L.A. Trash and Treasure

Oct 19 – Nov 25, 2006 Opening October 19th 5-8pm

Participating artists: Jason Meadows, Evan Holloway, Sterling Ruby, Richard Hawkins, Tom Allen, Aaron Curry, Patrick Hill, Ry Rocklen, Gerald Davis, Gustavo Herrera, Mindy Shapero, Henry Taylor, Amy Sarkisian, Liz Craft, John Williams. Curator: Liv Stoltz

"The dominant aesthetic resonance, and this is perplexing to a lot of people who don’t spend a lot of time in L.A., is a surfer aesthetic." -Bruce Hainley

Milliken gallery is proud to present L.A. Trash and Treasure an exhibition with 15 artists from Los Angeles that have received international attention in the recent years. L.A. Trash and Treasure covers the contemporary Los Angeles art scene from 1997 the moment Lars Nittve presented Sunshine & Noir (L.A 1960;1997) at the Louisiana Museum – the last time a major show was produced for the Scandinavian audience.

L.A. Trash and Treasure focuses on - which has a strong tradition in L.A. but features also drawings and . All newly produced works illustrating the different tendencies existing in Los Angeles today. This show demonstrates a younger generation of artists and their relationship to an extraordinary group of artists spawned from the 1960s including Charles Ray, John Baldessari, John McCracken, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman etc.

Instead of conceptual consensus, the exhibition presents different thematic lines that can be categorized with subtitles, Lost and Found (artists use and recycling of various found objects in high-low materials, The Fantastic (artists using archetypical fantastical symbols, popular culture, fantasy, horror) and Reconsidering History (artists referring to art history and reinterpreting different movements such as Romanticism, Surrealism and typical L.A. movements from the 60s for example finish fetish, light- and space movement).

In addition to the exhibition an extensive conversation between Liv Stoltz and Bruce Hainley will be available for download at the gallery website. Mr. Hainley is a writer, art critic contributor in Art Forum, Frieze, Cabinet and curator, based in Los Angeles and an active and important voice in contemporary L.A. art today.

For more information or press images please contact Milliken gallery.

L.A. Trash and Treasure Curator statement

Ibland uppstår en alldeles särskild känsla i mötet med ett konstverk. En av mina starkaste upplevelser av ögonblicklig genialitet var när jag för första gången ställdes inför Picassos Head of a Bull från 1943, vilket är ett av hans mest kända assemblageverk. Igenkännbara vanliga objekt, i detta fall ett cykelstyre och en sadel, har med hjälp av konstnären, fråntagits sin ursprungliga funktion och förvandlats till någonting helt annat - nämligen ett tjurhuvud. Självklart var det också en referens till Marcel Duchamp som tidigare 1913, placerade ett upp- och nervänt cykelhjul på en stol, signerade konstruktionen och tillskrev det därmed värdet av ett konstverk. Denna enkla handling ställde konstvärlden i tvivel med ett bestående problem att lösa: Var detta konst?

Dessa lekfulla, skulpturala hopsättningar återfinns genom konsthistorien, från Duchamps upp och nervända cykelhjul, Joan Mirós Figure with Umbrella (1931) Picassos Goat Skull, Bottle and Candle (1951) och Baboon and Young (1952), via Robert Rausschenberg’s fantasifulla kombinationer av tidigare använda bilder och objekt (Combines) till många andra betydelsefulla konstnärer som på olika sätt utvecklade (eller nedmonterade) det skulpturala objektet. Många av dessa senare konstnärer kom från Kalifornien. Bruce Nauman integrerade pubreklamens uttrycksmedel: neonljus i sina skulpturer och kommenterade ironiskt objektets status och konstnärens roll. I likhet med Bruce Nauman, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy använde sig också Charles Ray sin egen kropp som en del av skulpturen. I verket Plank Piece (1973) – ser man konstnären själv – oglamoröst ”ställd mot väggen”, upptryck och hängandes över ena änden på en vanlig bräda. Bruce W. Ferguson beskriver denna avgörande konsthändelse/ korsfästelse/födelse:

”Om någonting dog, var det den minimalistiska skulpturen och dess fulla implikationer för den abstrakta modernismen som den självreflexiva konstens slut, inte Charles Ray. Om någonting föddes var det identitetspolitiken och den kritiska gestaltningens konst, inte en oförmedlad frälsare.”

