16 ArtScene

Patty Wickman, “Forty Days,” 2015, paintings. a spectacular piece to delight and amaze signed Readymades questioned the the audience — “Moon with Astronaut,” role of the artist and passed some a wandering white moon, rough and responsibility for determining what round, towing a tethered astronaut on its the art means to the viewer, was an daily orbit of the earth. The astronaut, influential presence in New York also painted white, is composed of hand avant-garde circles for years. Du- parts, that is, of fingers. The thumb is champ’s attempt to explore ideas the spaceman’s head and helmet, the of sexual identity via his adoption arms and legs are the other fingers. of the alternate female personality Disembodied from the hand itself, known as Rrose Selavy (in French the digits demonstrate a willingness say: “eros c’est la vie”), continues to to take on a new role, flexing joints to resonate with current concerns. The give the hapless space traveler some introspection and documented delib- ability to confront the moon. But the eration that enhanced the complex moon itself presents little comfort for iconography and construction meth- the finger man, for the orb is covered ods Duchamp employed in works with mouths, open and closed, lips, such as “The Bride Stripped Bare by pursed and parted, looking like suckers Her Bachelors, Even” have fueled on a rolling octopus. The effect of the countless discussions suggesting ensemble is both frightening and funny. innumerable interpretations of that Who are we to leap to a foreign body work, including the engaging claim that warns us — shouts at us — not to that it serves as an assault on art his- approach? Will the moon consume the tory’s depictions of virgin birth. He astronaut or are the two bodies in dia- has been long accepted as one of the logue, perhaps seeking rapprochement? single most towering creative figures There are no answers to this ex- of the last century. hibition, only questions, which is, of But ironically, the first major course, the point. Viewers who seek out American museum retrospective Wickman’s paintings are asked to con- awarded to the chess-playing art- template the sacred scenes and to enter ist was at a location far distant from spiritually or mentally into the space New York: the Pasadena Museum she provides for them. The spectators of Art. Staged in 1963, the exhibi- who wander through Hawkinson’s tion proved to be a coup for the West strange floating worlds full of odd be- Coast art world and the museum’s ings can only walk and wonder. These then Director, . At age are not artists who provide or give, but 31, Hopps, who had first seen Duch- rather demand and provoke. amp’s work during a high school vis- Jeanne Willette it to the Hollywood home of art col- lectors Louise and Walter Arensberg, was the youngest museum director in the country at the time. Having left JULIAN WASSER (which he founded in partnership with Ed Kienholz), (Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Hopps was appointed prior to con- Monica) Marcel Duchamp, whose struction of the familiar building that January, 2016 17 is now the Norton Simon Museum. been transfigured into a life sized, The Pasadena Art Museum was in its painted wooden sculpture that is the original home on Los Robles Avenue central attraction of this show. The at the time of Duchamp’s exhibition. sculpture is surrounded by Wasser’s That 1963 gala opening of Duch- contact sheets from this session of amp’s long overdue retrospective at- chess as well as various vintage and tracted a memorable crowd. Among modified photographs of Duchamp’s the local artists eager to make the show, including solo portraits of the most of the opportunity to exam- artist with his work. Appropriations ine Duchamp’s work firsthand and of many of the Readymades and con- in depth were Ed Ruscha, Billy Al ceptual works of art by Duchamp, Bengston, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, produced primarily by L.A. based Ed Moses and Dennis Hopper. TIME artist Gregg Gibbs, add a valuable magazine sent staff photographer Ju- dimension to the show. Alongside lian Wasser to cover the event. Was- reception shots featuring Larry Bell, ser had begun his career in the 1950s Billy Al Bengston, Dennis Hopper, as a teenager shooting crime scenes. Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha A devotee of photojournalist Weegee, and Andy Warhol, they allow view- Wasser’s reputation for capturing ers to re-experience the original Du- formative moments in L.A.’s history champ retrospective, an occasion of was alone vindicated with his staged greater significance in hindsight that image of the 72-year old Duchamp was apparent in 1963. playing chess with a young volup- Diane Calder tuous nude, Eve Babitz. The 20-year old girl agreed to this stunt, proposed by Wasser, to spite her romantic interest — the then- MICHAEL McMILLEN and married Hopps — while concurrently REBECCA CAMPBELL shocking the “little old ladies of Pasa- dena.” Hopps had refused to issue an invitation to Babitz for the opening (L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice) reception and Babitz sought revenge. Pull aside the blackout curtain and Wasser’s photograph inspired both enter a darkened realm of theatre and feminist critiques and opposing sup- deepest space. In Michael C. Mc- port addressed to Babitz years before Millen’s latest exhibit “Outpost” the she became an author and significant simple act of entry launches a cosmic presence in Hunter Drohojowska- voyage into time, space and fading Philp’s sassy 1960s L.A. art-world collective memory. One that bounces history, “Rebels in Paradise;” the weightlessly between history, make naught photo is the iconic presence believe and all the other stories we behind “Julian Wasser: Duchamp in tell ourselves about what human life Pasadena Revisited.” amounts to. The two main characters of the There are nine key pieces made Babitz-Duchamp chess game have between 1980 and this year that comprise this journey and, in typical McMillen style, they are all meticu- lously modeled from disparate found objects and materials that wear their age, or appear to, like residue from a life hard fought. In the heart of this spatial battlefield sits “Dr. Crump’s Mobile Field Lab”, an aging metal trailer that holds a trove of research artifacts, interrupted experiments and one of the artist’s cobbled together Julian Wasser, “Andy Warhol, Irving Blum, movies. As we enter and explore we Billy Al Bengston and Dennis Hopper, at the Opening Reception, Duchamp Retrospective, weave narratives about the vanished Pasadena art Museum,” 1963, vintage gelatin presence who once inhabited the lab silver print, 7 1/2 x 9 1/2”. until we exit to confront again the