City of Angles

In the middle of everything and nothing, Culver City is taking L.A. art in a decisive new direction. How did this “Bermuda Triangle of L.A.” turn into the coolest wrinkle in the Thomas Guide?
by Lucinda Michele Knapp

It’s earthquake weather in Los Angeles. Nothing in this town is stable, and we all live with it. Whether you’re waiting for a callback, a call back, a coffee or a club, L.A. is the land of uncertainty. Sure, there’s infinite possibility, and it keeps the rest of the nation-and the world-moving here in droves, hoping for a chance at the golden apple. But there are also innumerable chances to screw up, fall out, grow stale, get sidelined, and just plain get lost. Nothing’s quite for certain in L.A., and the Queen of the Angels doesn’t so much hand out a promise of guaranteed stability as she hands out vouchers for the nonsensical, the unexplained, the curious and the serendipitous.

I myself am currently lost in Culver City-in more ways than one. In L.A.’s ever-shifting gaze of “cool,” Culver City has come into focus as the Next Big Thing for the art world. And frankly, to me that makes about as much sense as a bullet train to the Salton Sea. Come on! Culver freakin’ City? The land of Sony and the neverending commute? Whenever I drive here it seems to take about an hour longer than I’ve planned. Most Angelenos pass through it every day without even realizing they’re in the middle of it. Like some sort of bizarre, urban Bermuda Triangle, it appears small on a map, but seems to expand to staggering proportions-especially when you’re inside it, trying to get out.

Cross the invisible boundary into its environs and streets suddenly divide, end abruptly, change names or jerk out of a simple east-west route to careen diagonally north- or south-west. The town makes no darn sense. And when you’re driving through downtown Culver City with its fountains, cobblestone crosswalks and free WiFi (courtesy of the city), it feels like you aren’t even in Los Angeles proper-you’re in some small, happy hamlet that’s kind of trapped in a space warp where 1950 and 2006 aren’t mutually exclusive. What on earth is going on? It’s my mission to figure out why this city-which has always been a conundrum to me-is suddenly under the spotlight.

“Culver City’s definitely the place to be in L.A. art,” confirms Mat Gleason, my favorite source for information on the art world. His unflinching eye-and no-bullshit policy-has made his art journal Coagula a hit for over a decade. He’s able to assess the art world from an objective, relatively grounded point of view afforded him by being the editor of the only “watchdog” publication the art world has ever known. “[Culver City] is the biggest thing this side of New York.” With its first artwalk going down June 3, the town’s smiling and waving like a big-eyed debutante. Even the Los Angeles County Museum of Art weighs in: “It’s the current big commercial scene in L.A., yes,” agreed Lynn Zelevansky, LACMA’s Curator and Department Head of Contemporary and Modern Art.

Well, “current big scene” isn’t necessarily anything to alert the media about [ahem]. L.A.’s art world has always had the attention span of a gnat. “L.A.’s art centers have always migrated,” says Cliff Benjamin of Western Project, one of Culver City’s most adventurous and forward-thinking galleries. “It was Downtown in the ’80s. Then it moved to La Cienega, then Santa Monica and Bergamot Station, Wilshire…” Most recently, the place to be was Chinatown. And now Culver City? The ooze of cool makes no sense.

At 4:30 p.m. on Venice Boulevard near La Cienega, the light is thrown at me through the window like a brick-it’s damn hot and the air shimmers. The I-10 freeway grunts and heaves its way above me, across La Cienega at a slight diagonal, humping miserably across the sizzling basin floor. But with a little bit of research, what looks like an industrial no man’s land lifts in layers to reveal a landscape uniquely effected and shaped by the ground itself. Like anyone who fancies themselves an urban anthropologist/archaeologist, I firmly believe most interesting things that happen in the present can be explained by the fundamentals on which every city is built (literally):

Geography. Think I’m a little off my rocker? Watch this:

When Los Angeles County was first settled by the Spanish-divided into ranchos and bisected only by oxcarts and horse trails-there was only one easy path to the sea and the ports from Los Angeles’s first major settlement, the Pueblo (which still exists as Olvera Street just east of Downtown proper). The Baldwin Hills and lunar-esque Ladera Heights rose up in the south; to the north, the Cheviot Hills spurred away from the southern leg of the Santa Monica Mountains, also preventing easy travel and commerce. There was one way to go: through the lowlands along the Ballona Creek. Which would become, in time, Culver City.