I L.A. Trash and Treasure får man möta en yngre generation konstnärer från Los Angeles. Många av de medverkande konstnärerna har haft bl.a. Charles Ray, Chris Burden och Paul McCarthy som lärare, vilket självfallet mer eller mindre präglat dem. På så vis har de, kanske mer än andra unga konstnärer på andra geografiska platser, tidigt tvingats relatera till en stark och inflytelserik konsthistoria. Bosatta i en stad som tillskrivits epitetet historielös och som kallas ”the capital of forgetting” för att citera Norman Klein för dessa konstnärer en intensiv dialog med konsthistorien från 60-talet och framåt (se intervju med Bruce Hainley) och specifika rörelser sprungna ur Los Angeles.

Ett står klart: Vi lever i en kultur övermättad och överflödig av bilder, reklam, varor, rörelser. Vi lever i en tid av recycling. Objektets status fortsätter att ifrågasättas av dessa yngre konstnärer. De återanvänder sig av specifika tekniker, material och färger bl.a. billackering som ger uttryck för en ”surfing estetik” typisk för finish fetish, en konstinriktning som utvecklades på 60-talet i L.A. (Aaron Curry). De ”fläckar ner” och ironiserar till exempel light-and spacerörelsens idealistiska och minimalistiska epos genom att använda sig av ett liknande språk, men adderar ett annat betydelsebärande element, som ändrar innebörden helt (Patrick Hill). De gör referenser till reklam, populärkultur, skräck, sagomyter och fantasifigurer som enhörningar, häxor, monster, (Amy Sarkisian, Liz Craft, Sterling Ruby, Mindy Shapero, Tom Allen). Många rör sig med lätthet mellan olika medier, skulpturer, målningar, teckningar och collager (Richard Hawkins). De berättar emotionellt laddade historier om minnen och identitet (Gerald Davis) om utanförskap och klasskillnader. De målar på cigarettpaket, resväskor, träbitar och skulpterar av det material som finns dem tillhanda (Henry Taylor). Många integrerar delvis eller helt och hållet funnet material, ändrar deras ursprungliga funktion och skapar med fantasi, lätthet, ironi, humor, nya skulpturala objekt (Ry Rocklen, Jason Meadows, Evan Holloway, Gustavo Herrera, John Williams). De leker med begreppet politisk korrekthet och strävar mot det enkla, personliga, bisarra. De arbetar medvetet med material av låg status – och gjuter dem ibland i brons. Högt blandas med lågt och vice versa.

Vi befinner oss långt från påståendet att konst är någonting vackert, rent, idealistiskt utan snarare att konst är någonting använt, nersmutsat, laddat. Relevant förblir spänningen mellan Trash and Treasure.

Jag vill rikta ett innerligt tack till konstnärerna, Bruce Hainley, till Parker Jones på Black Dragon Society, Marc Foxx, David Kordansky, Katie Brennan på Sister, Peres Projects, Anna Helwing Gallery och Richard Telles Fine Art. Tack även till Lars Nittve som curerade den tidigare utställningen Sunshine & Noir, L.A. 1960-1997 på Louisiana Museum 1997 som varit en inspirerande kunskapskälla.

Liv Stoltz Stockholm, 2006-10-15 Curator

Another History

- a conversation between Liv Stoltz and Bruce Hainley on the Contemporary Art Scene in Los Angeles

Bruce Hainley is an art critic, writer and curator. A contributing editor of Artforum, he contributes to Frieze and Parkett. With John Waters, he wrote Art – A Sex Book. He has curated a survey of Andy Warhol films at MoCA Los Angeles, and the exhibition Mise-en-Scène: New Sculpture from Los Angeles at Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2000. Associate Director of Graduate Studies in Criticism & Theory at Art Center College of Design, Bruce Hainley lives and works in Los Angeles. We met in London for a discussion on the Los Angeles art scene.

Liv Stoltz (LS): I went to Los Angeles in the spring of 2006 to prepare a L.A. show and was struck by the sculpture I encountered. The exhibition I am curating L.A. Trash and Treasure is a survey of a younger generation of artists from Los Angeles. There is a common notion that L.A. is without history, to quote Norman Klein: “Los Angeles is the capital of forgetting”. But many of these younger artists refer back to modernism and especially the art scene from the 60s. It seems to me that contemporary young artists have an ongoing dialogue with art history contradictory to the belief that L.A. is a capital without history.

