subject: Pacific Standard Time Crosscurrents At The Getty By Hunter Drohojowska-philp [print this page] As I race from Los Angeles to Pomona to San Diego and back, struggling to keep up with all the shows promising to unveil the missing
history of art in Southern California, my thinking repeatedly returns to "Crosscurrents in L.A.: Painting and Sculpture from 1950 to
1970," the exhibition at the Getty Museum. The show truly provides the core of the Getty Foundations larger initiative, which
launched more than 60 exhibitions around the Southland.
"Crosscurrents in L.A." features many of the Art History 101 color plates of contemporary art -- Ed Ruschas The Los Angeles County
Museum of Art on Fire (1965-1968), John Baldessaris Quality Material (1967-68), David Hockneys A Bigger Splash (1967), Ed
Kienholzs Walter Hopps Hopps Hopps (1959). For most viewers, these artworks have been nothing more than reproductions. Much of the
art in "Crosscurrents" comes from museums and collections outside of L.A., and is included thanks to the Getty Museums considerable
clout. After the show closes in Los Angeles on Feb. 5, 2012, many of the works move on to the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, where a
version of the exhibition is slated to open on Mar. 15, 2012
Being fairly familiar with the material, I was surprised by the sheer quantity of visual delight. One of the ongoing ironies of the
massive Getty Center complex is its modest amount of temporary exhibition space. This show of 76 works by 40 artists was a challenge.
Without the vast square footage of the typical contemporary art museum, the curators were forced to be concise. The galleries are
definitely crowded, but the lighting and installation compensate to a great degree.
Instead of a chronological presentation of many works by a single artist, Pop and abstract paintings produced during the same period
share the same gallery. Sam Francis Untitled (1967), a ten-foot-tall canvas of bright white edged in blue and red, hangs near
Ruschas ten-foot-wide Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas, (1963), which happens to be painted in similar colors.
The energy of Abstract Expressionism in L.A. was weaker in painting than in clay sculpture, a difference testified to by the
five-foot-tall, rhino-skinned stoneware of Peter Voulkos' Little Big Horn (1959), or John Masons meandering wall-mounted clay forms
Blue Wall (1959). And then there is the outrageous foot-tall red egg by Ken Price from 1963, which brings the irreverence of Pop to
the realm of craft.
In lieu of expressionist painting, the show features first-rate examples of L.A. hard-edge abstraction, such as Lorser Feitelsons
complex and asymmetrical Magical Space Forms (1948) and his iconic, simple Untitled (Red on White Optical) (1964), a serpentine red
line on a white canvas. A gorgeous work by John McLaughlin, #18-1961 (1961), two floating azure rectangles on a cream colored field,
complements Joe Goodes Torn Cloud Painting 73 (1972), a pale blue canvas that is cut open to reveal white underneath. A pair of
dodecagonal resin paintings by Ron Davis made me wonder if anyone is working on a survey of his work.
The influence of the Beats can be seen in assemblage with a literary aspect, such as the tumble of used books in The Librarian (1960)
by George Herms, verifax collage by Wallace Berman and the window frames containing arcane and poetic imagery by Betye Saar. The
era's political consciousness is reflected in Ed Bereals searing American Beauty (1965), a small tree shaped like a human figure
that grows from a spray-painted white metal dome bearing a swastika of stars and stripes.
