How I Met You: Shana Nys Dambrot

I think there is a new blog entry brewing..."How I Met You" Series.

Sometimes it does not come down to a single point or beginning,
but what happens in-between up to now.
I mean, like otherwise, we would be saying to ourselves, 'I wouldn't be here if I wasn't born'. Uh...

Regardless, it's fun to remember sometimes.

Here is how I met Shana Nys Dambrot:


Flash-back to 2004, when Gallery Revisited was at the first location in China Town.
We were installing the newest show, "Return to Ins and Outs".

We took a break to stroll a block away to Philippes' - Home of the Famous Beef Dip.
If you think that eating at restaurants with sawdust on the floor is "beneath you" *, literally and figuratively, then do not go there (either that or get over your pretentious self).
But I Digress...

So I'm eating my beef dip with hot horseradish mustard, and a glass of Cab from a giant box, I see a chick and some guy meandering around looking for a spot at a table to sit down and eat. They were wearing MOCA stickers - and were obviously doing a day of art downtown...Moca archives note this show was up around that time.

"Hi, I couldn't help but notice your sticker", I say. "Were you at the museum today?"

"Yes", she cheerfully says...and so it went.

I told her about my gallery, gave her my card and the rest is history.

Here are a couple of blurbs from the early Flavorpills she wrote up for GR:

March, 2004

Return to... Ins & Outs
Featuring local artists-to-watch Paige Wery and Vito Lorusso, this latest installment in experimental thematic gallery Revisited explores "augmented interiors and alternative landscapes." Wery's mixed media expressionism incorporates elements of nature, industry, and the everyday in complex, evocative visual juxtapositions. Lorusso, on the other hand, goes deep into detail, reproducing autobiographical moments with subtle psychological twists...

August, 2004

Paint, Paint, Paint
Jen Angeloro, Steve Jackson, and Paige Wery don't have much in common, but they do share a kind of fatal attraction to paint. You get the feeling that if they could eat it, breathe it, and marry it, they very well might...

* I hate it when people use that phrase.

critic critique pretty ugly art not so what

An excerpted excerpt in SF Gate response to Chihuly review:
"Many respondents insisted that they do not need a critic to tell them what art is or how good it is. Most complained that I denied Dale Chihuly's glass works the status of art and have no business doing so.

In today's culture, people need not merely critics to tell them what art is, but also artists, curators, art historians, art dealers, collectors - and the viewers' own education and sensibility.

In the consensus as to the art status of a piece or a body of work, each such participant has something to contribute, and each type of contribution has to be valued differently."

---
Not familiar with Chihuly? Here you go:
"Saffron Tower"

Chihuly is a contemporary glass artist/sculptor/fabricator.
"Reeds".

He owns a big compound with many assistants to help create his wares and installations.
"Chandeliers".

---
Is it art? That is so Da Da...
Is it pretty? Sure it is.
Does that make it good? That is like asking if the days are long.
Does all good art have to be depressing and ugly? No.
Do I think it's good? Some of it for simply what it is. (see images shown)
Does it have artistic merit? Ask someone with a Fine Crafts background.*
Does it have artistic merit? Ask someone with an Art History background.*

After that, have a drink and agree to disagree.

La Luz Saturday August 9th.

If you live in LA then you know what that the short term, "La Luz", stands for La Luz de Jesus, the seminal gallery and book publisher of Hollywood and the brainchild of Billy Shire, also of Billy Shire Fine Art.

So when you hear people say, "Are you going to La Luz tonight?", that is what they are talking about.

Billy gets flack for having a soap store, gift shop, gallery, bookstore all in one.
Although, I really have to say that these are idle conversations I hear in the art-opening chatter world, I have never heard of anyone actually telling him this to his face...besides knowing him he would probably just say, "So what" or something of that sort.

Anyway, he has a great art history and involvement and has launched many great artists. On a pop culture level, his family empires are solid.

