Ferus Gallery Artists
My last post featured an artistic decision that I consider altogether pointless. In direct contrast is the thoughtful artistic decision-making of seminal artist Robert Irwin. Irwin was on These Days today, talking with Tom about the new exhibit of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. You can listen to that interview here .
The exhibit is titled Robert Irwin: Primaries and Secondaries and it opens this weekend, running through February 23d. Please see it. This is one of those exceptional opportunities to see a comprehensive survey of Irwin's work - in fact, it's the largest exhibit of his work shown in the last 15 years. And, it's here in San Diego! It's also significant that there are five new works of Irwin's on view, including one titled Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue?
After the interview, I talked with Irwin about being part of the art scene in LA during the 1950's, particularly the groundbreaking world of Ferus Gallery and the artists who considered it home, including Irwin, Ed Ruscha and Larry Bell, among others. Here's a great article in Swindle magazine on Ferus and its contribution to the birth of an LA contemporary art scene.
Irwin and I also talked about when he decided to leave the studio in 1970 and stop painting. I asked him if he remembered what it was like to drive into the desert the first time after that decision -- and what it was like to begin "seeing" differently. Irwin said it was a powerful moment -- and went on to tell me about how he took a road trip along the border from California to Brownsville, but then just kept going. He drove on to Florida, and up the border of the east coast, all the way to Canada. He continued on, driving along the northern border and down the Pacific coast to California. After deciding to break the frame of painting, Irwin basically framed the country...seeing it's shape and contours...noticing the subtleties of light.
Irwin said to me: "You know I could have kept on painting and maybe would have made some advances there, but it wasn't the way for me."
If you want to read more about Irwin and his ideas about art... and, trust me, you do... pick up Lawrence Weschler's Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin . In my research, someone - and I can't remember who - said that this book created and inspired more artists than the Velvet Underground did rock bands.
