The Dutch Artist team Villeroy & Boch pose for COAGULA in their installation La Sindrome di Stendhal - Feb 02, 2008

This was a fantastic show and was funded by the local cultural wing of the Dutch Government - more Southern California galleries are turning to foreign consulates for funding and this creates a more international atmosphere at Los Angeles Galleries. The well-funded shows are usually of high caliber artists and local galleries have expenses like advertising and postcards covered by the cultural commissions and consulates. Galleries have discovered that by offering a show to a European artist, that artist can apply for a grant to help defray the costs of constructing the art for the show, promoting the exhibit and even buying good European beer for the opening. At the dawn of the new recession, expect more local galleries to tap into the European funds available and with the weakening dollar, expect more of these consulates to see hosting shows in L.A. as both hip AND affordable within the structures of official grants.

PLUS - some people still view Europe as being a continent with taste, sophistication and style. I said “some”…

–Mat Gleason

Just posted on ArtScene Visual Radio is the February edition of The Mat Gleason Seven.

This month’s show features reviews of SOME PAINTINGS at Track 16 Gallery, solo shows by Oliver Arms at Western Projects and Mark DiSuvero at L.A. Louver, an examination of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the scandals around the non-donation of Broad’s art collection to LACMA and, finally, a discussion of the phenomena of juried group shows for emerging artists. Listen at the link above.

Just posted on ArtScene Visual Radio is the February edition of The Mat Gleason Seven.

This month’s show features reviews of SOME PAINTINGS at Track 16 Gallery, solo shows by Oliver Arms at Western Projects and Mark DiSuvero at L.A. Louver, an examination of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the scandals around the non-donation of Broad’s art collection to LACMA and, finally, a discussion of the phenomena of juried group shows for emerging artists. Listen at the link above.

I am still in shock and deep sadness over news of the death of Coagula New York Editor BAIRD JONES. This man gave our publication enthusiastic support and validation for most of the past 9 years. He would have enjoyed his NY TIMES obituary.

Baird Jones with artist Victoria Gotti at her debut solo show that he curated.

I am still in shock and deep sadness over news of the death of Coagula New York Editor BAIRD JONES. This man gave our publication enthusiastic support and validation for most of the past 9 years. He would have enjoyed his NY TIMES obituary.

Baird Jones with artist Victoria Gotti at her debut solo show that he curated.

I will write more about Baird over the next few days and probably publish some of it…

There was a happy celebrity-peppered elbowing crowd at Gagosian on Thursday night for the opening of Julian Schnabel’s show of oversized lush earth-colored paintings of bones (which had been used in the credit shots of his latest academy award nominated film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Schnabel, the Director, posed with Larry Gagosian and then wandered through the gallery taking with friends and well-wishers.

He backed up into into a small side-gallery where three absurd new compositions of his featured cotton balls stuck onto faded red velvet framed in plastic replicas of oak frames ornamented with acorns. He made it in just as our Coagula photographer was shooting the objects saying “Ridiculous!” L.A. gallerist Andy Schwartz discreetly let us know ?€?He’s right behind you.?€?
We then asked the maestro about his cotton picking art.

Coagula: So how did you make this piece?
Schnabel: It took me 20 years to do it.
Coagula:??
Schnabel: I had that red piece of velvet for 20 years, and last week, I stuck the cotton balls on it… Took me 20 years to do it.
Coagula: And the frames?
Schnabel: I had them.
Coagula: Does the cotton evoke anything in particular for you?
Schnabel: What?
Coagula: Does the cotton signify anything, say fragility, temporariness…
Schnabel: It’s just cotton. No bunny rabits. It’s just what you see. Cotton.
Coagula: Fuck you.

Over whose eyes do you think you are pulling the wool, Dude?!?!? Fortunately, Schnabel is spending more time making movies and really good ones. He told writer Stephanie DuTan that he is working on the next one already. He obviously doesn’t have cash problems. Tragically, most of these truly terrible works had sold before the opening.

