Why Los Angeles Is No Place For A Poet Anymore If It Really Ever Were

Poetry: the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.

Name the poets from Los Angeles who have left any long-standing impression on the form. There are not very many of them in my memory, Bukowski stands out, and make no mistake, Bukowski was an anomaly here. The landscape, the people and the culture of Los Angeles make it nearly impossible to write poetry.

I was looking through old notebooks a few weeks ago, from my time spent in both New Orleans and New York, and I found that I wrote poetry almost constantly. At bars, in backyards, subways and by the river. I wrote on public transportation and in bed. Now, in Los Angeles I find it impossible to write poems like I used to, and I have been trying to investigate why that is.

New York, Paris, Berlin, Rome, New Orleans and even San Francisco, these are places with a natural and consistent rhythm. It’s as if the collective energies of these metropolis’s converge into the consciousness of everyone and the poems feed from that energy. This is I attribute to the close quarters and constant feeling of connection with those around you that these cities provide. I am simplifying, sure, but I truly feel that Los Angeles may be the loneliest and happiest place in the world, all at the same time.

Los Angeles’s landscape is gargantuan. It covers 498.3 square miles, compared to other major cities, Manhattan = 22.7 square miles, Paris = 33.5 square miles, New Orleans is 363.5 square miles, but half of that is water and uninhabitable landmass. What I am getting at, is in these other cities all classes, colors, and ideologies are forced to come into contact on a daily basis. This is not the case in Los Angeles. Here we drive to work, to the store, to dinner. We eat in strip malls with people of similar income and similar color and beliefs. We eat at restaurants with one name that boast a “fusion” style meal, a melting-pot of cultures.

Let’s be honest, America was not meant to be a melting pot, it was meant to be a salad bowl, where flavors, colors and textures could co-exist in a harmony. We were not meant to all melt into some sludge of similarity. Hence, when I walk the streets of Manhattan or boldly spend 24 hours out and about in New Orleans, I come in contact with all walks of life, from the poorest man to the richest woman. In Los Angeles, I do not. I spend my time in bars and coffee shops with aspiring actresses, screenwriters and executives. These people not only seek fortune, but also fame. And the industry they seek it in lacks any motivation toward innovation, risk or being creative incendiaries.

Hence, poetry in Los Angeles is dormant, dead. And the poems that will inevitably flourish here are the shallow and lonely kind. A wish for intercourse with a model, a job on set, or paparazzi snapping photos outside an underwhelming bar. Whereas New York City’s poems are of echoing footsteps in late streets, the flicker of footsteps and the traces of hip hop playing from windows. In New Orleans it’s blurry bar rooms, sweat filled sexuality and the stinging sound of jazz. And in Paris it’s insomnia and politics. But, in Los Angeles, it’s Bukowski, drunk and alone with a whore, embarrassed by his face and longing for success, which he will only want to cover with more success.

This is what I began writing today, searching for poems and finding people at the table next to me bragging that they went to summer camp with a friend of Seth Rogens. Liking everything is failure. Failing is what people here perceive as success. Poetry is a bone cleaned of the meat that once held life and meaning. But to write and to do it well one must be in the rhythm of nature, hence when an individual lives his or her life against nature, they become detached and unable to find the natural movement of ideas and sentences. Once they become conscious of that, it becomes an escalating battle so frustrating that ultimately everything becomes so extreme that things seem hopeless. The poet, by this point exasperated, must remember that Nothing is a failure, everything is to learn.

Los Angeles, a poet’s town? Maybe not, but a poet living in this town, must work harder in his imagination or memory to transport himself to the locales that inspire him. Either that or he must move.

~ Craig A. Platt
5.30.2010

The National are America's Nostalgia, Sadness, Frustrations and Failures

Raymond Carver once wrote, “"What good are insights? They only make things worse." Listening to The National confirms that with a true American feel. We have spent nearly the last twenty years searching for a band whose sound and lyrical power could describe the modern American experience. Not since Nirvana has a band’s sound so completely encompassed such a large group of people.

Funny that no one really knows whom they are and that their music doesn’t play on MTV. There is a reason for that, see The National are not tailor made for the young generation. No, they are for the generation of people who have left their youth behind, the ones that search for meaning in the hours between leaving the office and falling asleep. They are the band for the foreclosed, the bankrupt, the failed in love and the stoic, softly glazed glance at a half of face hidden in a mirror behind a line of bottles.

With lyrics like, sorrow found me when I was young / sorrow waited and sorrow won and a little more stupid, a little more scared / every minute more unprepared. They insist on loss, late night, glaring lights, blurred vision and all in the deep textured baritone of lead singer Matt Berninger.