“Culver City was the only flat path from the Pueblo to the ocean,” nods Steve Rose, President and C.E.O of Culver City’s Chamber of Commerce. “And that’s why all the streets angle into our downtown-to fit through. Oxcarts take the flattest route.”

Suddenly it’s a little easier to understand why Culver City feels so odd: space really is compressed. In the late 1800s, this heavily trafficked area became an ideal place for warehouses and manufacturing-warehouses and the industrial landscape being, of course, the biggest artist-magnet there is (right after free Chuck Shaw).

And in 1989, for reasons (appropriately) unclear, the institutional equivalent of a meteorite from another galaxy smacked down adjacent to downtown Culver City at 9341 Venice Boulevard. It was the Museum of Jurassic Technology, and it made absolutely no sense at all.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology is a step into an intently dark and cloistered row-house. Its Italianate façade seems imposing and out of place among the building supply shops, furniture stores and “Dogwood” kennels that line the thoroughfare; but inside is a delicate and idiosyncratic world unto itself, where the bizarre relics of the past (primarily of the 1800s) are lovingly catalogued, only partially explained, and examined in disturbing detail, including a horn taken from the head of a Miss Mary Davis (died 1688) and an almond stone (the core of an almond, visible if the almond is split) microscopically carved “with a Flemish landscape in which is seated a bearded man wearing a biretta, a long tunic of classical character, and thick-soled shoes; he is seated with a violin held between his knees while he tunes one of the strings. In the distance are representations of animals, including a lion, a bear, an elephant ridden by a monkey, a boar, a dog, a donkey, a stag, a camel, a horse, a bull, a bird, a goat, a lynx, and a group of rabbits: the latter under a branch on which sit an owl, another bird and a squirrel.”

Really.

The whole point of the MJT is to allow the mysteries and uncertainties of the past-whether pseudo-science, experiments in alchemy, unexplained phenomena, exploits of eccentrics or models of the heavenly spheres-to remain unclear, confusing, and challenging. And boy, do they ever. But that’s what makes the place so magical: you walk out from its monastic, cave-like darkness into the brilliant white light of L.A. with an expanded sense of possibility, the feeling that there’s a mystery around every corner, an awareness that the world is much more complex than we can ever hope to grasp or explain-and that’s just fine.

“We just knew there was something about Culver City. I wanted to be near the Museum of Jurassic Technology,” admits Cliff Benjamin. “It’s not about the truth. It’s about the slipperiness of the truth.” Seems appropriate for L.A.-and characteristic of Western Project itself, where Benjamin and his business partner Erin Kermanikian have built a business (within a sightline of the MJT) that’s a stepping-stone for great artists to make the leap to international status. “We created Western Project with the idea that in the ‘West,’ anything’s possible.” He references that expansive, boundless sense of possibility with which the nation’s always looked longingly toward the California sunset. “It’s that limitless vision.”

Western Project bucks John Q. Public’s notion that galleries are boring, snobby, or impossible to understand. Seventy percent of the artists they represent are local, and their work is fun, bright, and interesting even if you never went to art school and don’t know a Van Gogh from a Viola. They launched the career of local artist Oliver Arms stratosphere-high when New York gallerist Charles Coles-from one of the oldest and most venerable New York galleries-showed up at the art opening and bought a painting; with a handshake deal he had Arms scheduled for a solo NYC show, to be held later this year. Other Western Project artists like Carole Caroompas, Elina Kevorkian, and Sush Machida Gaikotsu fetch ever-higher prices-$5,500 to $18,000, sometimes more. Arms’ work has been re-priced twice.

But there’s gotta be more than just geographic centrality and the odd magnetism of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, or even Western Project’s manifest destiny, to account for Culver City’s exponential proliferation of world-class galleries. “Why do I think the galleries moved in?” asks Steven Rose rhetorically. His utterly personable carriage make him easy to talk to despite that fact that he is tall-and this reporter is, well, short. Rose leans in conspiratorially: “Low. Rent.” He leans back in his chair again. “And maybe the wooden bow-truss roofs on the old warehouses.”