The ?€?artwork?€? in question

Artist Julian Schnabel, 2-21-08

Anyone who is not a jaded Hollywood fuq will agree: actress Tilda Swinton is stunning in person

John Waters from behind

Look carefully for COAGULA editor Mat Gleason in the throng of the Gagosian crowd…

Pictures of the bash at COAGULA DOT COM

There was a happy celebrity-peppered elbowing crowd at Gagosian on Thursday night for the opening of Julian Schnabel’s show of oversized lush earth-colored paintings of bones (which had been used in the credit shots of his latest academy award nominated film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Schnabel, the Director, posed with Larry Gagosian and then wandered through the gallery taking with friends and well-wishers.

He backed up into into a small side-gallery where three absurd new compositions of his featured cotton balls stuck onto faded red velvet framed in plastic replicas of oak frames ornamented with acorns. He made it in in just as our Coagula photographer was shooting the objects saying “Ridiculous!” L.A. gallerist Andy Schwartz discreetly let us know “He’s right behind you.”
We then asked the maestro about his cotton picking art.

Coagula: So how did you make this piece?
Schnabel: It took me 20 years to do it.
Coagula:??
Schnabel: I had that red piece of velvet for 20 years, and last week, I stuck the cotton balls on it… Took me 20 years to do it.
Coagula: And the frames?
Schnabel: I had them.
Coagula: Does the cotton evoke anything in particular for you?
Schnabel: What?
Coagula: Does the cotton signify anything, say fragility, temporariness…
Schnabel: It’s just cotton. No bunny rabits. It’s just what you see. Cotton.
Coagula: Fuck you.

Over whose eyes do you think you are pulling the wool, Dude?!?!? Fortunately, Schnabel is spending more time making movies and really good ones. He told writer Stephanie DuTan that he is working on the next one already. He obviously doesn’t have cash problems. Tragically, most of these truly terrible works had sold before the opening.

The Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM)is the big play by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to stay in the major leagues. As a blue-chip warehouse of ArtForum?€™s finest from the past 5 decades, it succeeds. But even more than an art museum, this new institution is as explosively a patriotic surge of Americana as exists in the art world.

Eli Broad (LEFT) speaks to KPCC’s John Rabe while architect Renzo Piano (CENTER) looks on.

In an art world that has always genuflected toward Europe (in the abstract, with no central allegiance beyond the archetype of old world elitism and snobbish elegance), The BCAM is the ugly, rich American telling the world ?€?this is how you fuckin?€™ do it, dude!?€? in a raging cowboy abandonment of the refined good taste and philanthropic generosity that has heretofore defined institutional culture. Architect Renzo Piano has lined up a series of repeating red stripes (with the white negative space of So.Cal) that screams out to be read as the starless part of the American flag. Jasper Johns?€™ flag paintings have never seen particularly political, but around the corner from a 1963 Robert Rauschenberg painting of John F. Kennedy and a floor below Andy Warhol?€™s Jacki O, Elvis and Marylin, they triumphantly announce the American cultural victory over good taste and one man?€™s investment in that triumph.

The low-lights of our (our as in our America) self-induced vacuity abound at this palace of redneck chic:

?€¢ A half-acre sized room of Jeff Koons pastiching the ugliest banalities that this culture has produced into monumental agitations of market economics is the surreal investment banker wet dream made manifest.
?€¢ Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger form a feminist Macbethian triumvirate that screams quota, while a room of amazing Basquiats is so out of place with Broad?€™s anal/machine aesthetic that it holla tokenism.
?€¢ The Leon Golub room next to Jean-Michel?€™s trove reveals the guilty white liberal soul of the art world and an 80s room of Bleckner, Taffe, Salle, Fischl, Schnabel and Tansey the remorse of every bad investment made in the land of plenty.
?€¢ Brit Damien Hirst seems quite at home with Broad serving as Ed Sullivanesque validator to this self-impressed contemporary Beatle-like exotic oddity.
?€¢ Ex-pat Cy Twombly looks out of place near Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein and Ed Ruscha until one compares the auction results of the aging masters.
?€¢ A first-floor Richard Serra installation is the big and bold ?€?meerukan type vision that gives places like Texas its ego, with all the funhouse excitement of a county fair as it winds its way a few feet from Wilshire Boulevard.

