Saturday, January 5, 2013

Artrunner: Today's ArtAdventure!

What can be better than a private artwalk in Los Angeles' Chinatown? Few things really and today was a great day indeed!

I started with L2Kontemporary, a gallery that usually has at least two good pieces. I got there at 12 something and was saddened to see that it was closed. They do not open till 1 pm. I recommend coming to check out the galleries after 1 pm then if you intend to park in the residential area that is North of the Chinatown Arts District (CAD). L2 was closed because there will be an artist's reception tonight. I will have to check out the art that is up next time I come to the CAD. On the door there was a flyer with a small picture of one of the artist's pieces. Honestly speaking, this exhibition is very promising judging from the picture.

On to Sam Lee gallery which is just a hop, skip and a jump away. This month's art offerings were actually not that bad as eye candy! If you want a message with your art, well, this month's message isn't very interesting.


This piece is actually quite colorful in a good way and also is a great composition, but falls short from inspiring one to go out and join a social cause and or get onto a soap box. On the building that is painted we see the words "Grand Hotel". Here on Artrunner the preference is art with a message. Art for art's sake is appreciated as simple eye candy here. Not that that form of art is without its merits of course.


The second piece is pretty similar in many ways. Great composition and almost as colorful. Yes, it's a cockpit from some sort of aircraft. I particularly like the use of purple in some of the features of the cockpit.

Of course, these are not the only pieces at Sam Lee currently. These are just the ones that stood out. I don't intend to ever show all the pieces in any given gallery since one of the goals of Artrunner is to motivate art enthusiasts to come out to the CAD!

Next up is Anat Ebgi Gallery. Today's offering was "The Star Card" by Jen DeNike. It's a pretty cool installation. Often this kind of art is not much appreciated by anyone but art snobs but this installation has got character in my opinion. There is a television monitor roughly in the center of the room that is playing the video of an attractive woman wading in water while she puts water into pitchers and pulls paper stars out of her mouth. I really like the visual effect of the stars coming out of her mouth and the fact this act is associated with a watery environment. A cool feeling comes to mind, like as if you were pulling the night sky out and allowing the water to reflect it. Simply beautiful. There is a mattress of sorts in front of the TV and if you look at it you can tell that some people have actually gotten onto it to watch the images on the television.


There are nice pieces on the walls which depict the same woman, probably, in watery scenes. To the right, as you enter, there is a particularly nice piece of the woman. She is submerged and there are a ring of stars in the upper left hand corner. This work gave me the chills. It reminded me of a scene of the suicide of a Shakespearean woman I've seen somewhere. It's great when works of art bring random memories to mind and make them almost vivid again.


I must admit a bias of mine here.I am utterly fascinated by stars, the night and their play on the ocean or other such bodies of water. For this reason primarily, this installation really seemed great to me.

Jancar Gallery was closed. I didn't check to see why.

My favorite gallery, Charlie James, which rarely fails to excite me, was a let down this time around. From December 15th of last year till February 2 they will be showcasing "Eyes Words" by Richard Kraft. Below are some pictures of the exhibit.


In this room you are surrounded by portraits cut off at the hairline and right above the neck of several people. The images are grainy. You do get an eerie sense of being watched by the people in the pictures.


The best part of the exhibit is in the second, smaller room, just behind the first. Newspaper or book pages were cut into little triangles and were used  to form a nicely eye catching mosaic. It might be amusing to actually read these snippings for a while but that probably isn't the point to this piece.



Downstairs there is a collection of much smaller portraits with similar characteristics to the ones above.

All in all it is an aesthetically pleasing exhibit, but it failed to entertain me even half as much as the best exhibits I have seen at Charlie James Gallery.

Sabina Lee had a really outstanding exhibit today. It's more on the eye candy side but it's just too nice to not really get a thrill out of checking it out!

There is actually a message here. It might not be the most biting message but it has its moments. The colorful squares actually have letters and if you read them you will get little messages here and there. It seems that the overall message is in the stream of consciousness style. Really nice! You can pick up a nice booklet for the exhibit in the gallery which has all of the text printed on it in more easy to read print. This piece is dreamlike. It's really worth the visit.

Finally at Coagula Curatorial I was greatly disappointed. I have seen some pretty good exhibits here but today's had only some modestly cool elements which were in the form of cardboard covered with interesting messages. One thing I do like about Coagula is that they do have a good sample of ethnic art.


The artwork above is very colorful, but not a shining example of the greatest, most interesting compositions.




The writing on cardboard was fairly cool. However, since Spanish was used I have a bias!

Well that's it for now! Hope you saw something you liked!



2 comments:

  1. Interesting tour. All of the art was lovely. But, most outstanding was the woman submerged in water surrounded by the "american stars" - it was stunning.

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