What’s more surprising is last night at The Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles they filled a big room. A big room there to hear them, the headliners and they philosophized about loss, love, liquor and long winter nights. And standing there wondering what all these upper middle class hipsters were doing standing around listening were finding in the music. With a literary scene that has become overly cute with meta-narratives and wildly imaginative investigations of eastern European family trees, I realized that people were still seeking out pure Americana. And then it hit me, The National are America's nostalgia, sadness, frustrations and failures.

They are instinctively an American band, two guitars and a piano. They have a violin and drummer whose hits shake the room. The lyrics are literary and dreamy. They are indeed about loss and love. They are about a search for something. And maybe, maybe just maybe, the iPod, Blackberry, laptop, interweb scene is a little lost on what their bodies, their minds and their words are for. Maybe, just maybe, they need someone to remind them how low they could sink, how important flesh and blood and hate and sorrow are. Because, in the lyrics and the albums they create a litany of broken desperation woven into an American night.

And I'll try to find somethin' on this thing that means nothin' enough, is the lyric that leads into the chorus of Lemon World off the new album, High Violet.

And the great American short story writer Raymond Carver wrote: "life was a stone cutting and grinding..."

Perhaps The National have more in common with the great American Literary Voices then they do with modern pop music. Troubadours whose songs transport us to rural areas rainslicked and lonely, a bar room drama unfolding in a lonesome and desperate American night.

~ Craig A. Platt

5.23.10

BYSTANDER PRESENTS TRASHED, JUNE 12, 2010

#TRASHED

Dear Art World,

I would like to begin by apologizing in advance for letting you down, unfortunately we lack the financial backing we’d like to have, we have a small gallery here at Bystander, we’re working out of home on this thing.

Even more offensive to you, Art World, we’re going to hang the show in our home. But let’s be honest, the artists we chose can’t always paint masterpieces, sometimes they have to create some trash, make some mistakes, and well, if you laugh at the art or call it trash, that’s okay, it’s the name of the damn show. And you know what, Art World, we don’t really give a shit what you think, because according to most of your superstars everything they do is art and sometimes when they’re together they can’t help “pooping out art.” Right Terrence? So here it is, Trashed, stripped down and honest for the world, or the six people who show up to see.

The art world is flush with clean walled galleries, relaxed dealers standing with arms folded in the center of it all happy to discuss the importance of a work, the social and political significance of a photoshopped hi-res photo of some woman’s cooch spray painted and a pregnant woman peeing in the woods, or some specific drawing of a city's subway system, a blurred abstraction of a bird-on-a-wire, and maybe some words painted in clever phrases over bars of primary colors. The artists are in the business of flying from Berlin to LA to NY then on to Venice, and so on, as I’ve overheard or been boasted to at Mandrake on La Cienega. So how does a scrappy aspiring writer with aspirations towards owning a gallery finagle a group of rising art stars to show their work in his house?

For several years now I have been what I believe could be called a non-card-carrying fringe member of the exclusive art world. What that means is that I have attended more galleries that I care to remember, have seen the rise of art stars, gone to MFA open studios and plenty of house parties inhabited by complaining artists in every corner. To say it is a world I am fascinated by would be an understatement.

When a friend of mine challenged me a year ago to stop talking his ear off about what I felt was good and bad, right and wrong and the things I characterized as self-indulgent about the art world, and to begin writing good, well thought out criticism. I took him up on the offer, albeit not as often as I should’ve, and in addition I created the account I use on Twitter and the name of this blog, Artbystander. In that process I have met enthusiastic and ambitious artists, critics and fans, too many to name. These people have been an integral part in enriching my daily life and I thank them all for it.

Now, with another conversation being had on a Friday night after I’d had a few whiskeys and my friend in New York a few Makers deep as well, I blurted out the idea of having a gallery inside my house. A good idea, we both agreed, but how does one find artists interested in participating?

At the start I was without direction. Just a guy who thought it would be cool to have an art show in my house. I would randomly post to Twitter that I was looking for artists. And I received several replies of encouragement, but no artists came forward offering up their work for me to shill from the walls of my Silver Lake residence. A second conversation with an artist friend who was cleaning out his studio projected us forward to Trashed, or our hashtag on Twitter, #trashed. It took a few weeks of posts, ubiquitous quotes from art world public enemies and heroes, but eventually people started writing me and all of a sudden I had a group show in the works.

