The art of what might have been
The late artist’s speculative Surrealism suggests a dialogue between his forms.
A new exhibit at As-Is rediscovers and contemplates the Surrealist gems by the late Philip Rich.
Philip Rich (1935-2017) is not a name that has been heard much in the Los Angeles art world over the past 50 years. A notable 1965 debut at the celebrated Ferus Gallery was accompanied by his selection that year for a Young Talent Award at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (His now prominent co-recipients of the prize were Tony Berlant, Melvin Edwards, Llyn Foulkes and Lloyd Hamrol.) Not long after, a potential career was sadly pulled up short when mental illness prompted Rich’s withdrawal into lifelong relative seclusion.
Thirty-four intriguing line-drawings at As-Is Gallery in the West Adams neighborhood recall what might have been. The show amounts to a small but genuine rediscovery. The precision drawings — made between 1965 and 1967 and rendered in black ink on 6-inchsquare pieces of paper, now yellowing around the edges — are late-Surrealist gems.
Forms that oscillate between figurative fragments and abstract shapes seem to fold back in on themselves. Intensely focused, almost to the point of claustrophobia, it’s as if every outward gesture or recognizable movement recoils, tugging itself into an indescribable if tightly contained world.
A bit of torso, a leg or a few fingers merge into evocative suggestions of an inflatable swimming pool float, a coffee mug or a swivel chair. Sometimes the cluster wears a jaunty fedora.Most compositions seem to be interiors, but occasionally a suggestion emerges of a sunny day at the beach.
The drawn black lines are clear, crisp and unmodulated or revised, the compositions less so. Rich’s Surrealism is of a speculative sort, composed to ask “what if?” and loosely akin to that of such Ferus Gallery stablemates as Ken Price and John Altoon, as well as to the outsider ethos of H.C. Westermann.
Desk lamps commune, and mirrored puddles visually connect. Rich is making art as a conversation within itself. In this quirky, often engrossing exhibition, we’re invited to listen in.
As-Is Gallery, 1133 Venice Blvd., L.A. (213) 610-4110, through Sept. 22. Closed on Sunday and Monday. as-is.la
Sculptors and painters pair up
“Pairings” is an exhibition that teams six painters with six sculptors whose work is deemed somehow harmonious, like dinner entrees matched with compatible wines. The match might be conceptual or formal, although the link isn’t always clear.
At Denk Gallery, the three most compelling pairings tend to be formal.
Jenn Berger represents a gangly giraffe by starting on the floor with a drawing on paper of spotted limbs, moving up to a fully sculptural body made of fur stretched over chicken wire, segueing into a tall two-sided rendering on canvas of a very long neck and topping it all off — up near the ceiling — with a beguiling video portrait of the animal’s head, idly munching on leaves. Hanging adjacent nearby, colorful non-figurative canvases by Martin Durazo slip and slide among gestural, geometric, spattered, stenciled and stained applications of paint, each orchestrated into a seamless yet energetic whole.
More simply, organic shapes f loat through pictorial space in chromatically vivid paintings by HK Zamani, while Lana Duong lifts organic forms from the floor and suspends them from the rafters in actual space, in a two-part ceramic work and a hanging vinyl sculpture. Tribal symbols of an apparently fictional civilization crown chunky stoneware vessels by Kiel Johnson, and a culturally ambiguous, mythological red beast slithers through a swirling cascade of blue birds in a monumental diptych painted by Andrew Schoultz.
These pairings do succeed in nudging closer study to speculate on why they have been put together. Ultimately, though, assuming a viewer doesn’t already examine art is problematic. The process mostly feels like a parlor game that’s only occasionally amusing.
Also on view are paintersculptor pairings by Carlos Beltran Arechiga and David Hendren; Mira Schnedler and Andre Woodward; as well as Chris Trueman and Michael O’Malley.
Denk Gallery, 749 E. Temple St., L.A. (213) 935-8331, through Sept. 29. Closed on Sunday and Monday. denkgallery.com
Pylypchuk’s DIY sensibilities
For Jon Pylypchuk, scraps of wood, expanding foam insulation, some quick spray paint and a handful of found objects have been constructive materials for making sculpture over the years. Five new works show him running at top form.
Of course, in Pylypchuk’s eccentric universe, top form is low down. The suite of DIY-style sculptures in “Lost in Your Eyes” at Nino Mier Gallery is no different. Conceptually, David Smith’s tony Tanktotem sculptures from Abstract Expressionism’s glory days meet tattered troll dolls; their hybrid parentage is a bracing amalgam. Joyfully silly, the anthropomorphic figures are also unexpectedly poignant.
Each is made from a vertical bundle of scrap wood, the shortest nearly seven feet tall, and the largest towers overhead at 12 feet. Sprayed with foam and painted white, the bubbly, scabbed surface looks like some itchy skin disease has overtaken them.
Two rubber tires bolted onto either side of the bundle make for an oversized pair of big, banjo eyes; skinny bicycle tires stretched horizontally beneath them seem to make the sculptures grin. If these creatures have ancestors, they’re perhaps the hostile fighting trees in “The Wizard of Oz” — fantastic trees of arcane knowledge whose role was to keep intruders out of the enchanted forest.
A couple of sticks protrude as outstretched arms, a pair of work gloves speared on each. Rather than a proffered embrace, however, these hands push back. The gloves’ middle fingers stand erect, impaled on the sticks, jauntily flipping the bird at approaching admirers.
“Lost in Your Eyes” is collectively titled after a 1989 Debbie Gibson make-out record. It’s an exhibition as lovestruck symphony, cuddly characters deftly destabilized by that sassy fingerdetail, at once open-hearted and self-protective. There’s no coherent reason in the world why gussied-up piles of trash should be moving, but — weirdly — they are.
Nino Mier Gallery, 1107 Greenacre Ave., West Hollywood, (323) 498-5957, through Sept. 15. Closed on Sunday and Monday. mier gallery.com