Page 34 - Studio International - October 1970

properties of the new materials, a stylistic or and witty interpretations. The Hollywood and Bengston were the core of L.A.'s Pop Art
characteristic use of colour is the technique of Standard Gasoline Station paintings and contingent in the mid sixties. All three have
bleeding. Ruscha, Bengston and Goode often graphics, as well as the books (Palm Trees, survived that limited identity that now is near
use this technique for their paintings and Swimming Pools, Sunset Strip, etc.) are forgotten.
graphics, and Bell sometimes coats his glass distinctly Los Angeles subjects. Many of the Bruce Nauman's work over the past five years
with this effect. Similar colour changes can be word paintings and prints, that often combine has been noticeably influential and welcomed
seen in the resin pieces of Alexander and word definition or connotation with on many divergent fronts. His considerable
Valentine. Familiar Los Angeles colour associative calligraphic style and colours, have influence has not been primarily in Los Angeles,
transitions of the sky and the depth changes Hollywood or Los Angeles associations. Clean and the nature of the work bears no discernible
in water seem a reasonable analogy since this draughtsmanship and advertising-slick facility affinities with aspects of L.A. art as they can be
technique is sometimes used with these are recognizable qualities of his work. generally identified. Although he, like other Los
specific references. Ruscha's books extend his influence to Angeles artists, relies on phenomenology, he
Ed Moses's works have involved quiet, concept-oriented art as well as photography. does so in a wider than usual range. The sensory
gentle colours that often form a smooth, even, The dead-pan photography Ruscha adopted information his works are concerned with extend
soft base for his peculiarly exacting for his many books has begun a wave of beyond a visual encounter with a particularized
unidentifiable line drawing. The recent large books-as-art, and photographs-as-art. In `thing' to sound/space/atmosphere sensations in
paintings are of thin ruled lines on unstretched addition he has unwittingly influenced some relation to the viewer's physical presence.
canvas applied in an occasionally shifted and younger non-commercial photographers. Nauman's work requires the understanding or
interrupted grid of various colours. The lines Like Ruscha, Joe Goode uses oil on canvas actual presence of a human body and intelligence
are often smudged by the natural-coloured for his paintings. He is an unusual and varied as other than an audience. This is most apparent
uneven coating of resin that is added as a kind colourist both in the paintings and the prints. in the video-tapes, constructed corridors, and
of informal frame for the work. Richard He works in apparent series, wherein a depicted other room installations.
Yokomi stains his unstretched canvasses that familiar object floats in a colour field, that Just as there were art activities of a different
are mounted on the wall in irregular, serves as unidentifiable space or as recognizable nature simultaneous to those discussed here,
amorphous shapes. Laddie Dill uses several sky. His recent paintings and prints depict there are recent developments that have no more
distinct colours along his single neon tubes, snapshots of clouds or clouds themselves that in common with the 'new materials/colour'
casting soft colours against the wall above and receive any variety of treatments, i.e. crumpling, aesthetic than they necessarily do with the funk
below. tearing, flying, flatly placed, etc. There is or assemblage art of Ed Kienholz and others.
Of all Los Angeles artists Ed Ruscha in his generally a strong humourous reference to the Ed Ruscha has possibly the greatest relation to
work most specifically and pointedly draws two-dimensional surface. Goode maintains the sociological, cultural or art references in the
from the Los Angeles experience. He uses the in his paintings a surface of regular and work of John Baldessari, William Leavitt,
visual and cultural information for his sensitive detectable brushwork. Goode, Ruscha and William Wegman and Al Ruppersberg. All have

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5 Joe Goode
Clouds 1971
Lithograph
Courtesy of Bernard Jacobson
6 John Baldessari
Everything is Purged from this Painting but Art,
No Ideas have Entered this Work. 1966-67
Canvas
7 Al Ruppersberg
Exhibit A 1970
Acrylic paint on cardboard
Photo: Gary Krueger

8 William Leavitt
Untitled 1971
Mixed media
Photo: Gary Krueger
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