Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Contemporary Collectors Council Los Angeles Trip


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

The Contemporary Collectors Council inaugurated summer with a visit to nearby Los Angeles to view some of LA's many art offerings. The council began their trip with a morning visit to Simon Rodia's Nuestro Pueblo, as Rodia affectionately referred to his creation. The name translates to "our town" and it perhaps reflects the journey and ethos of builder turned sculptor Rodia, who immigrated to the U.S. from his native Italy. Rodia had the desire to build something monumental. Today the seventeen interconnected structures he built are commonly known as the Watts Towers.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Shells and 7-Up bottles adorn the tower spires and exterior.

photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Rodia labored on the towers for 34 years between from 1921 until 1955. At age 75 he gave the property to a neighbor and moved away never looking back on his creation.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Black silhouettes in the Tower's Noah Purifoy Gallery.


After lunch CCC members attended the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition, "Art in the Streets," one of the first major U.S. museum exhibitions to tell the history of graffiti and street art from Los Angeles to New York, tracing it's development from the 1970s to the global movement it has become today. The show focused on key cities and influences from gang to punk and skateboarding cultures that informed the style.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Our docent spoke about graffiti on New York trains and this collection of photo documentation.




photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Artist Swoon created this mixed media sculpture that CCC members are standing inside. The Ice Queen, 2011 created a delightful play of patterns and light in a canopy like structure.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

The ubiquitous and secretive graffiti artist Bansky asked high school students to graffiti this canvas before overlaying a church window stencil to create a decidedly modern street art stained glass window.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Another follow-up from our last trip, CCC stopped at the Ernst & Young Office Plaza to see Ruth Pastine’s "Limitless" installation. Pastine spoke about her approach and sensitivity to architectural space and the use of such structures.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Another follow-up from our last visit, the CCC stopped athe the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to view the tapestries of artist John Nava. The collection is the largest hanging in a Catholic Church in the U.S. and references the tradition of large scale pictorial wall cycles meant to vividly tell stories to largely illiterate populations of ancient and Medieval times.


photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

To cap off our Los Angeles trip CCC members had the privilege of viewing the private collection of Monte Factor. This strange and odd tableau is artist
Kienholz representation of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing of a child molestation case.



photo courtesy of Lindsay Tognetti

Mr. Factor, a Beverly Hills clothier has been active in social causes and along with his wife Betty, were early supporters of contemporary art in the city.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Contemporary Collectors Council trip to Ojai and Santa Barbara

Outside view of artist John Nava's home

This April, our Contemporary Collectors Council went on a weekend adventure to Ojai and Santa Barbara. This trip was filled with a myriad of stops at various artists' studios and collectors' homes in addition to a visit to the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara.

Artist, John Nava's studio was the first on the weekend adventure. The members of the CCC had the opportunity to view some of Nava's photo realist paintings and tapestries that recently won him Honor Award for Visual art by the the National Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture Design.

John Nava talking about his art to the members of the CCC

A John Nava tapestry

After a delightful lunch at the Garden Terrace, the members of the CCC headed over to Ruth Pastine's studio. Pastine, who conjures up Finish Fetish works, laboriously working toward subtle color shifts in her painting, has also been acknowledged as a colorist, creating an environment as the paintings react to light and one's movement in space.

A work by Ruth Pastine

CCC members listening to Ruth Pastine

Gary Lang's studio was up next. This sculptor and painter focuses in abstraction, using repetition and vibrant colors in his work. His recent work includes concentric circles on round canvases, gridded paintings of colorful stacked lines that he calls "plaids," and striped paintings that recall some of David Simpson's early paintings.

Next, the CCC members ventured towards Richard Amend's studio. As an artist, Amend works in various mediums that include production design in film, set sketches, public art, and paintings. Through photographing sites for various film projects, Amend became drawn to painting. Filmic qualities can be seen in Amend's paintings.

Richard Amend's studio

Richard Amend lecturing enthusiastically about his art

Richard's wife, Susan Stinsmeuhlen-Amend, studio was next on the trip. Stinsmeuhlen-Amend works in glass and mixed media and is currently the Chair of the Ojai Arts Commission. Her works vary from wall mounts to small sculptural installations and public art sculptures.

The last stop at Ojai was a visit to collectors Carolyn Glasoe and Chris Bailey's home. These two have a very interesting contemporary eye as their collection frequently changes, which mainly houses blue chip artists mixed with emerging artists. Glasoe has been working as an art dealer in New York. IN addition to their collection, Glasoe and Bailey have a stunning home built by Kazumi Adachi in 1952.