Way back before I opened my gallery I applied to be a gallery assistant...I didn't interview with him, but later was told that they were just looking for a few kids. I will take that as I was over-qualified.
The job application was the craziest thing I ever had to fill out...I thought for sure I will get the job since I have an aunt who was deemed a Saint by Pope John Paul 2, in May 2000. María de Jesús Sacramentado Venegas de la Torre (1868-1959)
She prayed for some sick children who recovered from a severe heart condition, is what I gleaned from the Spanish explanation on the Vatican Website.
But I digress.

August 9th, is a book signing at La Luz.

Cherry Bomb is illustrated by Liz Adams, a Gallery Revisited fave and sweetheart illustraordinaire! I made that up, but it works.

It's a modern etiquette book...perhaps we could all use a little good advice and maybe some day we will be Saints too...uh, or at least just a bad ass girlfriend as the book proclaims.

$2 Bill Show Update

The $2 Bill Show organized and curated by Mat Gleason is up until August 23rd.

Here is an excerpt of what Mat said on his blog:
"The show started out as a necessity to fill the gallery over the summer. Artist Michael Hornyak had participated in our Autumn Juried show and the prize for that exhibit was winning a solo show at the i-5 gallery...

So I was hit with this inspiration for the $2 Bill show when I found this stack of $2 bills I had gotten at my bank a year or so ago. I posted the parameters for the show in my blog and a lot of people responded..."
---
There are some ultra amazing works, and you will just have to take my word on it, because I forgot to put the charged battery in my camera before I left for the show that night.
My favorite part of the project, was the fact that so many people cut up the $2 (including me):

Since I am a painter, my usual method involves applying layers and mixing, as opposed to taking elements away from something. But I love collage too, and felt a little bit like going back to my DaDa roots...

And since I recently closed the gallery, I feel like this is a time of purging, looking back on memories and taking some new directions. I've been wanting to simplify and have been working on some uncomplicated diptychs, so I decided to turn it into a diptych.

I really wasn't thinking too much about that fluffy romantic stuff while working on the $2, but in hindsight it makes perfect sense.

Mary Jean Mallman was in the show and she did a bunch of research on the $2 bill prior to creating her piece. She told me at the opening that Jefferson wanted money to be federally operated, not for private banks to trade...He lost, hence the term on the front,"This legal tender is for all debts, public and private." These are the actual printed words from the bill that I cut out to use for the diptych.


Some other "cutters" in the show whose work made me swoon and wiggle were YaYaChou, Leigh Salgado (whose pieces both sold btw), David Trulli (we bought that one), Carol Es - also known as "art cutter" did some hilarious painting, and the artist who did the faucet...I loved that one, really gorgeously executed $2 snips encased in a resin "waterdrop".

Other patterns in execution included eyeball imagery, resin with abstract shapes, lots of paint and added found objects, self-portraits, altering the teeny tiny faces on the back of the bill and animal heads replacing Jefferson's.

There are about 70 pieces in all, so just go see for yourself. The gallery is open on Friday and Saturday.

Installation at Riverside Art Museum: Painting's Edge

I helped Peter Frank and the Riverside Art Museum with the installation of the annual Painting's Edge exhibition last week. There are over 50 pieces in all.
The show opens on July 26th and is up until August 16th - kind of a quick show, so try to get over there and check it out.

Here is an excerpt from the RAM website show description:
Every year a two-week workshop in painting - painting techniques, painting subjects, painting ideas - takes place "up the hill" in Idyllwild, as part of the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program. Conducted from its inception by Roland Reiss, who began the workshop after retiring as head of the art department at Claremont Graduate University, "Painting's Edge" brings visiting artists and critics from the Los Angeles area and other parts of the country together with enrollees whose own ideas and ambitions as painters keep the dialogue lively, collegial, and productive.

The exhibition roster includes:

Faculty artists Roland Reiss, Carol Lee Chase and Andy Kolar.

Visiting artists are Mark Bradford and Peter Plagens.

Guest Artists are Micaela Amateau Amato, Laurie Fendrich, Jill Giegerich, Wendell Gladstone, Stephen Maine, Andy Moses, Leslie Shows, and Ben Weiner.