When I lived in New York and spent an inordinate amount of time with two artists and their friends from Syracuse University, I became obsessed with sitting in bars and scribbling on paper placemats, bar napkins, scraps of paper, etc… We’d try to trade drawings for drinks, start conversations with women based on some Sharpie’d work on a napkin, an incendiary work about some fraternity looking dude squeezing some poor NYU girl’s ass, we’d draw up some date rape work and the waitress would laugh, take it and bring us a free pitcher of beer.

My friend would say that work was “trash,” but to me it was art. So when I heard he was cleaning out his studio throwing out scraps of notes and sketches I offered to take it all and hang it in my house as a gallery show. He was up for it and Trashed was born. Now we have artists from all over participating and I’ve written what some may call the TRASHED MANIFESTO:

The show isn't meant to look clean or organized. It's meant to be studio trash, ramshackle and bare for the world to see and appreciate. Like looking at a skeleton or a gutted building. The raw materials. The individual parts rather than the sum of those parts. The idea of failure resonates in everything we do as aspiring artists, but begging the question, "what is art?" Also begs the question, "At what point do we fail as artists?" Perhaps the artist will send me art that didn't sell, or pieces they didn't think made the cut for a major gallery show. Or, maybe it's really trash, failed sculpture or collage, studies in color or maybe a notebook full of communist ramblings. Really, it's up to them to decide what the trash in their life is.

Trashed will let people know it isn't all finished product. That work goes into the art. That we're studying, learning, and progressing as artists and people

We will be holding an opening and closing reception and will be scheduling appointments with people interested in the art. The opening will be held on JUNE 12, 2010.

Some ground rules for the art. This is all going to be living in my home, so nothing that will rot, invite insects; strong smelling items would be bad too. Art will be mounted on the walls and items may be placed on the floor as well.

No framing any of the “trash.” In fact, if it feels right we may collage it into one big piece or maybe not. I want this show to feel fresh and well, like trash. But, really to the artist it may be trash, but to art fans it is not and that is my goal, to give them a chance to own art.

Finally let’s introduce you to the artists participating in Trashed. As we receive materials I will post to the blog previews of the flotsam we receive. Trashed is:

Jonathan Allen: (http://www.jonallenart.com/)

Leticia Bajuyo (http://www.leticiabajuyo.com/)

Jennifer Dalton (http://www.jenniferdalton.com/)

Jennifer Faist (Jennifer Faist on Art Net)

Olympia Lambert (http://olysmusings.blogspot.com/)

William Powhida (http://www.williampowhida.com/)

Garric Simonsen (http://antipainter.com/home.html)

Mark Venema (http://markvenema.com/)

Jeff Woodbury (http://www.jeffwoodbury.com/)

Please welcome them all to the show. Most importantly the thing you should come away with when you visit Trashed and you see the work on display, is that this is Trashed, we aren’t saying we’re important or that you should stop and take notice of us. But, what we do say is that if you do decide to stop and take notice, well, you will be pleasantly surprised. Art isn’t just for people that own multiple homes, employ hundreds of people and drive European SUVs to polo matches on the weekends during the summer. No, art is for those sweating it out in beer halls and back rooms, believing in singular moments versus bodies of work. TRASHED and the art it contains is for those who find the holy in oily puddles, desperate kisses, blurred red lights in drunken diver bars. TRASHED is for you, the person reading this right now.

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP: The World’s First Street Art Disaster Movie

It’s important to understand first that no one likes to be picked on. It’s not an assumption I am working on here; it’s the cold hard truth of the matter. As a result of the first statement above we can conclude that in fact everybody likes, or likes to think, that they are in on the joke. This is why Banksy has become so important to the art world and it’s fringe of collectors, skate-punks, skeptics and hardcore believers. Banksy not only attracts the avid art follower, but he attracts the person who could care less about art. He attracts the disenfranchised, the non-committal and the trying-to-be. And bringing us all into his circle without ever actually revealing his true self or speaking to any of his fans, in this he allows us all to both think we are in on the joke and makes us the punch line to his continuing prank on the world, specifically the art world.

“Exit Through The Gift Shop,” is a funny movie. It is exciting to see these street artists at work and to have an insider look at the art they create and put out into the world. The premise of the movie is simple enough, a Frenchman, Thierry Guetta, living in Los Angeles with his family becomes obsessed with his video camera filming everything in his daily life, wife, kids, job, car, parking lots, basically any and everything. On a trip home to France he begins filming his cousin who is the famous street artist Space Invader. After filming Space Invader’s exploits on the streets of Paris he becomes obsessed with not only Invader and his friends, but with the danger and life of making street art. He is not only passionate about documenting those who make the art, but with the visceral experience of posting said art it in obscure and sometimes dangerous locales. Upon returning to Los Angeles he begins filming street artists, one of them being Shepard Fairey. And he slowly becomes obsessed with the most secretive and elusive street artist of all, Banksy.

