Los Angeles County Museum of Art "I…I’m sorry," a piece by Roy
Lichtenstein, is on display at LACMA as part of "Jasper Johns to
Jeff Koons."
“Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art
from the Broad Collections” Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Through Jan. 6, 2002
With sections like “The ’80s” and
“Postwar Germany,” this exhibit is a mish-mash of the
various forms and designations of modern art. Selected from the
enormous collection of Eli and Edythe Broad, the over 100 pieces in
the show are gathered into categories that force the viewer to make
a disconcerting jump from one style to another. Individually the
sections are worthy of shows, but together they form an exhibit
that tries to cover too much. If the viewers can get past this,
however, they will find many favorites, like pop artists Andy
Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein mixed in with more recent photographic
works by Cindy Sherman and unusual, chaotic paintings by
Jean-Michel Basquiat. Perhaps the reason the exhibit lacks focus is
that its featured works are too contemporary. Few modern artists
have been universally acknowledged as the kings of the 20th
century. Twenty-four artists are thoroughly covered here but none
are given dominant attention. By covering four decades of art, the
curators seem to have wanted to be inclusive. With this decision,
they risked showing too much. If they had been exclusive, however,
they risked missing an important representative. Thus the viewers
are left with gems of inspiration mixed in with what to them may be
meaningless splatter of paint. These few insightful works, probably
different pieces according to different people, are worth the trip.
The collection of Warhols and Lichtensteins, the Johns works and
the Koons are all worth seeing. Maybe one of these other, currently
less famous artists will represent 20th century art as it should be
remembered.
Mary Williams
“Freestyle” Santa Monica Museum of Art
Through Nov. 18, 2001
Tucked away in Bergamot Station, the Santa Monica Museum of Art
doesn’t look so much like a museum as a warehouse ““
corrugated metal walls and all. In a hidden art community, the
small space houses one exhibit at a time. The current show
“Freestyle” exhibits the work of 28 African American
artists curated by the Studio Museum in Harlem. While the many
different perspectives and styles can be fascinating, the small
size of the exhibit makes a clear sense of the work of any one
artist difficult to achieve. Some pieces, like “BNBN,”
which stands for Bitter Nigger Broadcast Network, stand out because
of the clear message they make. The artwork consists of a computer
where the viewer can click to see icons and hear blurbs about the
shows. The work aims to give a corporate slant to the anger the
artist feels over racism in mainstream society by creating this
mock network. Others ignore issues of ethnicity altogether,
focusing on society at large or on sexual imagery. “Zero
Divide” by Camille Norment examines the latter. Consisting of
two steel rods protruding toward each other from perpendicular
walls, the piece emits sounds of sighing and moaning. Another work,
“Sometimes” by Susan Smith-Pinelo, is a video of the
artist’s chest as she dances to Michael Jackson’s
“Working Day and Night.” She brings up the issue of the
objectification of women in the media and, by putting her own body
on screen, women’s tendency to “sometimes” treat
themselves as sexual objects. Overall, the works tended to take an
“ironic” look at their subjects, purporting to have a
cleverness that quickly gets tiresome. What they lack in variety of
attitude, however, are made up for in diversity of media. Videos,
wall and floor installations, phone bills, perm end papers and
holes in the wall are all included. There is something to be gained
from this exhibit, but a larger, more inclusive one would achieve
its goal: to examine “post-black” art ““
better.
Mary Williams