Albert Contreras, “Untitled.” In the LA Times David Pagel reports that 76-year-old Santa Monica painter Albert Contreras has cobbled together an unusual two-part career — interrupted by years as a city truck driver — that has just come full circle. “In the 1960s, Contreras made a name for himself as […]
Tag: David Pagel
Joan Snyder: Fleshy physicality and broken-bones impact
In the LA Times art blog David Pagel reports that the six paintings and four prints in Snyder�s L.A. solo debut at SolwayJones Gallery are vintage Snyder. “Chewy clots of mismatched materials wrestled into abstract images that are lyrical without being lightweight, visceral without being heavy-handed. The fleshy physicality and […]
L.A. Now: A show “based on no idea at all”
�L.A. Now,� opening at the Las Vegas Art Museum next, week features work by 20 emerging L.A. artists, many of whom are painters. Organized by L.A. Times critic, curator, and Claremont Graduate University associate professor of art theory David Pagel, the exhibition was selected from artists who had shows in […]
Shows I’d like to see: “Oranges and Sardines” at the Hammer
Curator Gary Garrels worked with six abstract painters�Mark Grotjahn, Wade Guyton, Mary Heilmann, Amy Sillman, Charline von Heyl, and Christopher Wool�to select one of their own recent paintings as well as works by other artists who have influenced their thinking. The artist’s choices, which are presented in separate galleries, include […]
Craig Kauffman on paper
Craig Kauffman, said to be one of the most prominent and influential artists to have come out of the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s, currently has a drawing retrospective at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. In a 2001 NY Times review of a show at […]
Yamaguchi’s doe-eyed children
In the LA Times, David Pagel reports that Ai Yamaguchi’s delicately painted little girls at Roberts & Tilton are too melancholic for easy consumption. “On the stark white walls of the pristine gallery, Yamaguchi has hung eight curiously shaped panels that resemble puffs of smoke or clouds. Two larger ones […]
LATimes reviews: Miller, Pittman, MacConnel, Masullo
“Allison Miller,” Acme,Los Angeles, CA. Through Oct. 20. David Pagel reports: “As Miller’s lines accumulate, almost always by following alongside one another, they form concentric triangles, diamonds and other shapes. They recall cross sections of tree trunks, pebbles splashing in ponds and sound waves echoing toward infinity. The oddness of […]