In Los Angeles Thierry is finally introduced to Banksy by Fairey, who is under the impression that all the tape Thierry is filming will someday become a documentary about the artists. Thierry for his part has explained that is his intention, though he has no idea how to make a film, the tapes are in boxes seldom labeled and if so done poorly. The elusive artist Banksy takes Thierry up on his offer to be his guide of Los Angeles’ prime wall space and they venture out into the night to tag the city.

Not to ruin this or write an entire summary, but at one point Banksy demands to see the documentary and Thierry, not wanting to disappoint his friend and hero, begins editing something together. When he believes it’s done he flies to Bristol to show Banksy and the reaction is poor. Clips of the film are presented in rapid-fire editorial style with explosions and sirens and static resulting in a disastrous piece of cinema verite. Banksy gently recommends that Thierry lend him the footage and go back to Los Angeles to put on an art show of his own so that he can work on his own version of the film. The alter ego Thierry conceives for his street art adventures is Mr. Brain Wash (MBW). MBW goes head on into the process, selling his business, hiring an army of artists, renting a former television studio and building the biggest street art show Los Angeles has ever seen. The result is an insanely successful art-show with Thierry becoming the heir apparent to Banksy and Fairey. A man with no artistic ability who appropriates Warhol into a street art aesthetic sells out his show, becomes a millionaire and gathers praise from collectors, casual fans and hipsters alike. That is the movie.

But, what is the movie really saying? Banksy is happy you like art and that you spend money on it. Banksy realizes that the chatter and recognition is fleeting and for the most part meaningless. Banksy wants you to know what a follower you are.

Banksy’s film takes on the convention, the pomp, circumstance and prestige of the art world and spray paints a red flag on its back. In “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” he turns a funhouse mirror on all of us who want to be on the inside. Those who want to create legacies and receive praise. It seems though that getting all of those things is as easy as collecting all your energies into one endeavor, pouring every cent and thought into it and simply taking what has been successful and appropriating it as your own.

Thierry’s endeavor into the art world is a screaming success, people at his art show lined around the corner, the same result of Banksy’s show a year earlier, with MBW having done nothing previously to warrant such attention. In fact, in less than a year MBW apparently materialized out of thin air and created a reputation as one of the edgiest and most brilliant living artists in the world. So, how did it happen? Or better, why? The hype machine, the fast food of it all is that Thierry, or Banksy, or whoever pulls the puppet strings, is showing us that anyone can be successful as long as they steal from other successful people. Either that, or as he mentions later, spend years working; learning, creating and maybe someone will take notice of your work. Or they won’t, what does it matter.

As we’ve seen with certain bloated artists who no longer make their own art, but instead hire an army of talented assistants to execute outlandish ideas that fan the egos and consciences of those conservative elitists who want to appear liberal and in on the joke, and spend their sometimes hard earned money to prove it.

Banksy appreciates your appreciation, but he also laughs at it.

The movie is a fun trip through the street artists life, a glimpse into their sense of humor and their penchant towards late night vigilantisms. It’s extremely enjoyable and most importantly a reminder that art is about expressing yourself and having fun.

~ Craig A. Platt

4.18.2010

Fiction Writing, Art, Writing...And A Brief History

THE HISTORY OF WHAT I FOUND

When I decided that writing was the profession I wanted to pursue I was, in my mind, late to the game. As a student in high school I was truant, disinterested and unsure where I fit in the world. I grew up in a small suburb of New York City without any mass transit to the city. I was trapped. My friends all had parents with similar backgrounds to my own, participated in sports and became fans of mainstream music. There was little discourse in my life regarding art, literature or the world outside of New York State.

I moved away to college in Colorado, which felt like an odd extension of my hometown, and I began to grow more shy and introverted. I had spent so much time trying to be popular, interesting and to fit in at all, that I had lost sight of my most prized possession, my mind. It was that first semester of college that I wore myself down trying to make it to every party, drunk and stoned and searching for friends who wanted to discuss something more than when a concert was happening or what sports were on TV. I found that in books, in silent dialogue between my eyes and the words printed on the page. I started with simple literature and eventually dug deeper.

