Michael Heizer' sculpture Levitated Mass, LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announces that artist Michael Heizer’s monumental sculpture Levitated Mass will open to the public on Sunday, June 24. Originally conceived by the artist in 1969, Levitated Mass is a 456-foot-long concrete slot, over which sits a 340-ton granite boulder. As visitors walk through the slot, the pathway descends to fifteen feet in depth, running underneath the boulder before ascending back up. A formal dedication ceremony, open to the public, will take place at 11 am, inaugurating the artwork’s official debut. 

MICHAEL HEIZER was born in Berkeley, California, in 1944. He briefly attended the San Francisco Art Institute and moved to New York City in 1966, where he produced large-scale paintings. In late 1968-69, Michael Heizer chose to operate between his studios in New York and a ranch he eventually built in Nevada. Here, he began to produce large-scale sculptures such as Nine Nevada Depressions and Displaced/Replaced Mass, as well as large earth drawings and paintings on dry lakes in California and Nevada. To interpret these immense sculptures in a gallery setting, Michael Heizer developed his unique use of large-scale still photography in the form of collages and static projections. Several shows with oversize rock-in-floor depressions were produced in Los Angeles and New York with Ace Gallery. His 1969 artwork Double Negative (now owned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) inspired generations of artists. Michael Heizer is currently completing his largest project, City, begun in 1972. 

“This is a historic occasion, one many years in the making,” said LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan. “Thousands of families witnessed the transport of the 340-ton megalith to LACMA this spring, and now Michael Heizer has realized his artwork on the museum’s campus, where it will stand for generations to come. I am grateful to the many generous donors who made this incredible endeavor possible.”  

Levitated Mass was made possible by private gifts to Transformation: The LACMA Campaign from Jane and Terry Semel, Bobby Kotick, Carole Bayer Sager and Bob Daly, Beth and Joshua Friedman, Steve Tisch Family Foundation, Elaine Wynn, Linda, Bobby, and Brian Daly, Hanjin Shipping Co., Ltd., Richard Merkin, MD, and the Mohn Family Foundation. LACMA has dedicated this acquisition to the memory of Nancy Daly, former chair of LACMA’s board of trustees.  

“Nancy Daly was a passionate advocate for the arts and for children in Los Angeles,” said Terry Semel, co-chair of LACMA’s board of trustees. “Levitated Mass is a fitting tribute to her leadership and to her philanthropic vision. I know that so many people — children especially — will find inspiration and wonder in this monumental work of art.” 

Permanent installations of Michael Heizer’s sculpture can be found throughout the United States, including Seattle, Washington; Oakland, California; the Menil Collection and Rice University in Houston, Texas; the MIT campus in Boston, Massachusetts and the corner of 56th and Madison Avenue in New York City. Major exhibitions of his work have been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Foundazione Prada, Milan, Italy, and at the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Holland. 

LACMA

Los Angeles, CA, 90036, USA

www.lacma.org

SMMoA Project Room Exhibition Series. An innovative program initiative of the Santa Monica Museum of Art, California

NY/LA - A New, Annual Project Room Exhibition Series at Santa Monica Museum of Art, California

NY/LA is an innovative program initiative of the Santa Monica Museum of Art that diversifies SMMoA’s curatorial voice through an all-new, annual exhibition series. Developed by New York-based independent curator Jeffrey Uslip and SMMoA Deputy Director and curator Lisa Melandri, NY/LA connects emerging contemporary artists on the East and West coasts. NY/LA debut at SMMoA with two exhibitions on view through February 25, 2012: Adam Berg: Endangered Spaces (LA) in Project Room 1 and Georgi Tushev: Strange Attractor (NY) in Project Room 2

NY/LA identifies the intersections of contemporary art that emerge from both coasts and highlight important work from these cultural centers. The annual series will see Uslip and Melandri each select one artist from the East and West coasts, respectively, to show at SMMoA. The series also address current themes and practices of critical debate. Rather than present two artists who share thematic elements or particular artistic congruencies, Uslip and Melandri will select artists whose work represents emerging trends in contemporary art, creating a synergy that would not otherwise be explored.

"Both Los Angeles and New York are known for their innovations, their ability to spark new movements and cultivate new thought and action through art," Lisa Melandri said. "Our goal is to bring the best of both coasts together and elevate the conversation."

Through its bicoastal focus, NY/LA will promote an ongoing dialogue that links contemporary art across the United States. Having each lived and worked on the East and West coasts, Uslip’s and Melandri’s collaboration brings a fresh and original curatorial perspective to this new exhibition series. Uslip’s participation as an independent New York-based curator fulfills SMMoA’s continued objective to broaden its curatorial perspective through collaboration.

"NY/LA is a new program initiative that continues SMMoA’s commitment to innovative artistic practices,"  Jeffrey Uslip said. "By presenting concurrent project room exhibitions with one artist from New York and the other from Los Angeles, our aim is to foster a national dialogue between these two cultural centers."

With NY / LA, SMMoA continues to reshuffle and revitalize its programming.

