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October 14–November 26, 1995 |
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An exhibition of the final works by the late visual and performance artist
Hannah Wilke, Intra-Venus included large-scale photographs, watercolors,
sculptures, and drawings. Wilke's work related to the female nude form an
uncompromising record of her own physical deterioration due to lymphoma;
central to the exhibit was a series of thirteen larger-than-life-sized
portraits. In typical Wilke fashion, the title of these final works, also
Intra-Venus, is a pun, referring both to a medical procedure she came to
know and to the traditional feminine ideal that was the lifelong focus of
her artistic investigation. Intra-Venus was organized by Ronald Feldman Fine
Arts, New York, and was accompanied by a catalog. |
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October 14–November 26, 1995 |
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Domestic Setups consisted of a series of small-scale, color photographs
depicting household scenes—particularly beds and chairs—which Callis
modeled from clay, covered with brightly colored flocking, and arranged to
resemble tiny, stage-like rooms. Callis's interest in photography's ability
to convey a sense of physical immediacy was evident in these photographs, in
which the furnishings suggest the psychological lives of imagined
inhabitants through the lively dynamics of color, shape, texture, and
arrangement. Organized by the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Domestic Setups
extended Jo Ann Callis's ruminations on the home, a subject that has formed
the core of her artistic production for two decades.
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October 14–November 26, 1995
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Tree of Life was an enormous construction of wood and plaster. Large,
sculptural forms were suspended from the brightly painted tree's canopy,
which mingled with the Museum's wooden rafters. This site-specific work
explored the junctions between nature and artifice, painting and sculpture,
"high" art and kitsch, exposing Estrada's humorous and nightmarish vision of
contemporary culture. |
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August 12–October 1, 1995 |
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Action Station examined the subject of interactivity in contemporary art and
the resulting dialogue between artist and viewer. The exhibition traced a
growing trend among artists who invite the viewer to interact physically
with their artworks by disassembling and reassembling them in myriad
configurations. All the works presented were conceived by the artists to
incorporate the viewer interaction and participation: some of the works
invited the viewer to decode a textual message; shake oversized,
candy-colored papier-mâché beach balls; and develop an alternative persona
by trying on different garments. Organized by Sue Spaid, a freelance
curator, Action Station included work by Terri Friedman, Joseph Grigely,
Laura Howe, Lunna Menoh, and Carol Szymanski, as well as historically
related Fluxus works by artists such as George Brecht and Yoko Ono. |
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July 1–July 30, 1995 |
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Organized by Capp Street Project in San Francisco, Old Glory, New Story
presented assemblage, painting, photography, and mixed-media works by
artists, architects, and industrial and graphic designers, working both
individually and collaboratively. As the new millennium approached, these
artists recognized that significant forces had altered and expanded
America's social and political landscape over the preceding century. In
response, they created new flags and symbols for the United States as it
entered the new century, even as they acknowledged the persistence of this
two-hundred-year-old icon. Among the participating artists were Vito
Acconci, Squeak Carnwath, Margaret Crane and John Winet, Lewis DeSoto,
Douglas Hollis, Suzanne Lacy, Richard Posner, Joe Sam, and Andres Serrano. |
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July 1–July 30, 1995 |
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This exhibition of fifteen paintings by East African artist Joseph Bertiers
commented on political events and social phenomena throughout the world and
illuminated the artist's incisive and irreverent perspective on contemporary
culture. In a style making reference to sign painting (his first occupation)
and caricature, Bertiers's works portrayed fools and dreamers, heroes and
charlatans, domestic bliss and marital discord, personal foibles and
national tragedies. |
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April 8–June 11, 1995 |
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This exhibition, presenting fifteen years of work by the Los Angeles-born
artist Jeffrey Vallance, was inspired by The World of Jeffrey Vallance
(Collected Writings 1978–1994), published by Art Issues Press. This survey
included painting, sculpture, installation, video, drawings, prints, and
text, which were presented topically in a succession of room installations.
Among these were galleries devoted to Blinky, the Friendly Hen; the artist's
travels to faraway places such as Iceland and Polynesia; and his in-depth
research on the Shroud of Turin and other Christian relics. |
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April 8–June 11, 1995 |
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In a large-scale video installation, artist and filmmaker Eleanor Antin
recreated a 1950s Greenwich Village street—an elaborate, life-size stage set
that viewers could enter. Audiotapes reproduced street sounds, while
narrative video clips created the illusion of people inhabiting the rooms of
apartments into which viewers peered, voyeur-like, spying on scenes from a
reconstructed past. Minetta Lane: A Ghost Story addressed issues of personal
and cultural history as it suggested the abiding struggle and loneliness of
the artist in America. |
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April 8–June 11, 1995 |
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In the eight photographic works presented in Night/Crimes, Los Angeles
artist Charles Gaines combined archival photographs of crime scenes and
criminals with expansive views of the night sky, entertaining the notion
that human events, like cosmic ones, conform to a predictable cycle. |
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January 28–March 26, 1995 |
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Ecstatic Visions and Unnatural Acts featured more than eighty paintings and
drawings by Los Angeles artist Margaret Nielsen. Spanning the artist's
career from 1970 through 1995, this major museum survey linked Nielsen's
artistic production with the tradition of American landscape painting and
included works that ranged in size from the diminutive to the large scale.
Although reminiscent of such diverse artists as surrealist painter René
Magritte and nineteenth-century landscape painter Alfred Bierstadt,
Nielsen's work reflects the intimacy of a private realm where basic
elemental forces—fire, water, earth, air—become a source of fantasy and
mystery. |
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January 28–March 26, 1995 |
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This Focus Gallery exhibition, spanning four years of work by Los Angeles
artist Jill Giegerich, included eighteen drawings, a sculptural
construction, and the notebook that serves as the basis of her work in other
media. Drawings, Notebook, Construction considered the origins, development,
and significance of various persistent forms within her work and offered a
glimpse into the artist's unique working process. |
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November 17, 1994–January 15, 1995 |
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The Layered Look investigated working processes that involve amassing
objects or material to create a greater effect. Of the six artists included
in the exhibition, Constance Mallinson and Pauline Stella Sanchez are
painters; Chris Finley and Doug Hammett are sculptors; and Larry Mantello
and Joyce Lightbody work in a hybrid of assemblage and collage. The Layered
Look was presented as part of LAX: The Los Angeles Exhibition. |
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November 17, 1994–January 15, 1995 |
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Krieger's multimedia installation explored the consequences of two of Thomas
Edison's inventions: the phonograph and the first motion picture studio,
which he named the Black Maria. The installation traced the development of
these inventions from the late nineteenth century to the present day,
suggesting that modern consciousness has been permanently altered by modern
applications of Edison's research—in particular, by the work of Walt Disney
and Andy Warhol. Black Maria was commissioned for the 1994 Artist Project
Series and presented as part of LAX: The Los Angeles Exhibition. |
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September 28, 1994–January 8, 1995 |
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Presented at the Community Focus Gallery, the Museum's satellite exhibition
space at the Santa Monica Place, and curated by Ronn Davis, The Next Wave In
presented work by some of Santa Monica's most talented emerging artists:
Derrick Boyd, Marlos Campos, Xiomara De Oliver, Paul Ebia, June Meyers,
Elaine Nardini, Eduardo Navas, Gabriel Ortiz, Paul Pitsker, Juan Reveco, and
Ehl Veeh.
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