After that first year of college I moved to New Orleans, which was a terifying moment of self-realization. I had for 19 years refused to have an identity and that had cause me so many nights of restlessness. Even worse, not having a personal preference or identity for that long opens you up to the type of personal criticism that could act as an agent counter to the development of personal preference. I found myself constantly being discounted by friends and elders as I took the road to discovering a voice of my very own. I remember that the first piece of art that spoke to me was THE LIVES AND TIMES OF ALLEN GINSBERG a wonderful documentary about the poet. Besides the title, what left the biggest impression on me was Kerouac. And the summer leading into New Orleans I read every book Kerouac wrote, grew an affinity for Port wine and trains.

At Tulane I read Thomas Wolfe, because Kerouac spoke of him constantly, and then I finally understood trains as the blood and tracks as the vains of old America. From there it was all the books by Hemmingway as I skipped every class that semester and then James Joyce for Christmas break. First, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and then Ullyssess. From there I hit Dylan Thomas and by then I was restless and typing constantly, not sure what I was doing.

Simply put, I thought writing was the practice of developing legend or myth. When I look back now, I believe that is indeed what writing is, as is art, music, and basically any artistic endeavor, even the ones I lack the capacity to describe with words. And maybe this shouldn't hinder you from your own opinions about art, but it was a very personal thing. I was an underdeveloped person and art was the place where I finally found my voice.

THE PART ABOUT BOOKS

The thing about books and I learned this rather quickly. They are maps. They are maps to history, to the pyramids and the railroads. To religion, philosophy, love, alienation and ambiguity. I cannot put one book down without wanting to pick up another one.

I was cocky once, saying I had read every book worth reading, but now I realize that is nearly impossible. I am now of the belief that while I think my writing contributes to the greater picture of literature, that literature is an ocean and empty space is quickly filled in by the tide of words.

I read one thing which lead to another and another and have never been able to stop. History, fiction, poetry and essays. I read newspapers, websites, blogs, poems, art magazines. And books encompass them all. Everything can be found in a book. Nabokov has a story that describes a painting so well you would never want to see the actual painting. Regardless of what I try to convince you, I realize that everything is not connected, but there is a relationship occurring at all moments in time.

Tomorrow's Post Will be About Time.

To Sum Things Up

I write because of Calhoun Street in New Orleans. Because of the sound of trains, the burn of whiskey, the belief that love is holy and that a sensation can be summed up in a sentence like, the night was wet and humid, my mind was goopy and her breasts were pressed close to my chest in the Maple Leaf, Rebirth Brass Band playing a tune familiar to the way it sounds to enter a room and know that chaos will tackle you. My mind's mystery is the character of my friends and the way I see them all spread across the room dancing and sweating and finding something to break the silence of their bodies.

I write because I believe that someday I could be the reason you write. I write because I once was lost, and I am still lost and I may never be found, but from second line parade to boardroom meeting in my Hollywood office I feel sensitivity to the bum, the artist, the woman, the man, the drunk, the drip and the dream. I feel the earth shake at night and the sun shine in the day. Mostly, I feel guilt. Every moment is guilt.

Guilt: I should have read more. i should have written more. I could be painting, playing music, reading poems, feeling something stir inside me. I could be doing Paris on $2 a day, in Brooklyn with my best friend destroying a world.

The point is, I could be doing and I celebrate those who are. And here is the point of the night, for you people out there celebrating, complaining, being celebrated, being criticized. You are provoking some reaction. You are proving me right, I am done tonight.

Tomorrow I will discuss time and how it wants us all to die or live.

Pre-Roundup Thoughts

Lately I have spent an enormous time at my job, with my girlfriend, reading great writers and trying to re-enter the world of my own fiction. I have been working on a new novel, contemplating the idea of writing a screenplay about a legendary jazz musician and trying to find subjects to write non-fiction about for a larger audience.

It is precarious to be in my early thirties now. I used to look at thirty year olds as full blown adults, but now I know that dreams are always these metaphysical ideals that we are constantly reaching for. I have a job that many people dream of having or at least think would be very cool to have. I am not sure I can agree. I want to write sprawling fiction through the eyes of my twenty-one year old self, with the control and understanding I have now. Only, my eyes see things differently.

On criticism:
It is easy to criticize things, art, film, music, politics, athletes, etc... I do it, you do it, everyone does. But, when we critique something we need to truly believe in our critiques for them to be affective. This is to say, you need to have strong feelings, the skill to execute your ideas and the information to back it up. Not liking something isn't enough. I do not like Brett Easton Ellis, but I respect his work, he is neither lazy nor unoriginal hence I can not criticize him, in fact, I celebrate him.