Bruce Hainley (BH): There are some artists who are extremely articulate and they let you know that in how they deliver visual information. There are other artists who can appear very naïve or reflect a sort of surfer dudeism – monosyllables. Some artists are very articulate, mindful of every word; others are every bit as visually and mentally acute and knowledgeable about art history - particularly the history of L.A. and its relationship to different kinds of materials but they are never going to pronounce this, other than in their work. The dominant aesthetic resonance, and this is perplexing to a lot of people who don’t spend a lot of time in L.A., is a surfer aesthetic. A lot of the best of art from L.A. has a casualness and an elegance which completely belies the effort and the thought behind it. What I mean in terms of surfer aesthetics is that it is not an easy thing to get up on the surfboard and look graceful. But if it looks difficult, you’ve failed. A good surfer makes it look like the most natural thing possible. I think that boggles a lot of people in New York. Only this fall Evan Holloway, who is one of the best artists in his generation, together with Jason Meadows, Paul Sietsema and Liz Craft, is having his first solo New York exhibition in a gallery. This is shocking. This is a person that has had at least two solo shows in London, three shows in Belgium, and participated in the Whitney Biennial. Is it due to the fact that on some initial encounter Evan’s work can really look wild, something you would see along at Venice Beach, what some “outsider” artist might bring in from the desert or Topanga Canyon. Evan’s very interested in the notion of non-normative traditions of art. His work does not have the veneer of sophistication, smartness or difficulty about it—and yet it is extremely considered work, of great intelligence and visual acuity. I guess most people read something like a mute “surfer” elegance as having a lazy or a casual relationship to history—which is ridiculous.

LS: One of the reasons why I wanted to interview you was that you have curated an exhibition in 2000 Mise- en-Scène: New Sculpture from L.A. at Santa Monica Museum of Art with artists who are also participating in L.A. Trash and Treasure.

BH: Yes, with Evan Holloway, Jason Meadows, Liz Craft, Paul Sietsema, Torbjörn Vejvi, Jeff Ono. The show was co-curated with Carole Ann Klonarides

LS: These artists graduated in 1997, most of them from UCLA. The very same year as the Sunshine & Noir exhibition L.A. 1960-1997 took place at Louisiana Museum, curated by Lars Nittve. What I wanted to do with L.A. Trash and Treasure was to make a continuation of that exhibition. It is almost ten years since Sunshine & Noir was staged. Another important L.A. exhibition was The Birth of an Artistic Capital 1955-1985,that took place at spring 2006, showing a historic dimension and background to contemporary L.A. When it comes to L.A., European museums seem very occupied with an important art history. Rightly so, but no institutions outside of L.A. are really showing and discussing what is actually happening in contemporary L.A. art scene today. What is happening now in your opinion?

BH: I moved to L.A. in 1996 – almost 10 years ago. It was sheer happenstance that there was this efflorescence of a group of artists, many of whom were students of Charles Ray, who was a huge influence on them. It was a time when a very dynamic group of artists were taking form. I arrived just after the moment when Jason Rhoades made his Potato Donut piece at the Whitney Biennial and Jennifer Pastor was doing her exciting early work. If you were actually to do stepping-stones - they fall between the cracks in many of these museum surveys. Many good artists don’t appear in any of these European exhibits. One of them is Richard Hawkins, a key figure to L.A., and one of the most influential artists for younger California artists. Of course, he is becoming better known, mainly because he has begun to show more in Europe. It’s a little bizarre that to some extent he is much better known in Germany or London, at the moment, than he is in New York. Some of the reason for this is that the current art world fetishizes youth. Only artists younger than forty and older than 60, newbies or those getting ready to finalize their wills, matter: The art world does not want to think about artists that are mid-career, between 40 and 60. They almost don’t exist. Sadly, because Richard Hawkins was perceived to be “too young” for Sunshine & Noir and now is too mid-career, he hasn’t been given his due. He is the artist that the younger artists really have to deal with if they think they want to deal with Mike Kelley or Paul McCarthy. Richard Hawkins has solved in his own way how to inherit and learn from the work Kelley and McCarthy, among others, have done. Obviously, Kelley and McCarthy have had a profound influence but for many of the artists in Mise-en-Scène Charles Ray has had just as great an influence. All of these students know sculpture from late 60s until early 70s really, really well, especially the work of Anthony Caro.

LS: Many of these influential artists originating from L.A., like Charles Ray, Paul McCarthy, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, etc., are, as you say, not only still active artists but also very much involved in the educational system (UCLA, Art Center, CalArts, etc.). Talking about stepping stones one can also find different generations of Charles Rays’ students from Liz Craft to Ry Rocklen. How does a younger generation relate to this heritage?