On the first stop for the Santa Barbara end of the trip, the CCC members got the chance to visit collector Nancy Gifford. Gifford has dedicated her collection to contemporary artists based in Santa Barbara. As an advocate for bringing awareness to contemporary art in Santa Barbara, Gifford devotes her time to making numerous studio visits and has amassed a collection of about sixty artists from this region. Gifford lives in a beautiful new contemporary home with her husband and is currently continuing renovations on a home built by the architect Barry Berkus.

Art Collector Nancy Gifford and husband

Nancy Giffords home that houses various artworks by Santa Barbara artists

Next, the CCC members stopped by the Contemporary Arts Forum near the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Founded in 1976, it is a space devoted solely to exhibition and promoting contemporary art. The members were able to see the current group exhibition Eating Apples in Paradise. In a region like Santa Barbara that consciously sold and established itself as a modern-day paradise, "CAF dares 12 local artists to take a bite out of the proverbial apple with an exhibition exploring the realities and ambiguities of living in such an Edenic location."

A CCC member posing in front of the CAF exhibition wall

The final stop on this weekend long trip was the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The members had the chance to see the exhibition Charles Garabedian: A Retrospective that brings together approximately 60 works by the artist, representing his enture career with an emphasis on paintings and drawings produced during the years since his first (and last) major solo museum exhibitions in 1983.
CCC members eagerly visiting the Charles Garabedian Retrospective at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Contemporary Collectors Council's trip to Venice

A piece by Laddie John Dill

This February, our Contemporary Collectors Council had the opportunity to visit various artists' studios in sunny Venice. The first stop of the day was a tour of artist Laddie John Dill's new studio. Dill's incorporates glass, cement, metal and natural oxides in his abstract sculpture and paintings to evoke landscapes, light and water reflections, as well as architectural spaces.
CCC members listening to Laddie John Dill


A detail side shot of Dill's pieces

A CCC member poses in front of Dill's work

The next artist the CCC visited was Charles Arnoldi, who takes on various mediums and tools from sticks to chainsaws to reflect gestural movements, as well as experimenting with form and color through a series of grids or ellipse paintings.
CCC members take a picture in front of Charles Arnoldi's studio (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)


One of Arnoldi's paintings


CCC members pose in front of various Charles Arnoldi pieces.


A group picture with Charles Arnoldi

Where Charles Arnoldi works his magic
For lunch time, the CCC dined at Joe's restaurant where they had a chance to devour entrees like Scottish Salmon or Mushroom Ravioli.

After a great lunch, the next studio was collage artist Alexis Smith. Smith takes on collages, assemblage and appropriation while referencing popular culture. Her work is rooted in Southern California art and is critically placed alongside Edward Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, and Vija Celmins.

Artist Alexis Smith posing for the camera (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)

Alexis Smith's work desk


Next, the CCC visited Charles Christopher Hill who creates multiple layered acrylic paintings, which provides a smooth surface that can be either transparent or opaque. As a minimalist, Hill's paintings may show seemingly simple gestures of rows of thick lines, spirals, and dots.

CCC members in front of a work by Charles Christopher Hill

A detail of the dripping edge of Hill's piece (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)


The last destination of this Venice trip was the studio of Ed Moses. An evermore dynamic painter today as he was decades ago, Moses' abstract paintings focuses on experimenting and broadening the limits of painting through a multitude of series.
CCC members having fun while listening to Ed Moses (photo by Lindsey Tognetti)

CCC members in front of works by Ed Moses

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Contemporary Collectors Council Art in Laguna December 11, 2010



The Contemporary Collectors Council December foray in Laguna Beach included studio visits with artist Barbara Berk, a long-time resident of Laguna Beach . Berk is currently in a group exhibition at Coastline Community College, and is currently shown in a group exhibition at Joanne Artman Gallery through January 30th, 2011. The CCC went on a visit to Berk's remarkable home and saw first-hand the connections the artist makes between drawings and her performances.

In addition, a prominent and historically significant artist, Tony DeLap, spoke about his most recent body of work. DeLap recently had an exhibition at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico which received this review in the Albuquerque Journal.

Sandra and Jerry LeWinter generously hosted the CCC to a visit and tour of their private collection and home. The LeWinters collection includes work by Enrique Martinez Celaya, Kim Dingle, Yishai Judisman, and William Kentridge to name a few. The group was also treated to a tour of the 2010 California Biennial at OCMA curated by Sarah Brancroft.