Month: October 2014

During the artist talk, Fabian Debora shared that art was his “big brother” and it was what kept him sane as he grew up in the projects of Boyle Heights. He recalls Father Boyle encouraging him to pursue art when his teachers discouraged him. Debora’s work presents a different perspective of Boyle Heights; one that is more about cultural intersections as opposed to divisions. His paintings tell a variety of narratives about Boyle Heights, rather than sticking to one idea that reduces its inhabitants to transgressors of violence instead of being members of a complex community. Or put simply, he presents his subjects, gang members or former gang members, as human.

While, Debora’s art seems to be firmly grounded in reality, Juan Carlos Muñoz Hernandez’s is looking at reality through an abstract lens. From sculptures reminiscent of graffiti, to paintings as litany, there is an organic sense of spirituality that emerges in each piece. Each sculpture’s reflective surface, for example, serves as a mirror between the audience and the art so that he/she becomes one with the bronze, part of the art; forcing the viewer to see themselves as they had never done before. The experience, then, becomes unique for each person who comes into contact with the sculpture.

Lastly, Alex Kizu’s work, which pays homage to historical figures like Bruce Lee and Crazy Horse, is a maddening kaleidoscope and an exploration of lettering, in which each painting demands attention. Because, like Debora and Hernandez, Kizu pulls from his graffiti background, letter shapes are at the foreground of his work. What this does is force the audience to want to read the painting, only to get lost within something so familiar as letters, and enter a different reality that Kizu has created; one in which our concept of language, and ultimately the self, is transformed.

What each artist posits in their work is that, in art, there is the possibility of human transcendence, which breaks through the cages that we have been put in, or that we so willingly have entered by our own accord.

“Bridging Homeboy Industries” will be on display at RAFFMA, at Cal State, San Bernardino, until January 31, 2015. For more information related to this exhibit or to RAFFMA please visit: http://raffma.csusb.edu/visit/BHI.htm

 There is no right or wrong way to express; only ways in which we can attack the action that will or won’t cause social discomfort. For those who don’t fear this idea— from globally recognized public/street artists to those willing to protest against regulations that undermine human rights and lives —this is a way of life.

Chaffey College’s CAA Student Gallery’s current exhibition is a focus on the people behind art and actions that have affected society through sheer defiance. Ranging from photographic documentation, to sculptures made from warped vinyl records, the student curated exhibition takes the opportunity to use the space as a way as go deeper than relying solely on the art to carry the show’s topic, but to look at the artist’s lives— and the varying ways in which they are lived— as a real world practice of ingenuity and creativity, and a form of art in and of itself.

The exhibition asserts work from vandals, day dreamers, activists, the indulgent, the pro-choice, the formerly incarcerated and several other characters who have traveled from walks of life that are at a variance with the prevailing social norm.

“Counter Cultures: Challenging the Status Quo” is in celebration and acknowledgement of The Chaffey Review—the college’s award-winning literary and art magazine— and its 12th volume of the same theme.

“Counter Cultures: Challenging the Status Quo,” is on display in Chaffey College’s CAA Student Gallery until Nov. 1.

TCLF’s Landslide 2014 launches October 22 in New York City. Joe Lewis, president, Noah Purifoy Foundation, will attend. It will highlight significant contemporary installations and pioneering environmental projects–sites, including Noah Purifoy’s high desert museum, that represent the rich and diverse interrelationship of art and landscape. The launch reception will be held at the Chelsea studio of artist Marylyn Dintenfass in New York City, 5:30pm-7:30pm, 529 West 20th Street, #8E (between 10th and 11th Avenue).

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will present a major retrospective of artist Noah Purifoy entitled Junk Dada in June 1915. The Noah Purifoy Foundation’s primary activities are:

–To preserve and maintain the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Sculpture in Joshua Tree, CA as an art space open to the public.

–To promote greater public recognition and appreciation of the values found in Noah Purifoy’s work as an artist, assemblage sculptor, thinker and arts education leader.

–To develop educational programs about his work and its relationship to the history of contemporary art in America for artists, scholars, art teachers, students and the general public.

