Page 32 - Studio International - October 1970

their ability and desire to live and be paints and techniques developed for the custom blacks of the recent boxes. This subtlety of
productive within this unusual creative finishes of the hot-car culture. Billy Al Bengston colour is also seen in the cast-resin pieces of
circumstance. The many artists who can work has made use of all the techniques and new DeWain Valentine and Peter Alexander and the
successfully in Los Angeles are those who can paints. He is a technical master of the potential sprayed-resin paintings of Ron Cooper.
use its life-style as a source of vitality. Few of of surfaces, using all of the fast-drying acrylic Valentine's most recent cast-resin works are
the artists were born in Los Angeles. Many came lacquers and pearlescent colours, often applied large concave standing discs which behave
to L.A. from other western states (in the late to aluminium. With all the variety and somewhat like optical lenses; distorting,
fifties and early sixties) to attend art school or experimentation in his work, he has maintained obliviating and filtering. Alexander, like
to work in a place where there was some a surprising and immediately recognizable Valentine, uses cast resin for his objects, and
detectable art activity. However unsuccessful identity throughout his demanding most recently has departed from the transparent
and shortlived were the neat definitions applied explorations. Centrally located in his paintings coloured cubes and triangles to work with soft
to this group of artists, they were the first to are his well-known chevrons in varying degrees opaques in separate narrow bars that hang, and
draw attention to Los Angeles as a viable or of visibility or dominance, or the occasional appear to float, vertically on the wall. Ron
interesting art centre. They were the first iris. Both images appeared early in his work Cooper's paintings of the past several years are
artists to do work cohesive and particular and have been retained as an almost signature- of sprayed resin applied in thin layer upon
enough to identify itself as unique to Los like device. Bengston has been an important layer of differently ordered primary colour.
Angeles. There is of course a great deal more influence on the aggressive conquering of new They are optically complex and arrive at
to be said, both about those factors of materials in the 196os, and thus the progenitor enormously rich and active colour. His most
sensibility that are more or less shared by the of much of 'the look' that has been associated recent 'black paintings' which are the largest
artists, and, more importantly, about their with Los Angeles art. he has done, have a black panel that is recessed
increasingly diverse specific concerns. Two Larry Bell's early mirrored and later behind the visible translucent colour panel,
physical aspects that one encounters daily in specially coated glass boxes are primary works lending a darker, more mystic intensity to the
Los Angeles have unquestionably affected the in elusive transparency and reflectivity. His paintings.
art, albeit in a typically unpredictable way. boxes present an uncontrived simplicity, while Ron Davis's illusionistic paintings are thin
Firstly, the extensive, though often at the same time, by reason of their transitory shells of glass-fibre paint designed and hung to
smog-shortened, vistas allowed by the huge presence and fusion with the environment, emphasize the physical flatness. The formats of
Los Angeles plain; and secondly, the unusual present complex involvement for the viewer. the paintings are in accordance with the
brightness of the light. Assisting the visual The boxes rest on clear glass box bases; they intricate illusions of varyingly involved internal
awareness of infinite space is the predominance are physically stable works, while remaining and external views of geometric physical
of low buildings, towered over by the visually ephemeral in colour and behaviour. structures. Colour, as well as the perspective,
scattered palm trees, and the generally clear In Bell's recent work his medium of glass is allows the sometimes alternating illusionary
weather. retained while he has radically changed the attitudes to remain active. In reproduction
The artists have acknowledged this space in format and scale. He has made total room they read convincingly as large floor-sitting
terms of sensibility and attitude rather than environments that deal with light and illusion structures or sculpture.
competitive monumentality; as witnessed and disorientation; he has worked with large Robert Irwin has long been involved with
primarily by the choice of materials, colours, glass sheets grouped in deceptive maze-like the subtleties of minimal elusive colour,
occasionally imagery, as well as the growing formations that slice or fuse the surrounding beginning with his meticulously executed oil
interest in creating or affecting environments. environment as well as the viewer; with paintings, the later dot paintings and the
Visual depth of colour surface and transparent subtly coloured reflective glass wall shelves, sprayed discs that followed. The discs began
materials speak loudly of the sensitivity to the and strips of mirrored glass that are spaced Irwin's involvement with the extension of the
physical and cultural environment. Similarly, floor to ceiling along the wall. The elusiveness normally confined area of the art work by
the resources of advanced technology have not epitomized by Bell's work is a quality common directing intense spotlights at the discs. The
prompted the artists to involve themselves to much of the work of the L.A. artists. lights that create a complex of circular shadows
heavily with the more obvious areas of kinetics John McCracken, by virtue of the simple on the wall behind the disc become a part of the
and extravagant phenomenology. Amongst the geometric format of his sculpture, has been piece itself. His art, like that of Bell and
best artists there has been an evident dedication associated with 'minimalist' sculpture of the Alexander, explores the notion of hovering or
to methods and materials not for the purpose of sixties, though he has always been primarily floating, visually unfixed in space. Recently, it
flamboyant gesture but for expediency and interested in colour. The shapes he selects for has become more reductive and conceptual
refinement of concept with no apparent his glass-fibre boxes and rectangular slabs are with his environmental scrim works and the
commitment to technology itself. ideal vehicles to carry his sophisticated Plexiglas colourless columns, which are
Glass-fibre, Plexiglas, polyester resin, glass sprayed-resin surfaces. The complex depths of prismatic at certain angles and often seem to
and enamel paints as art materials, all have a the surface colours are dependent upon their disappear, or which deflect light in such a way
special association with the Los Angeles art awesome perfection. McCracken has lately as to disturb the visual continuity. The scrim
scene of the sixties through their common moved away from this surface perfection in installations and columns are physically absolute
quality of visual richness, light-play and some of his sculpture, which is occasionally while coming close to invisibility. Irwin's
surface depth. The willingness on the part of wall hanging. These pieces are constructed of articulate personality has been an important
all of the artists to explore untested ground, to wood beams painted directly with hard, influence on developments in Los Angeles over
master a new medium and exploit its potential resilient marine paint. In his fibreglass planks, the past decade.
within the context of art problems, is McCracken succeeded in arriving at the clearest The scale preferred by L.A. artists ranges
unprecedented. The accessibility of first-hand response to the problem of the base in sculpture from miniature to human scale with only
information on industrial techniques, and the by eliminating the need for an internally occasional exceptions. There has been no
weather conditions that make working in such compensating system of balance by merely tendency toward overwhelming the viewer
media feasible, are undoubtedly relevant leaning the pieces against the wall. His boxes perceptually or psychologically with outsized
factors in some of the directions the artists and pillars of course required no such works of art.
have taken. consideration. McCracken explores a wide range Robert Graham has for some years worked
In addition to the traditional oil on canvas, of colours, using one consistent colour for a in a scale of approximately one inch to one
Los Angeles 'painters' adopted some of the piece, from subtle pastels to the fathomless foot in his sculpture. His most recent pieces

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