by Kriss Perras | The internationally acclaimed Robert Berman Gallery has announced it is hosting its 35th Anniversary in conjunction with Bergamot Station's 20th Anniversary in Santa Monica. Exhibiting throughout the fall will be a four month, rotating sampling of artists and artworks presented at one of their seven different locations.
Robert Berman Gallery 35th Anniversary Exhibition Dates:
September 13 – December 20, 2014
(Visit the original blog for all the images of the exhibition http://malibu-arts-journal.blogspot.com/... )
by Kriss Perras | The internationally acclaimed Robert Berman Gallery has announced it is hosting its 35th Anniversary in conjunction with Bergamot Station's 20th Anniversary in Santa Monica. Exhibiting throughout the fall will be a four month, rotating sampling of artists and artworks presented at one of their seven different locations.
For the uninitiated, the gallery began in 1979 with their first solo artist exhibition with local artist Zox, reports the gallery in its announcement.
In the 1980's the gallery was one of the first galleries in Los Angeles to exhibit, in mass, Chicano street artists and muralists. Exhibiting in the 35th Anniversary exhibition is Chicano muralist and painter John Valadez, also the premier artist for the gallery's January 2015 exhibition.
Also featured as a sampling of the gallery's three 1990's seminal shows are: Man Ray: Paris - LA, Concrete and Buckshot: The Works of William S. Burroughs and George Herms: Beat Bar, all of which were presented at the time in collaboration with the also internationally acclaimed Track 16 Gallery. Take a step back to Santa Monica on the 29th of August in 1996. Track 16 Gallery was still at Bergamot Station. Art was different than today. What we would call transition then is staple today. Man Ray, well, Man Ray was Man Ray, modernist then and today.
"In a monumental and unprecedented collaborative effort, Track 16 Gallery and Robert Berman Gallery will present a landmark exhibition of work by Man Ray. Entitled Man Ray: Paris~LA, the exhibition spans this quintessential modernist's entire 50-year art making career, and includes the first ever in-depth look at the decade Man Ray lived in Southern California," the press release of the time stated. "Man Ray: Paris~LA opens at the combined Track 16 and Robert Berman gallery spaces at Bergamot Station on Saturday, September 21st and runs through January 31, 1997. A fully illustrated catalogue published by Smart Art Press will accompany the exhibition."
In the spirit of Dada and Surrealism, Man Ray has said he created works of art designed to "amuse, annoy, bewilder, mystify [and] inspire reflection," states the press release.
There were some 200 works of art at that exhibition. It featured objects, paintings, sculpture, chess sets, drawings, prints and other ephemera from the heirs of Man Ray's beloved wife, Juliet, as well as unique and eccentric works from his personal collection that amply testify to his genius.
"If there is one area in the arts in which Man Ray has left an indelible mark it is in photography. Starting with his experiments in Paris in 1921-22, Man Ray has consistently pushed the formal and imaginative boundaries of photography into the outer limits of creative expression. Man Ray: Paris~LA includes a stunning array of the artist's work from his portraits of the star-studded intellectual firmament of Europe and Los Angeles, to snapshots of Juliet and friends dressing up and clowning for the camera. The exhibition offers not only the formal images for which his photographic oeuvre is known, but also a glimpse into his intimate world where playfulness and amusement (the hallmarks of Man Ray's work) reign," the two galleries stated in their announcement at that time.
Concrete and Buckshot: The Works of William S. Burroughs. He lived from 1914 - 1997. He was a writer and artist in many media. More than all of this, he was a primary figure of the beat movement.
"Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac were key figures in his life and early literary career," The October Gallery writes of Burroughs. "Brion Gysin was fundamental to Burroughs’ artistic development and shared with him such techniques as the ‘cut-up’, calligraphy, and painting with an engraved wallpaper roller. Other important collaborators include Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg, George Condo, Philip Taaffe, Antony Balch, Ian Sommerville, Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, and Kurt Cobain...[He is] featured in over fifty international galleries and museums including Royal Academy of the Arts, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art. "
George Herms: Beat Bar. Herms is a beat era icon and assemblage artist, a legend in Topanga Canyon and the art world alike.
"The youngest of the "Beat" generation of artists who were part of the Ferus "gang" in the late 1950s, including John Altoon, Billy Al Bengston, Wallace Berman, Craig Kaufman, Ed Kienholz and Ken Price," reports Tobey C. Moss Gallery in Los Angeles. "He embarked upon a career as an artist after seeing Wallace Berman's work at the legendary Ferus Gallery. George assisted in the hanging of Berman's famous Semina show (in which Berman was arrested for displaying "lewd" works), and was moved by the way Berman was able to turn an art gallery into a temple. Berman became a mentor to Herms; George's first exhibition in 1957 was a "secret exhibition" attended only by Berman and Walter Hopps (co-founder, with Ed Kienholz, of the Ferus Gallery."
A few more samplings of some very well known artists such as Bill Barminski, Raymond Pettibon, Dennis Hopper and John Colao are also included in this 35th Anniversary Exhibition:
Dennis Hopper is a legend in both the world of film and art.
