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"Love in the Ruins." (Long Beach Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California)


LONG BEACH MUSEUM OF ART The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Blvd. in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California. The museum occupies the historic 1912 Elizabeth Milbank Anderson house and carriage house (designed by Charles Alonzo Rich[1]) and a new two-story  

To most people, Los Angeles is a city of perpetual sunshine and eternal optimism. Historically, artists and the art business have stuck to the East Coast and West Coast art has always enjoyed a strangely tangential relationship to this "center" of the art world. Embracing a refreshing sense of the absurd that contrasts with the high-seriousness of the New York art world, and framed by a culture of unreality (the film business), art in California has often seemed like an antidote to the high-art ideals of the mainstream art world.

Artists like Edward Ruscha, John Baldessari, Alexis Smith, Llyn Foulkes and, more recently, Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw, have all, at one time or another, been victims of this idea of the West Coast art world as marginal. With a somewhat jockey, self-parodying attitude that contrasts with the rigorous intellectualism in·tel·lec·tu·al·ism  
n.
1. Exercise or application of the intellect.

2. Devotion to exercise or development of the intellect.



in
 of the international mainstream, these artists have also been key figures in making this marginality center stage.

After a year of violent earthquakes, debilitating de·bil·i·tat·ing
adj.
Causing a loss of strength or energy.


Debilitating
Weakening, or reducing the strength of.

Mentioned in: Stress Reduction
 floods, and uncontrollable forest fires, Los Angeles seems to be a culture in crisis, on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955.  of collapse. Informed by this sense of an impending im·pend  
intr.v. im·pend·ed, im·pend·ing, im·pends
1. To be about to occur: Her retirement is impending.

2.
 crisis, "Love in the Ruins: Art and the Inspiration of L.A.," poses a challenge to older mythologies of the city. Here the harsh realities of a city in economic and cultural crisis, one built in an environment hostile to human beings (the desert), is depicted as a volatile place that can no longer sustain a mirage born of dreams, blinding sunlight, and historical innocence. Borrowing its title from Walker Percy's novel of the same name, which prophesied the current crisis of living and working in Los Angeles, this show is a powerful, edgy statement that focuses on a diversity of images that reflect the current social, spiritual, and cultural confusion. L.A. as an inhospitable environment--a quality evoked by the works of Robert Yarber, Ed Kienholz, and Anthony Hernandez--is juxtaposed jux·ta·pose  
tr.v. jux·ta·posed, jux·ta·pos·ing, jux·ta·pos·es
To place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.
 with the poetry of ecstasy, spiritual disquiet, and dystopia Dystopia


Eagerness (See ZEAL.)

Brave New World
 that characterizes the works of Vija Celmins, Catherine Opie, Jorge Pardo, Lari Pittman, and Max Almy and Teri Yarbrow. The sense of dark humor, irony, and witty playfulness that has always been present in the best of Californian art is never very far away either, which is evident in the pieces by Larry Johnson, Karen Carson, John Baldessari, and Edward Ruscha that were selected for this exhibition.

Of course, there's nothing new about Californians striving to forge a common identity out of a shared location with the hope of disabusing the art world of its familiar perceptions about art from Southern California. Because of the modesty of its aims, the diversity of work in the exhibition, as well as the curators' ability to refrain from didacticism and dogmatism dog·ma·tism  
n.
Arrogant, stubborn assertion of opinion or belief.


dogmatism
1. a statement of a point of view as if it were an established fact.
2.
, "Love in the Ruins" succeeds where other such ventures have been relatively unsuccessful.
COPYRIGHT 1994 Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1994, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Article Details
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Author:Brooks, Rosetta
Publication:Artforum International
Date:May 1, 1994
Words:476
Previous Article:Jim Isermann. (Richard Telles Fine Art and Sue Spaid Fine Art, Los Angeles, California)
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