On creating art:
A very good friend of mine makes art, shows art and is celebrated for it. If he were never to sell another painting he will have this moment in time. He has captured an audience and they are talking about him. I am very proud of him and the conversations we've accumulated over the last ten years have all found themselves in his work today. To say I am not jealous, would be a lie. He has control over his craft, like a sniper marine with his rifle, he takes aim at an idea and nails the target every time.

And this leads to what the purpose of art is. Painting a picture, telling a story, writing a song, it seems that it is all the same thing at the heart, getting something across, something you need to remove from yourself, nail to a post and let the world see. I need to remember that more. That's the reason I started writing. Observing, seeing the cracks in the foundation and filling them with ideas.

Ending:
I do not know why I just decided to post this idea rant. But in summary, I want to be a better person in terms of my art and appreciating other people's art. The books I read, movies I see, songs I hear and art I look at, I want to celebrate not just the finished product, but the process, the motivation, the furnace that burns and heats the moment.

~ Craig A. Platt
12.11.09

L.A. Art "Scene" Roundup 9.12.09

Los Angeles Gallery Roundup 9.12.09

It seemed like this weekend was the kickoff of the Fall Art Season in Los Angeles, so I decided to head out with my acid tipped pen to see what all the buzz was about. I recognize that I have stayed West of Chinatown thus far, and I promise to rectify that situation.

As the date approached I began assessing life in Los Angeles and how the art here reflects upon it. Rarely do I see an unattractive person in Los Angeles and when I do they undoubtedly have an attractive person in tow. Without fail I always overhear a person talking about this or that person who sold a script or starred in some pilot, an introduction already in the works. To sum things up, life is perfect in Los Angeles and everyone is on the up and up. To compare this to New York is silly. New York is the home of the beats and the abstracts, people proud of their calloused hands and working class backgrounds, people who saw the angelic in the destitute and depressed. Los Angeles aesthetic is look poor live rich. Hence the skinny jeans, scraggly beards mixed with Mercedes, iPhone, Blackberry and three hour lunches on platinum cards.

So why should the art be any different than the people, fleeting. This is just an idea mind you, but the Los Angeles art scene seems to focus on the beautiful and the vapid. All sweet sticky paintings that’d look good over your sunstained bed while you make love to unreal blond you met at Bar Marmont the night before. I am not complaining, this is the art you’d hang at vacation homes in Laguna, Palm Springs or Santa Barbara. But, what is marching into museums and history here? And if it is, who got their daddy to buy it and donate it.

Anyhoo, here we go with the roundup, more thoughts on all this later. Decided on a quick crawl this week as work had been crazy and I wasn’t in the mood for a marathon. The idea was to go through West Hollywood and straight to Culver City. Do the galleries fast, get out and go to Father’s Office for libations and burgers. The mission was accomplished and if you followed me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/artbystander) you know it wasn’t a horror show like last time. Though there are a few galleries that I will challenge to do better.


REGEN PROJECTS
DOUG AITKEN
September 12 – October 17, 2009
Nothing like light boxes of pretty and somewhat over photoshopped photography, with words no less. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for words, hell I type them nightly, but when you put words in your art you can really lose your audience fast. The press release states that, “Doug Aitken's new light boxes combine image and text in a collision that creates a rupture in which alternate connections are presented.” I say, phooey. These are the perfect example of a Los Angeles art. Aesthetically there isn’t much to complain about, the art is good looking, the artist is skilled, but there is little to no commentary. Photos of Vegas in it’s raw form don’t even feel like an exposition on the seedy underbelly, it feels like a ripoff of some hip California bands album cover. Regen Projects continues to let me down showing cheesy LA art filled with meaningless words and lame art. Lightboxes might be the single most annoying idea for photography. If it isn’t a one sheet for the next kids movie keep it out of a lightbox please. This show was boring, pretty and boring, like a blind date with a beauty from Iowa moved to Los Angeles to make it as an actress but working at a sports bar to pay the bills and waiting for someone to discover her.


M + B
Andrew Bush: Vector Portraits
September 12 – October 15
M + B’s clean space and dreamy west coast photos are rewarding to the viewer for what they are, sensuous views of the Left Coast lifestyle. Bush’s subjects are all driving cars in the beautiful west coast sunshine. As a child of a family of car enthusiasts I appreciate the Americana of it. That he doesn’t capture the entire car and chooses to photograph the driver’s side from back window to side mirror allowing you to complete the car as you like only adds to it. This is the type of eye candy that I expect in Los Angeles and would never complain about seeing. It’s Hockney’s Los Angeles in photo, people driving to those Los Angeles homes to lay beside pools, drink fruity beverages and discuss four picture deals and minorities on their way to the country club where they’ll be caddying and serving Arnold Palmers to those very same dealmakers. It’s Manifest Destiny on Kodak Paper. Go see this work for a little glimpse into the left coast lifestyle, stay for the California dreamin’.