SANTA MONICA MUSEUM OF ART, Santa Monica, California, USA
Museum's website: www.smmoa.org

Helen Pashgian: Columns and Wall Sculptures at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills CA

Helen Pashgian: Columns & Wall Sculptures 

Ace Gallery Beverly Hills CA

Through January 2012

Helen Pashgian

Columns & Wall Sculptures, 2011 - Installation View 

Photo Courtesy Ace Gallery Beverly Hills 

While meticulously constructed, the artwork of HELEN PASHGIAN shows no trace of the artist’s hand at work; instead, it concentrates on the final impression creating a tension between visual and cognitive perception. The artist’s intimate, small in scale works are enigmatic studies of light and color. Her larger pieces seem to defy their own creation in their intricate and minimal molding as elliptical volumes of light. A slow read is encouraged from the viewer, as one gains partial visual access without finding the origin of the image. While using light and color as exploratory materials, Helen Pashgian has created ethereal works from  industrial materials for her exhibition at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills. As stated by James Turrell:

“Helen Pashgian is a pioneer of the Los Angeles ‘Light and Space’ movement… [She] had the ironic stance of working in such a light drenched arena while maintaining the position of being an underground artist… [Her] efforts are now known.” —James Turell, Foreword. Helen Pashgian: Working in Light, Claremont, CA, Pomona College Museum of Art, 2010. 

Helen Pashgian, amid other artists working in Los Angeles in the late sixties such as James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Mary Corse, DeWain Valentine, Doug Wheeler, Larry Bell, and Peter Alexander, has investigated the properties of light in solid form for close to fifty years. Though Pashgian’s work may vary greatly in scale, regardless of size, her sculptures remain pristine and mysterious.

Helen Pashgian has recently created a series of eight-foot tall freestanding columns that take the form of vertical double-ellipses. Every column acts as conjoined twins, which elliptically fall in and out of each other. There is no end nor beginning, rather an envelopment of space and all that inhabit it. By making these sculptures large-scale, Pashgian has created a multitude of angles with which to play with light. The columns at times are just pure, self-supporting, luminescent color, in others Helen Pashgian has placed varying elements into the columns that change as viewers engage them from different approaches. The elements inside, whether they are a flat bar, metallic cylinder, or untraceable color, might appear to be an armature, but as each differs, no solid conclusions can be drawn. Mysterious as the construction is, Helen Pashgian has created tactile color with inner light sources emanating from the sculptures. 

Similar to her columns, some of the wall pieces have varying elements contained within; however, unlike her columns, Pashgian’s wall works appear to float. It isn’t immediately apparent how they are affixed to the wall. The enclosed elements not only appear to be shadows, but also cast shadows from within the pieces. As Kathleen Stuart Howe put it: 

“These interior elements at one moment capture a burst of light, then, as one moves around the sculptures, become solid forms that seem to push against the diaphanous surface… only to subside and dissolve into a ghostly presence.” —Kathleen Stewart Howe, Helen Pashgian: Working in Light, op. cit.

In contrast to her larger works, Pashgian’s small, twelve-inch squares are filled with intriguing contradictions: each conveys a sense of movement despite being fixed, each is small in size yet implies scale, each is predominately black yet colors come forth, and each is flat yet sculptural in nature. She takes what could be from a viewfinder, and frames it with a square, making for an intimate dynamic experience. There is a strong sense of movement within these smaller works –  a blurring effect, trails of light following larger sources – but at the same time there is an uncanny stillness, as if she has trapped light in a frame. Light may be as old as time, yet Helen Pashgian has found a way to reinvent how we look at it, taking a relatively small space and rendering it vast and expansive. In slight relief, she has layered her boxes, condensing luminance and giving the impression of threedimensions. Even though focused lighting may enhance the pieces, she has found a way to make colors glow in a natural light. 

Helen Pashgian does not reveal how her works come to fruition; instead, she leaves the viewer with what is there. Be they matte or so shiny that they glow, there is an obsession with texture and craft so meticulous that it is apparent that the artist has planned every vantage point. 

Born in 1934, Helen Pashgian currently lives and works in Pasadena, CA. She is currently included in the following exhibitions: The Getty Center, Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970, and the related Pacific Standard Time exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego,  Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface.

Ace Gallery Beverly Hills' Release

Collection California Abstract Expressionist Works Given to the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, by George Y. and LaVona J. Blair

The Crocker Art Museum has received a major gift of Bay Area abstract expressionist and other works of art, comprised of nearly 400 pieces by approximately 200 artists. The collection, given by George Y. and LaVona J. Blair, includes paintings and sculptures by many of the artists that defined this California movement, including Ernest Briggs, Edward Dugmore and Lawrence Calcagno. The works characterize the ideals of a momentous period in mid-20th century American art and mark the West Coast’s emergence as leading force in the art world. Works from the collection will be on public view in 2010 when the Crocker unveils its new 125,000-square-foot expansion designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates of New York.

While Abstract Expressionism dominated the New York art scene beginning in the mid-1940s, West Coast artists developed their own quintessentially Californian expressionist style. In close contact with the Beat generation of San Francisco writers, musicians and philosophers, many California artists focused on experimentation and the exchange of ideas in their work. These artists concentrated on portraying an inner reality through style and form as opposed to the emphasis on action of the New York-based artists. At the same time, many of the Californian artists continued to look to the landscape of the West Coast as a source of inspiration. Blair developed a passion for the West Coast style of abstract painting as a student on the G.I. Bill in San Francisco and amassed a nearly comprehensive collection of this work. 

“Recent years have brought a reassessment of the works by California’s Abstract Expressionist artists and an appreciation of the importance of this school in the history of American art,” said Scott A. Shields, associate director and chief curator, Crocker Art Museum.  “The Blair collection is extremely important to the Crocker because it represents a pivotal era that has been lacking in our collection of California art.  Thanks to the Blair’s generous gift, we are able to offer a broad survey of the story of artistic development in California since 1945.”

The Blair Collection was the focus of the Crocker’s 2004 exhibition San Francisco and the Second Wave, which was the first major exhibition to examine these artists. 

THE CROCKER ART MUSEUM, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, USA

crockerartmuseum.org