BH: Mike Kelley, Larry Johnson, and Richard Hawkins all went to CalArts. CalArts, to no small degree, taught, as much as it taught anything else, a tradition of teaching: teaching is part of a dynamic artistic practice. In L.A. you can be a very famous artist and you are still going to teach. Until very recently Chris Burden taught, Paul McCarthy taught and Mike Kelley still teaches. Artists worth the name in L.A., teach artists. It is a serious endeavor to be an artist and you better know what you are up to, you’d better know your history. But a forgetting of history can be quite purposeful, even productive. I just came from seeing the Uncertain States of America at the Serpentine Gallery. Seeing more recent students of Charles Ray, like Hannah Greely or Matt Johnson, maybe they should forget more. Rather than influenced by, their work seems sadly derivative of Ray’s work–it’s blatantly and tediously Charles Ray-like. I don’t see Evan, Paul, Jason, or Liz ever being so simpleminded. I see a much more complicated relationship to Charles Ray in these older students.

LS: Why?

BH: I’ve never really thought about it much until now. When those somewhat older artists were still in school or had just left school, they were all working for Charles Ray - and many of them for Liz Larner as well. The piece they were working on with Charlie was the wrecked car piece, which was a labor-intensive piece. Ray fabricated with these students and ex-students every piece of it; the then young artists were learning not only technique and method but a work ethic. Charles Ray’s career changed after this piece. Just on the level of economics he goes from being an “artist-people-know” to being an “artist-whose- works-sells-for-millions-of-dollars”. Also, and this is almost complete conjecture, but I don’t think he is not really doing the same kind of intensive and studio-based “teaching” he was doing then. He is just too busy. Jason Meadows and Evan Holloway wouldn’t have dared to do something “like” Charles Ray. What would be the challenge? Why would that be exciting?

LS: Let’s go back to what has happened between 1997 and now. An important cluster of galleries have been established the latest years in an area in Chinatown, starting with the opening of China Art Objects in 1998, followed by David Kordansky, Daniel Hug, Sister gallery, Peres Projects and Black Dragon Society, to mention a few. And artists initiatives such as Joel Mesler organizer of Preuss Press – which is regarded as the archive of Chinatown. There has been a boom not only with a younger generation of artists but also younger galleries.

BH: Yes, but now it’s Culver City. Three years ago there was nothing going on in Culver City. Some of my favorite younger galleries still exist in Chinatown. David Kordansky, Daniel Hug and Sister are as important to the scene as any galleries are. But if you ask the New York Times why L.A. is hot, the only thing they are going to talk about now is Culver City – Blum & Poe, etc. Chinatown is still much more interesting than Culver City, which is an almost purely a side effect of the intensity of the current art market. The reason why

Chinatown came into existence is that it was a cheap, available space with a lively indigenous Asian aesthetic. I don’t want to romanticize it and say if there were less money there would be more interesting art, because that’s a silly notion. But at some point economies, dollars, do start to affect what risks are taken and what goes on. L.A. operates very differently than New York. Art in L.A. has a vital, important tradition, but in terms of economics it’s nothing. L.A. is financially driven by cultural industries -television, movies and music— which represent the cultural “sun” of L.A. In New York because of the Metropolitan, because of the Frick, because of the Whitney, because of the New Museum, because of Sotheby’s and Christie’s, because of Wall Street, because of art magazines being published there, because of fashion publications, because of MoMA and because of other major institutions—art is a very important cultural economic catalyst. And I don’t want to say that this isn’t the case in L.A. at all, but it operates very differently. There is no density of museum culture. We are never going to catch up with something like MoMA. MoCA in L.A. is never going to compete with MOMA. And it shouldn’t try to.

LS: Besides the new galleries that has established in Chinatown and Culver City what more has happened since 1997?

BH: One influential person is Dennis Cooper. He curated exhibitions and wrote about many of the younger artists’ shows. He had a real interest in what these kids were doing. The reason why these young artists got noticed earlier on was because of a single person - Dennis. Another very important person to mention - who has been working simultaneously to – or a little before China Art Objects – is Brent Petersen. He is a really crucial figure. He was an artist with Jason Meadows and Evan Holloway and that generation and opened up an alternative space called 702 Heliotrope Street (together with Mark Grotjahn). Brent then opened his own space in the same complex at 6150 where Mark Foxx and Acme are now. Brent Petersen did Paul Sietsema’s first show. He did a show with Jorge Pardo and Jason Meadows as well as one with Pardo and Richard Hawkins. He had a great show by Tim Rogeberg, who flooded the gallery and made which hovered above and planted their supports in the water; Rogeberg’s wonderful solar system was made up of planetary- and pod-like structures and fountains. Brent was doing really crazy things with this space and his is an important name that too frequently disappears.

