that document the everyday behavior of the urban human specimen.  At rest:  people with blank stares standing on street corners, people smoking cigarettes outside of office buildings, people deep in their own thoughts as they are carted along by city buses.  In motion: people navigate the flows and vectors of crowds and street traffic.  These figures become vessels through which the music flows.  The ever-changing score acts as a constantly shifting filter for the images: sometimes providing hypnotic rhythms that pulse through the entire crowd, sometimes suggesting a subtle violence that exists in this dense multiplication of isolated individuals.  The composite result is a richly layered kaleidoscope of images and sound that heightens the viewer/listener's awareness of the forces at work in contemporary urban life.

More info can be found here.

Baldessari on Artnet

Nicole Davis reviews John Baldessari's show at Marian Goodman Gallery here.

Baldessari is a big influence on my own work and his new "stack" pieces in this show are examples of work I wish I had done. Baldessari is the quintessential California artist and it's good to see him still pushing the envelope.

Here is a Baldessari in my collection.

@ The Hammer

Due to unfortunate circumstances I found myself in Westwood on Saturday, so while I was there I had the opportunity to catch the Undiscovered Country show at The Hammer.

Highlights for me included Luc Tuymans work. I was in London in Sept. and was able to catch his retrospective at the Tate and I walked out a little underwhelmed. After some mental digestion and seeing his work here at the Hammer in this context I now can see how Tuymans has served as a link from say Richter to present day painting in not just Germany but Europe in general. It'll hit here soon. I'm already starting to see art student versions of Neo Rauch in the local schools.

Other stand out's include the work of Edgar Bryan and Mari Eastman. Bryan's painting of the mime was mind turning and Mari Eastman knows how to handle a can of spray paint and use it in new and exciting ways (are you listening Art Center?).

I still think The Hammer is putting on the best shows here locally and this is another. More info about the show can be found here.

Top Ten Time

Well we're headed towards the end of the year so that means it's Top Ten time in the art world.

I hope to post a few top tens here before the end of the year. Let's start with ArtForum's which can be found here.