The BCAM hardly seems to be here for Los Angeles. It features few local artists, and with its 1980s sensibilities, no contemporary artists. The BCAM exists for cultural tourists from abroad. It is a Disneyland-like attraction for European and Asian tourists. This museum gives them the chance to see the real America while simultaneously feeding the fine art urge that defines cultural tourism and the weak dollar it so loves. This is the real America of lip-service-liberalism, superficial philosophers, icons of fame and filth, big brash bold banalities and restrooms so clean you could eat your breakfast off their floors. If the security guards carried loaded pistols and the parking lot had traffic signals it would be the only place anyone ever needed to visit to comprehend the greatness, glory and ignorant grandeur of the United States of America.
- - Mat Gleason

(L-R) Renzo Piano, Eli Broad, Michael Govan, Zev Yaroslavsky introduicing LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum.

(L-R) Gallerist Jack Rutberg, Art Historian Peter Selz, Michale Jackosn and Bubbles by Jeff Koons, Art Writer Shana Nys Dambrot, Art Publisher Bill Busch. An Andy Warhol "Camouflage" painting hangs in the background.

(L-R) Michael Kurcfeld, Elvis by Warhol, Clayton Campbell

The abominable Jeff Koons sculpture that changed copyright and fair use law forever.

Artist Leigh Salgado enjoys the Chris Burden public art installation at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum’s exclusive opening afternoon for the Art World A-List

NOTE: THE BCAM opens to the public next week!

Pictures of the new BCAM at the Coagula Dot Com site.

ELI’S COMIN’

The Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM)is the big play by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to stay in the major leagues. As a blue-chip warehouse of ArtForum’s finest from the past 5 decades, it succeeds. But even more than an art museum, this new institution is as explosively a patriotic surge of Americana as exists in the art world.

In an art world that has always genuflected toward Europe (in the abstract, with no central allegiance beyond the archetype of old world elitism and snobbish elegance), The BCAM is the ugly, rich American telling the world ”this is how you fuckin’ do it, dude!” in a raging cowboy abandonment of the refined good taste and philanthropic generosity that has heretofore defined institutional culture. Architect Renzo Piano has lined up a series of repeating red stripes (with the white negative space of So.Cal) that screams out to be read as the starless part of the American flag. Jasper Johns’ flag paintings have never seen particularly political, but around the corner from a 1963 Robert Rauschenberg painting of John F. Kennedy and a floor below Andy Warhol’s Jacki O, Elvis and Marylin, they triumphantly announce the American cultures victory over good taste and one man’s investment in that triumph.

the low-lights of our self-induced vacuity abound at this palace of redneck chic:

• A half-acre sized room of Jeff Koons pastiching the ugliest banalities that this culture has produced into monumental agitations of market economics is the surreal investment banker wet dream made manifest.
• Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger form a feminist Macbethian triumvirate that screams quota, while a room of amazing Basquiats is so out of place with Broad’s anal/machine aesthetic that it holla tokenism.
• The Leon Golub room next to Jean-Michel’s trove reveals the guilty white liberal soul of the art world and an 80s room of Bleckner, Taffe, Salle, Fischl, Schnabel and Tansey the remorse of every bad investment made in the land of plenty.
• Brit Damien Hirst seems quite at home with Broad serving as Ed Sullivanesque validator to this self-impressed contemporary Beatle-like exotic oddity.
• Ex-pat Cy Twombly looks out of place near Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein and Ed Ruscha until one compares the auction results of the aging masters.
• A first-floor Richard Serra installation is the big and bold ‘meerukan type vision that gives places like Texas its ego, with all the funhouse excitement of a county fair as it winds its way a few feet from Wilshire Boulevard.

The BCAM hardly seems to be here for Los Angeles. It features few local artists, and with its 1980s sensibilities, no contemporary artists. The BCAM exists for cultural tourists from abroad. It is a Disneyland-like attraction for European and Asian tourists. This museum gives them the chance to see the real America while simultaneously feeding the fine art urge that defines cultural tourism and the weak dollar it so loves. This is the real America of lip-service-liberalism, superficial philosophers, icons of fame and filth, big brash bold banalities and restrooms so clean you could eat your breakfast off their floors. If the security guards carried loaded pistols and the parking lot had traffic signals it would be the only place anyone ever needed to visit to comprehend the greatness, glory and ignorant grandeur of the United States of America.