"Actor/director Dennis Hopper came to fame with 1969's Easy Rider. Later films like Blue Velvet and River's Edge cemented his legend," writes Biography.com "In addition to his talent with film and video, Hopper was a respected photographer, having photos that appeared in various museums and galleries...He also amassed a large modern art collection."
The turn of the Century saw even further advancement for this seemingly small gallery with a huge impact of the art world. The space exhibited Alex Prager’s first solo exhibition Polyester, which helped stir a groundswell for her artwork, assisting in her propulsion into the international scene.
Prager is a self-taught photographer and filmmaker. She has a noir style in her photography reminiscent of Hitchcock, Lynch, Buñuel and the other classic masters of that style. She uses saturated colors to accentuate the sexual in her work, most especially the feminist side of sexuality. Prager's photographs are in permanent collections at several major museums, including: the Museum of Modern Art New York (MoMA); the Whitney Museum of American Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kunsthaus Zurich; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; among others. Prager has in a very short time made her mark on the world of photography.
Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French were another phenomenal exhibition during 2008, a great year for the gallery. The space really hit their stride during this year. It was one phenomenal exhibition after another. Charbonneau and French exhibited their works entitled Massillon. The pair have an ephemeral quality to their work in a Goth mode. Even their works this six years later still have that unparalleled Goth quality to them.
In addition to Prager and Charbonneau and French, the gallery also exhibited Will Rise featuring the works of TheSeventhLettter, Rock Paper Scissor (Featuring: Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston, Ron English, Thurston Moore, Gibby Haynes), Vagos Y Reinas (Retna & The Mac), the album covers of Shepard Fairey, Charles Brittin: Vintage Photographs, Transformation the works of Robert Heinecken and Victor Landweber, Paid to Play Illustrating LA (which featured: Charles White III, Dave Willardson, Bob Zoell, Mark Ryden, Todd Schorr), Just Occupy - Ted Soqui, Shepard Fairey, Christopher Felver on the LA Occupy Movement.
Covering this span of the 1980’s, 90’s and 2000’s, Robert Berman Gallery will present artworks by the following artists in this 35th Anniversary exhibition September 13 - December 20, 2014:
Magaret Adachi, Nick Agid, Carlo Alfonzo, Carlos Almaraz, Herb Alpert, Bill Anthony, Sol Aquino, Kenneth Aronson, Bill Barminski, Jonathan Bickart, Lauren Bon, Hugh Brown, Gomez Bueno, William Burroughs, Clayton Campbell, Ray Cesar, Long-Bin Chen, Jean Clemmer with Salvador Dali, Guy de Cointet, John Colao, Robbie Conal, Robert Sean Coons, Ronnie Cutrone, Jill D’Agnenica, Sarah Danays, Stephen Douglas, Richard Duardo, Jorg Dubin, Britt Ehringer, Carl Michael Von Hausswolff & Leif Elggren, Ibsen Espanda, Ivan Fayard, Christopher Felver, Marc Fichou, Max Finkelstein, Mr. Fish, Andrew Foster, Jeff Charbonneau & Eliza French, Gregg French, Steven Friedman, Simone Gad, Margaret Garcia, Ron Garrigues, Andrew George, Gregg Gibbs, Jeffery Gold, Josh Graham, Cameron Gray, Tyson Grumm, Christina Hale, Stephen Hannock, Irene Hardwicke-Olivieri, Keith Haring, George Herms, Dennis Hopper, Brad Howe, Res Ingold (Ingold Airlines), Sharon Johnson-Tennant, Alex Jordanov, Daniel Kaufman, Scott Kilgor, Serge Kliaving, Leonard Koscianski, Joyce Kozloff, Zara Krigstein, Charles La Belle, Joe Lewis, Leo Limon, Antonio Lopez, Gilbert Magu Lujan, Lauren Marsolier, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Rudy Martinez, Dennis Mukai, Yarg Noremac, Manuel Ocampo, Onesto, Eric Orr, Jason Peters, Gugger Petter, Raymond Pettibon, Nathan Phelps, Pierre Picot, Vanessa Prager, Man Ray, Eric Raymond, Louis Renzoni, RETNA, Victor Reyes, Ellwood T. Risk, Michael Roberts, Michelle Roberts, Frank Romero, John Rose, Christine Rusche, Marla Rutherford, Saber, Dana Sederowsky, Paul Serra, Rob Setrakian, Julius Shulman, Paul Sierra, Philip Slagter, Gerald Slota, Marischa Slusarski, Rena Small, Ted Soqui, Don Sorenson, May Sun, Ben Talbert, Neal Taylor, Elizabeth Tinglof, Eloy Torres, David Trulli, Kent Twitchell, John Valadez, Beril Vallien, Alison Van Pelt, Ewoud Van Rijn, Stephen Verona. Dietrich Wegner, Ray Charles White, Norton Wisdom, Chin Chin Wu, Richard Wyatt, Jody Zellen, Jack Zoltak, Liu Zheng and many others.
Exhibition Information: September 13 - December 20, 2014, Robert Berman Gallery At Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica, California 90404, B7 Tel: 310.315.1937, Fax: 310.315.9688, info@robertbermangallery.com Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11am-6pm.