Gleefully Gaudy

We saw two terrific shows on our gallery tour at the end of last week. Well, three. But first these two...

(NOTE: The images on today's entry are pirated from various locations on the internet without specific permission. I trust that the artists in question will have no objection in the context of a few good words on The Buddha Diaries.)

At UCLA's Fowler Museum, there's a stunning exhibition of the work of Nick Cave called "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth." Which is where you might think you find yourself amidst the spectacularly weird and wonderful beings evoked by Cave's exotic costumes...

...full-body masks, complete with leggings created out of a splendid assortment of junk and costume jewelry and kitschy collectibles and children's toys and brightly colored furry stuff that, when worn (as you can see in the videos) shimmer magnificently with the movement of the human body. Cave's endlessly fertile imagination allows no boundaries between art and costume, contemporary and ancient, nor between civilizations and cultures. He plunders them all, gleefully, producing effects that delight the eye and provoke the mind in equal measures. Go to the website, click on the "Nick Cave Photo Tour" and treat yourself to a mind-trip the like of which you'd have to go far to see. This is a show about the sheer joy of difference and the oneness of everything. It's one of those shows that opens you up to the exuberant, immeasurable potential of the human spirit.

(Also at the Fowler, by the way, is a concurrent exhibition from the museum's collection called inter/sections:world arts/local lives, exploring "the roles that art plays in creating meaning and defining purpose for people across the globe." Okay. No matter what it's purpose, this show is chock-a-bloc with fascinating relics from far-flung cultures in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Americas... I had time only to breeze through it, ashamed to be walking past so much that called to my attention, so much of real value. The place feels haunted by the souls of the artists, craftspeople, shamans and others who created these manifestly spirit-pervaded objects; it's like a profound echo chamber in which the human spirit resounds at some unfathomable depth of consciousness. No coincidence, surely, that we went on to hear a lecture by the Jungian James Hillman later that same evening. But that's another story.)

Back to gaudy... After the Fowler, we stopped at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects and found the sassily titled show called Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl by Mikalene Thomas. These mixed media paintings incorporate rich swatches of material and glittering beads along with photographic and painted areas. They feature seated...

...or reclining odalisque-like figures of gorgeously seductive black women in colorful exotic environments, whose provocative poses and come-on looks are at once an homage to the delicious sensuality of their womanhood and an ironic reflection on the historical exploitation of their sex and race. The title, of course, harks back to the song recorded with languorous appeal by, among others, both Bessie Smith and Nina Simone. The pictures tease us with our own racial prejudices and tantalize us with their explicit sexuality. They also taunt the "educated" aesthetic eye with their finger-in-the-eye rejection of mainstream norms and their embrace, instead, of passionate commitment to a social statement. Those who know and admire the work of the late Robert Colescott will surely get an equal kick out of these paintings by Mikalene Thomas.

Both Cave and Thomas, by the way, are African-American artists. In case anyone was wondering.

Okay, then, I promised a third, unrelated to the first two unless by an exuberance of energy. This artist is Iva Gueorguieva--and I challenge you to pronounce her name. She's showing an impressive number of mostly very large paintings at Angles Gallery--the latter newly relocated from Venice to a site on La Cienega Boulevard adjacent to a number of other worthy galleries. Gueorguieva's paintings offer the curious eye a truly exciting adventure in rhythmic movement through canvases that evoke city-scapes...

...with all the familiar energy of city life--cars, freeways and highways, jagged architectural elements--in a post-apocalyptic chaos of disruption and decline. These are truly noisy and disturbing paintings, cut open and bandaged in some areas as if to relieve their emotional intensity and interrupt their boundless energy. They temper their aggression with a vulnerability that invites us into their surfaces and tells us something about our own.

So much for the gallery tour last week. I would mention other shows if there were time...