KOPLIN DEL ORO
Sandow Birk: American Qur’an
September 8 – October 30
The first stop in Culver City was Koplin Del Oro for Sandow Birks controversial show, which should come as no surprise to the Los Angeles Art Gallery goer, was anything but controversial. American images confronted with a Muslim font style and basic feeling. This work , if you took the time to read it might say something interesting, but the whole idea of an artist born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and educated in Los Angeles choosing this subject matter, “An ongoing project to transcribe the entire Koran according to Islamic traditions and illuminate the text with scenes from contemporary American life.” Simply put, the Koran and contemporary American life have very little to do with each other. Another example of an American grabbing onto a hot American topic and trying to appropriate it as a commodity that will help in being controversial while saying little and making some money off the heat. The price point was high and the art was boring. This show looked good from outside but quickly became a bore.


KINKEAD CONTEMPORARY
James Everett Stanl ey: Let It Burn
September 12 - October 31, 2009
The last time I visited Kinkead Contemporary it was offering the tired insider Artist photography of hip artist hell that makes me vomit in my mouth and spit it on the floor. This time they were presenting James Everett Stanley’s portraits painted to reflect the destruction happening all around us. They are, “subjects transfixed by the after-effects of destruction and loss.” This is a subject a native New Yorker can really get behind. And you know what, they were the first truly memorable thing I’d looked at in a while. The portraits did fall short on a few walls, but the direction was right and it was a nice reprieve from Sandow Birk’s over-worked, over wrought work. Everett’s playful imagery of the end of the world was reflection on the “scenes” inability to grasp that their even is a world outside of the thirty-mile zone. Still, the playfulness suggested slightly that the artist was as clueless as the members of the scene and in that sense it fell slightly short. To say it nicely, the art lacked an angst or anger that would’ve helped enormously in putting it over the edge. In summary thought, these works are totally worthwhile and should be looked at.


LeBasse Projects
Edwin Ushiro: Softly Encompassing the Womb
Ryuichi Ogino: Idealistically Hypocritical 3
September 12, 2009
LeBasse is a solid visit for the dreamer. The art is affordable and typical eastern in nature. Those dreamy Anime type landscapes where women float lazily in the lavender gloom that leave you wishing you could disappear into some early summer sunset floating along the waters of thought. These paintings are not reinventing the ways we see canvas, but they are a nice escape from an art scene that is obviously trying very hard. The couple I brought along even bought a reasonably priced study on graph paper. Ryuichi Ogino is an analytical painter trying to interpret entertainment as a medium that can never attain the categorization of art, if it has value then it is inevitably whimsical and poppy and not worth it’s seriousness. Edwin Ushiro’s dreamy suburban images of couples, kids and lost souls dangling rebelliously in the sunwashed early evening are like a strong drink of gin. You lose yourself in the mindbending colors and hope that the ledge isn’t too far off or perhaps you may drown in their dreaminess. All in all a good show and firm reminder that adults can still maintain their imagination.


KINSEY/DESFORGES
Angelika J. Trojinarski: After the Gold Rush
September 12 – October 10, 2009
Let’s start by saying this is the first opportunity this critic has had to say he’s reviewing and artist from Dusseldorf, and wow is that a fun word to say. Unfortunately the art lacked a firm commitment to the subject matter. It felt propagated on one bad idea. The releases explained that, “variegated decay and abandonment are the protagonist of Trojanarski’s work.” This Dusseldorf has a weird way of showing it, slow to materialize abstracts and plays on the old abandoned west, it felt like a show lost on it’s own ideas. An idea of an America past it’s prime, lost in itself. The unfortunate thing about this show is the America on display isn’t the American the artist is referring to. This artist shows with Saatchi and is probably much richer than I am, but still, at least I can stay on subject.


CHERRY & MARTIN
Brian Besse: The Royal Box
This video installation of ironic hipster artist singing and cracking inside jokes that passers by pretend to understand is a continued trend that must be stopped. Just because it seems cool, e.g. you do not understand it, doesn’t mean you should smile, nudge your pal, and pretend it’s the greatest thing since Kraft Mac and Cheese. It’s described in the press releases as an, “Unapologetic exploration of human nature, relationships and desires.” This was not what was on display in the work. But, of course, maybe I have no idea what I am talking about and this was brilliant. Probably not, but if it helps you sleep at night, then sure.






