Critic's Notebook: The L.A. Art Show

Except for specialized work like photographs or prints, art fairs seem to do best when at least one of two factors is present: The host city has a modest or meager gallery life, or the display venue is unusual. In both cases an art fair becomes distinctive -- an event with a special quality and style.

Neither factor is in play for the Fine Art Dealers Assn. 15th Annual Los Angeles Art Show, which is about halfway through its four-day run at the cavernous L.A. Convention Center. Toss in a tough economy and abysmal weather, and the moderate crowds I encountered in a few hours at the fair on Friday are no surprise.

The L.A. Art Show is hosting about 90 galleries, plus a dozen that specialize in fine art prints. There are also some curated shows -- graduate students from area art schools, for example, or a citywide documentary photography display on video monitors, sponsored by a local foundation.

The main show includes an abundance of traditionalist dealers, who sell plein-air landscapes and genre paintings, such as the sentimentalist picture of a Millet-style peasant girl by 19th century Philadelphia painter Daniel Ridgway Knight (at Rehs Galleries). There are also the expected gimmicks -- gigantic celebrity portraits made up of tiny pictures, such as one of Andy Warhol composed from a grid of thousands of little Mao Tse-Tungs (ChinaSquare Gallery).

Generally, the quality at the fair is disappointingly low. But if you poke around you can find some things to like. Here are a few that caught my eye:

• A mustard-colored 1968 Minimalist abstraction by Robert Mangold is painted on Masonite, its quarter-circle subdivided into triangular shapes. Vivid physicality marvelously contradicts the work's strange, tertiary color. (Gana Art)
• Meeson Pae Yang has suspended a galaxy of moss-covered spheres, perhaps 80 or 100, each one dangling a delicate watering system of plastic tubing and little globes. It's Pandora indoors. (Gallery 825)
• Uruguay is the "guest country" highlighted at the fair. "Dusk," a looped video projection by Pablo Uribe, focuses on a nattily dressed, middle-aged man on a darkened stage executing a series of exotic bird calls and animal sounds. Whether or not they are authentic is hard to say -- until you realize that the queer music he is making is plenty real enough. (Uribe represented Uruguay at last year's Venice Biennale.)
• Charlotte Park (b. 1918), a little-known Abstract Expressionist painter from New York, has been enjoying a resurgence of interest in her works of the 1940s, '50s and '60s. A large selection of muscular, often chromatically brilliant paintings on canvas and paper show why. (Spanierman Modern)
• The undated "Clivia," probably from the 1930s, by Henrietta Shore (1880 - 1963) shows the stem, leaves and flowering pink blossoms isolated against an empty field of color, crisply painted and severed from any context other than art. Shore's best paintings strip floral painting from its Romantic moorings, injecting it with a Modernist clarity associated with her friend and fellow artist, photographer Edward Weston. (Redfern Gallery)

The Los Angeles Art Show continues at the Convention Center through Sunday. A full list of participating galleries is here.

-- Christopher Knight

Photos: Meeson Pae Yang, "Dispersion" (2009) and Pablo Uribe, "Dusk" (2008); Credit: Christopher Knight/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[NotGleason]

So the same art critic who bemoans the lack of attendance and enthusiasm at the LA Art Show is ALSO the one who rags on the appointment of Jeffrey Deitch at MOCA??? Deitch is EXACTLY the sort of person who will breathe life, urgency, and unpredictability back into the LA Art World, so these future events draw more crowds.

Make up your mind, Mr. Knight.

[William Wray]

I miss the Santa Monica shows. While that venue seemed a bit to small, the LA convention center feels too big. Especially unfortunate doing a weak economy as it add to the under attended feel. Unlike the critic I enjoyed the show, I think there is tons of good art on display and I am hearted that each year more skilled-based painting keeps creeping into the fine art world. As for the “highlight” of the show (for the critic) pictured in this article, I thought it looked like a child's interpretation of Avatar and find it embarrassing old fashioned for the critic to even mention it.

[edson rodriguez]

cool

[Ramiro Valle]

I am an artist from Colombia living in Los Angeles. I do photography and digital art. You can check my art work on Facebook or my blog. My favorite albums are "Geometric Romanticism" and "Other Woks". With 14 years of work in the medium I have enough pieces to set more than 10 shows. The concept of "Geometric Romanticism" has been created by me as you can see in my first album and also in the artist statement. You will be surprised by some of the images, all fine art prints on canvas and paper.