For Steve Rieman, a well-known local sculptor, and his wife Ruth Rieman, both board members of JTHAR, their involvement began in 2008 with the arrival of Alfredo Barsuglia, an Austrian artist who makes large scale installations with a social comment. During Barsuglia’s residency he built the ‘Oderfla Beauty Resort’ a large construction of a partial building inserted in the sand on the Rieman’s property. The installation, reminiscent of an archaeological dig, is a comment on society’s search for eternal beauty.

Barsuglia quickly became a member of the family and has returned several times, once to bring his mother, and again this summer to work on his most recent piece ‘Social Pool.’ The Riemans, in return, have gone to Austria to visit and through Barsuglia’s affiliation with the MAK Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna, Steve Rieman’s early iconic furniture will be in the museum’s permanent collection. Ruth Rieman, deeply touched by every artist that has spent time at their cabin describes the residencies as an important experience that profoundly touches everyone’s lives.

Bernard Leibov, founder of the BoxoProjects, an invitation-only residency program first came to Morongo Basin in 2005 through his connection to Andrea Zittel and High Desert Test Sites. At that time he was working as a brand strategist. That visit got him interested in the place and the community as well as pursuing his own creative expression. In 2008, Leibov came for 3 months to meet local artists and focus on his own work. When he went back to New York he began showing Joshua Tree artists in his New York gallery/apartment and in 2011 he bought the house he is currently in and started the residency.

Leibov looks for artists that will create work that will have a lasting effect. “I bring in the kind of people who are curious and who have some form of research base or experience input into their work. I ask them to make work that responds to the community or the environment so that the feel of Joshua Tree is imbued in each of the projects,” said Leibov.

The Celtic Knot, a 29 foot long, 5 foot wide concrete sculpture by Steed Taylor, is permanently displayed on Leibov’s property. The knot symbolizes momentum and continuity. During the construction of the Knott, the local community was encouraged to bring something that would represent their aspirations for the community. The pieces brought were then put inside the poured cement.

“The sculpture,” Leibov said, “is about the community moving forward.

When Claudia Bueno, a light artist from Venezuela, and her husband Dan Davis, decided to move back to the United States from Malaysia they picked Yucca Valley. Dan, familiar with Joshua Tree through his brother, loved the park and the natural beauty of the area. Claudia, who never thought the desert would appeal to her said, “The longer we stayed in the Morongo Basin the more we appreciated it. I began to see all the animals, the plants and the blue sky every day. It feels like you are living in a retreat.”

Local festivals and artists events like the art crawl and the Highway 62 Art Tours introduce many people to the area. Many artists, like Bueno, working alone to develop their creative vision, choose this area because of their desire for artistic freedom, and space. Add the distinct beauty of the desert, the close proximity to a city when needed, affordable housing, a very friendly community and the vitality of a culturally artistic place and you have many good reasons for artists to trade-in their lofts and apartments and come west.

The CSUSB students develop classes based not only around their interests, but also the interests of the inmates. For example, one intern realized that many men had already been collecting artwork in their cells, and created a portfolio and critique seminar. But the most important benefit from this exchange, observes Buckley, is the amount of growth that occurs within the students; learning not only about themselves, and what kind of teachers they are, but about people as well. Since the classes take place in the gym of the CIM, it is a collaborative endeavor between the interns and the inmates. For example, Stan Hunter, an inmate artist, often helps interns with their classes.

Buckley stressed the importance that the partnership between the Community-based Art Program and the CIM is a partnership, and that it is because of the continued interest of the men there that the classes still exist. Earlier in the year, questions about painting a mural began coming up and the finished piece was a collaboration of ideas and styles between the men at the CIM, the interns, and Buckley herself. The end result was a three panel mural of the rebirth of a forest that has been burned down. Because of photography restrictions there are no photos of the finished piece, but below is a photo of the mural in progress.

The interns (paid interns, thanks in part to the generosity of the CSUSB Career Center), Buckley, and the inmates, remind us that the importance of art, perhaps, comes from realizing that we are all creators, no matter what institution we come from.

You can read a bit more about the mural project in Buckley’s book review for Art as Therapy in the Los Angles Review of Books. https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/access-enemy-disparity-access#