LA Old School

My friend Peter said we should go see a friend who was having an opening at Lawrence Asher Gallery. Richard Amend is a Cal Arts alum from way back and although the school was already entrenched in its well known conceptual doctrines he turned to painting. And while I missed his early geometric abstractions way back when, I found a reassuring quality of form and paint pushing in his current set of canvases. This show features two themes as subject matter, objects and architectual elements. Chandeliers as heroic portraits layered with creamy glazes show a fascination with things that, quite literally, are over our heads in terms of physical positioning and conceptual imaging. We, the viewer, are placed at eye level with these glowing characters but fine detail is occluded by the strength of their personality- or maybe the dimmer didn't work. The fuzz that is created by the inherent function of providing light forces one to fill in the gaps as to the whys and what fors of these objects.

The movie marquees are not the usual homage to fading architectual treasures. These historic icons are used as signposts in a cinematic snippet suggesting some type of action or event just out of sight. I know it sounds treacly,but these images held my gaze loner than usual- I just knew inside there was something more. More story or image, something was beyond what Richard was showing us.