LS: When did the gallery close?

BH: The gallery ran for at least a year – maybe for a year and a half. It’s main year was 1999. But for many of those artists, 98 and 99 was a really crucial period – they had their first or important early shows then. Another show that was quite important, if only on the level of great fun, was called Malibu Sex Party, a completely artist-driven shindig at this one-time rental space on Venice Boulevard in 98. Many of the artists in the show didn’t have galleries yet, and it was really about independence. The feeling was “well we know there are these galleries, but they’re not really doing what we want them to do, so we’re just going to do our own thing in the best sense.”

LS: There are two important L.A. exhibitions: Sunshine & Noir, L.A. 1960 -1997 curated by Lars Nittve at Louisiana 1997 and Los Angeles 1955-1985. The Birth of an Artistic Capital at Centre Pompidou, curated by Catherine Grenier, in March 2006. Both museum exhibitions aim to give a historical dimension on what is happening in L.A art scene today. The starting point of the exhibitions is the opening of Ferus Gallery in late 50s, introducing Pop art such as Marcel Duchamps, Andy Warhol, and ”typical” L.A. movements such as: finish-fetish light and space etc. How is a younger generation relating to these kinds of movements? I am thinking of Patrick Hill (who calls himself a ”perverted light-and space artist”) and Aaron Curry, who clearly relate to finish fetish using high gloss car paint on his wooden sculptures. It seems to me that they are using this reference with distance, humor and irony.

BH: Yes, they are. They are tapping into things many would find surprising, but, as I think we’ve made clear in this discussion, artists, not only in L.A., have always done such rummaging.

LS: In last Artforum, Thomas Lawson (dean at CalArts) wrote a review on the exhibition Los Angeles 1955- 1985 where he pointed out three important themes significant to the L.A. attitude at that time: One, the relationship between art and the movie industry, two, the openness to experimentation in both materials and technique and three, an unsentimental appropriation of whatever means prove necessary to the work. How does the younger generation artists relate to these themes?

BH: I think the best way to see how they relate is to look at their work and figure it out by and through that looking.

L.S According to an interview in the catalogue of Sunshine & Noir, Henry Hopkins who was Director of San Francisco in the 80s, director Art department UCLA and involved in in the 90s, the L.A. art scene seems to move from peaks to valleys. From the 60s introduction of pop artists at Pasadena Art Museum with Walter Hopps to the museums disappearance in the 70s, by the 80s and 90s L.A. art scene was in many ways driving the national scene. In 2006 L.A. art scene is growing more and more global and international in an era of large exhibitions, and curated biennales, artists and curators traveling all over. What impact does it have or what direction do you see?

BH: I don’t think it’s doing anything interesting to art. I’m for localism. Mute solitary gestures available only to long-term citizens. I’m glad that L.A. doesn’t have a major art fair or big-time action, glad that San Francisco doesn’t have them either. I’m interested in the discrete object. I am interested in temporality, in abstraction, in anything that slows down and fucks with the increasing intensity and speed of contemporary living, if that’s what you call it. I think that a lot of the work that comes out of L.A. weirdly slows down the pace – for example when Aaron Curry is putting Christina Aguilera and these weird commercial posters as a foundation for a wooden sculpture, a thinking person has to scratch his or her head and wonder, Huh? How is Christina a “base”? I don’t like production for production sake alone, and so much work is nothing but. I think, paradoxically, for most people, since Los Angelenos have the stereotype of being air-headed and non-thinking, that all we care about is surface and bodies. Um, and what, exactly, is wrong with that? Surfaces and bodies are important. The best sculptors coming out of L.A. are the ones really thinking about what it means to put an object into space and how it works with that space and how it works with other objects and how its surface engages the bodies around it. I couldn’t completely agree with Henry Hopkins. To me when people think of L.A., art is about the last thing they think. You have to already be deep in the art world to think of art in L.A. And that’s great! What most people think about when they think about L.A., and I’m all for them thinking it, is they think about Hollywood, they think about Disneyland, they think about stars on the sidewalk and they think about the Oscars. Of course, all these things are deeply integrated into what the visual, cultural production of L. A. Art is part of that intense mix, different from it but using it, considering it, allowing it to be rethought and not simply consumed.

London 2006-09-10