Artists who participated in the workshop: Irene Abraham, Neil Bender, Susan Connell, Robert Frashure, Christine Frerichs, Alexa Gerrity, Sophie Grant, Maureen Gutierrez-Prieto, Noah Haytin, Rachel Higgins, Victoria Jacob, Kirra Jamison, Kathryn Jaroneski, Chris Kahler, Karen Kauffman, David King, Aitor Lajarin, Daniel Lannes Pereira, Heather Lembcke, Casey Loose, Michelle Montjoy, Barbara Moody, Christine Morla, Mark Mullin, Sheila Nadimi, Kathryn Neale, Felicity Nove, Christina Ondrus, Trude Parkinson, Cathie Partridge, Kimberly Rose, Claire Stephens, Gretel Stephens, Lava Thomas, Kathleen Thompson, and Marcos Raul Valella.

Most exciting to me was also the Guest Lecturer and Critic, Fred Tomaselli. Unfortunately RAM could not get a painting of his for this show, not sure why.

Regardless, the work is really great and the installation works in all the varying architectural aspects of the museum.

Roland Reiss' floral piece with urban silhouettes in the center right.
Wendell Galdstone and Lava Thomas
Main Gallery Views



The show includes a Mark Bradford video, "Niagra".
Andy Moses and others are located in the museum front lobby.

The show also continues upstairs to the mezzanine which leads to...


...the Kristi Lippire solo exhibition "For the Birds" - and Katrin Wiess paintings.

Leora Lutz Go-About: LACE show curated by Christopher Russell

In June I went to "Against the Grain" at LACE, curated by Christopher Russell.
The show features Tom Allen, Brian Bress, Robert Fontenot, Wendell Gladstone, Matt Greene, Julian Hoeber, Brian Kennon, John Knuth, Amy Sarkisian, Ryan Taber, Ami Tallman, Kelly Sears, Anna Sew Hoy and Cheyenne Weaver.

Christopher gave me one of the best hugs I have received in a long time - a real firm bear hug. Aaawww.

I first became familiar with Russell's own work around late 05 at Skylight Books, my neighborhood book store. I was like - what is this art book about Pee-ing??!!
Later I went to a panel discussion on art books at LACE where he spoke...and in fact, Paige Wery was there too. We both bought a Russell "Bedwetter" piece:

It was sealed when we bought it, and when I opened it up I just laughed for days, because it was the weirdest thing that I had ever purchased. There's more to the relationship that has transpired between now and then,
but back to His show...

It is installed beautifully and the work really flows visually from piece to piece to piece and room to room. The religious references are evident in most, as well as the social implications of such beliefs, apocalypse, icons and retro societal practices associated with communication in conjunction with behaviors...perhaps even sin.

Here are highlights of some of my favorites + tidbits of conversation that transpired:

Christopher Russell promotes the artist of these animal paintings below as one of his favorites. Her name is Ami Tallman. Her creatures of nature innocent were colorfully arranged salon style as if flying around. A nice scatter that led into the other room of darker works.

In the same room were the very exciting paintings of Wendell Gladstone. I can never look away from something that involves a ludicrously necessary amount of taping, cutting, painting and the like. (detail here:)

I also am a huge sucker for color, the use of a whole ton of it and successfully.

At the moment he has a piece in a show at Riverside Museum which opens Saturday the 26th. That piece really fits the premise of this show, but perhaps it was not available to Christopher for the LACE show.
John Knuth, owner of Circus Gallery, "I love urban decay". His installation of found objects from the '60s:

Included was a petrified, as in dead and rigid, rat on salt in the corner.

Brian Bress, "Oh, you have a blog, right?" [aside; He recently curated a show at Angstrom, which I saw but didn't take pics. I ran into fette, and you can see pics on her site.]
These soft sculpture dominated from the side of the room, sort of listening to everyone gossip or go on about themselves and the work. Brian & Christopher told me that he is doing a stop animation video with an original score and I am looking forward to seeing that in the future.

We were all guilty of pretentious art opening banter, and for this I am sure we will all pay dearly in the afterlife...if we aren't beheaded or burned at the stake by these guys first.

This show ends on August 10th - so go check it out.