KIM LIGHT / LIGHTBOX
MALONEY FINE ARTS PRESENT: Malick Sidibé Photographs: 1962-2008
These photos speak for themselves. Very fun to look at. The photographer approaches his subject with the eye of a person appreciating every bit of joy, bravado, machismo, celebration or loss in the image and the subject. I really enjoyed these photographs in their primitive and slightly overexposed glory. Every one who stepped into the gallery gravitated to some image and moved closer to the image as if there were something hidden, as if they got close enough they could enter into the image. Very wornderful.



TAYLOR DE CORDOBA
Claire Oswalt: Peril in Perfection
September 12 - October 31, 2009
These sculptural drawings by New York based artist (of course I would like it) capture people at the moment of violence. Working in the medium is wood and graphite on paper. While these works didn’t feel as if they have achieved what they’d set out for, they were very good. There were several striking elements to the work, that they are set off from the canvas, that they not only depict violence, but also cast a violent shadow make them doubly haunting. Claire Oswalt has captured something so grotesque and added an element of campy humor to boot, so that the expressions on these people’s faces reveal the ridiculousness of the moment, a drunken argument perhaps? A misunderstanding in the high school parking lot? A love lost? These questions along with figures that seem to be puppets, seem to be able to be moved at any moment, create a piece of art that is like us, ever changing. This was a good opening and definitely worth a look.



WALTER MACIEL GALLERY
Song Kun: Seeking the Recluse but Not Meeting
September 12 - October 31, 2009
This show felt incredibly strange. The paintings all based in a gray fog of people lost in moments of reflections. While technically the art seemed worked to perfection, the detachment was haunting and almost inhuman. It’s as if the artist had taken all the blood and life out of the subjects and turned them into a mannequins floating in life. Song Kun’s undeniably a gifted artist, but his works detachment from real life makes the paintings into ghosts on the wall, almost afraid to approach them you use caution and with your guard up it becomes hard to appreciate the work. This is a show I would actually like to go see again before it comes down, it’s haunting beauty like an uneasy moment revisited in your memory. Like a character from Haruki Murakami, anonymous and searching for something lost, while being lost at the same time.


LA CONTEMPORARY
Debbie Han: Hybrid Graces
September 12 - October 31, 2009
I don’t have much to say about this show except that for whatever reason, I got a kick out of it. Thrown in between all these contemporary works the study of these classical Greek style sculptures made me laugh and I enjoyed it for that. Definitely worth a look to make you imagine what art was like back when people wore togas.



JK GALLERY
Group Photography Exhibition
David Burdeny, Irene Imfeld, John Mann, Paula McCartney and Stephen Galloway
September 12 - October 31, 2009
Without sounding too condescending and realizing that there have been a lot of words already in this roundup, I will simply state that the JK Gallery’s Group Photography Exhibit lacked originality. I went in, I went out. I felt no contempt for the show, nor did I see it as anything different than looking at a bunch of pictures on a friends Facebook profile. I am done, the real rant is about to follow.


HONOR FRASER
Kenny Scharf: Barberadise
September 12, 2009 — October 31, 2009
Now Honor Fraser and I just don’t seem to get along. While I appreciated some of the work in the galleries last show, the Emma Gray curated Bitch is the New Black, which seemed to be overstuffed with art and a bit of a scene. This new show took it to a whole new level, leaving me reeling and wondering how this artists blacklight poster paintings of popular Sunday Morning cartoons found its way into a gallery which makes claims at being a serious art space. I am all for a commentary about pop culture and while I know Scharf is a bit of a heavy hitter hanging in major museums. I do not see the point of this work, nor did I enjoy it. Too much of the art world seems to be one opinion maker influencing the way we spend our Sundays in the future, pretending to appreciate something hanging in a museum and telling our children it’s art. Well, I for one do not want to live in a world where I would have to explain the paintings from Kenny Scharf in this show. Again, wall candy. But, I think Honor Fraser might be the reason my New York friends thing Los Angeles’s art scene is just one big, gaudy, infantile joke. It was the last show of the night and left me wondering what the hell is going on out here. I had to retreat to the comfort of red meat and sudsy beer.


In summary
To summarize tonight, I think Los Angeles is all about the “look.” You go into an audition out here and you have to stand out to make an impression. And maybe this is the art imitating life, the art being so concerned with making an impression that it forgets what it’s supposed to say once the person consumes all there is to see on the surface. Next stop will be Chinatown where hopefully I find some more work worth really thinking about.

Craig A. Platt
9.20.09