I went into the Hung Liu show blind, knowing virtually
nothing about the artist or her work.
This might be the best way to approach an artist that one is unfamiliar
with.
When you “discover” and love
the work, it makes it all the more exciting.
The exhibit
site
has background details and examples of her work.
More can be seen on
Liu’s
website.
The biggest surprise
about the exhibit was that this outstanding, local artist was still unknown to
me.
And while the San Francisco
museums have all picked up her work for their collections, they certainly
haven’t featured it and given Hung Liu the attention she deserves.
This might be a job for the
Guerilla Girls.
As “old fashioned” as it might be too some, I love
representational, pre-abstract, pre-WWII, American painting – Edward Hopper, Thomas
Hart Benton, Grant Wood et al.
If all three of them had headed west and settled
in California, they would probably be part of the current show of
California Scene Paintings
in Pasadena.
It is full of work by
artists I need to become more familiar with, names like Phil Dike and Emil
Kosa, Jr. along with another California favorite – Millard Sheets. What’s
particularly special about this show is that most the works are borrowed from
private collections. They rarely get seen by the general public.
The exhibit is more focused on Los Angeles and Southern
California. Many of the paintings
have preserved rural scenes lost to suburban sprawl long ago. There are also paintings of lost neighborhoods
like Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill and Chavez Ravine — communities that were
completely destroyed in the name of urban renewal and building freeways. After seeing the show, driving down the
Pasadena Freeway and coming to the interchange where The 5 and 110 meet, I was
trying not to get too distracted imagining the hilltop neighborhood of
Victorian homes that used to be in the same spot.
Seeing all three of these shows, reminds me of why I go to
museums. It’s all about exposing
myself to work that influences me, often on a subconscious level, as well as my
ongoing art education. But I also
can’t help noticing that I am seeing the best work in what many might dub
small, or “second” or even “third tier” museums. Few would call any of these three “major museums.” But I have to begin to ask, just what
makes a “major” museum? Is it the
hyped up blockbuster shows with high admission prices? Is it sticking the Girl with a Pearl
Earring’s mug on everything from a mug to shopping bag to a tie? We might need
to revisit what really defines a “major” art museum. Shouldn’t it be about the art instead of the hype?
