Breaking News
Loading...
Saturday, November 5, 2011

Info Post
Hi Everyone! Just wanted to keep you posted about what is going on. I am sorry but I think posts are going to be limited this next month. I will be very busy with school and sadly my mom is in chemo again. She was told she was in remission about two months ago, but it came back a few weeks ago. I have faith that she will be fine.

Anyway, I also wanted to let people know about a retrospective going on right now in Southern California. I am taking a seminar class that is about L.A. Modernism and how Los Angeles boomed after WWII. Like my class, this initiative by the Getty--Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, focuses on L.A.'s often overlooked art scene. There are over 60 cultural institutions across Southern California that are celebrating the birth of the L.A. art scene. L.A. was and is overshadowed by New York, however these exhibits suggest that there was a collective sensibility among Southern California’s mid-century modernist architects, painters, and musicians. These connections and similarities are based in but not limited to aesthetics. Almost every aspect of California modernism developed as a protest against other forms of modernism, like the East Coast or European that put an emphasis ‘the heroic and the emotionally expressive’ styles of art. There was an emphasis on restraint and detachment— “coolness” which gave it a suavity and authenticity. I have been to the shows at the Getty, OCMA, The Fowler, and on Saturday I am going with my class to the Hammer Museum. Then the next Saturday I will be at LACMA. I do not have one weekend free this entire month! One of my favorite shows so far was the Crosscurrents exhibition at the Getty because there are works by Judy Chicago and others loosely identified with the "Finish Fetish" school using objects, materials, and techniques associated with CA such as: surf, motorcycle and car cultures, automotive lacquer, aluminum, acrylic, and fiberglass. This aesthetic established an image of L.A. that circulated around the world. L.A. grew as a center for advanced methods of painting and took a more abstract approach creating works that were optically complex. So, if you live in the Southern California area you should definitely go visit one of these shows. 

0 comments:

Post a Comment