Bingo. “Like everything else in the art world,” laughs Mat Gleason, “the true story revolves around a real estate deal.” Specifically, Blum & Poe’s acquisition of a large gallery space right next to Ballona Creek. The 800-pound gorilla of Los Angeles art galleries, Blum & Poe rose to international preeminence through a combination of luck, quick thinking and brass balls. Tim Blum ran Mars Gallery in Tokyo in the ’80s. An alum of middling L.A. gallery Robert Berman, Jeff Poe partnered up with Blum in the fall of 1994. The pair lucked into taking over the lease at the Patricia Shea gallery amidst a small, now-dispersed klatch of art spaces in Santa Monica. Gallerist Kim Light had just closed her gallery, leaving a number of artists high and dry; Blum and Poe swept in and made off with a number of Light’s artists, the most notable of which was Kim Dingle. She’d been Light’s bread and butter for a long time, and Blum & Poe staged a coup by snagging her. “It was like some upstart record label grabbing the Doors,” explains Gleason. Then, the pair recruited international artists-a genius business move. Every monied L.A. art collector went to Blum & Poe to see what was happening on the international scene. Their first show was Anya Gallaccio, a Scottish artist; she painted the gallery with chocolate, and the only things for sale were cans of paint with liquid chocolate in them. (Gallaccio’s since been nominated for the Tate Prize at the London Tate Modern). “It was this dramatic opening, and it blew everybody back,” continues Gleason. The next show was Dingle, another powerhouse (she’s since left Blum & Poe, and, unrelatedly, opened Fatty’s, a vegetarian joint in Eagle Rock; she was also a star at the Whitney Biennial). Blum’s connections in Tokyo brought Japanese art stars Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara to L.A., setting loose the “Superflat” design trend on the West Coast and firing up the local “lowbrow” art scene with a slammin’ transfusion of Japanese pop-art cuteness.

But by the early ‘00, Blum and Poe were looking for new digs. Up-and-coming art enclave Chinatown seemed the obvious place, but a deal never got fully inked. On New Year’s Day of 2003, said Poe in an interview with art writer Tulsa Kinney, “I got in my car and just drove-forgot about Hollywood, forgot about Downtown. It was like, fuck this. I saw this space [on La Cienega near Venice], called the landlord on the 2nd, and by the 1st of February we had signed the lease.” The overhead on Culver City galleries is about 20% of what it would be in neighboring Beverly Hills-meaning gallery owners can maximize profits while placing themselves in geographic proximity to the homes of the most affluent collectors in L.A. Not many blue-haired heiresses are going to schlep to Chinatown to twist their Manolo’d ankles on the uneven pavement of Chung King Road, but La Cienega is definitely a possibility. Poe’s footwear is more sensible: he informed Kinney, when she complimented his Italian sandals, “You probably can’t afford them-I got them at Barney’s.”

Blum & Poe don’t have to curry favor with journalists, luckily for them. They still host some of the best shows to come through Los Angeles. Their current exhibit of works by photographer and filmographer Sharon Lockhart is a stunning display of American life as manifested in the children of the small California town of Pine Flat. And in the building designed by Frank Escher and Ravi Gunewardena (who specialize in what they call “art containers”), Blum and Poe have managed to create a gravitational locus for galleries from all over Los Angeles and the US, with no fewer than 30 galleries springing up along La Cienega and Washington Boulevards.

Billy Shire Fine Arts is one gallery that was drawn westward across the urban terrain. It’s actually the Culver City outpost for Shire’s iconic La Luz de Jesus gallery, which is housed in the WACKO/Soap Plant building in Los Feliz and which was the springboard for L.A.’s homegrown “lowbrow” art scene-a scene that’s now garnering even more attention in Culver City. “When our artists started commanding prices in excess of $10,000 for pieces, it was time to start thinking about a stand-alone gallery,” explains gallery director Annie Adjchavanich, “rather than being in the back of a pop culture emporium [like WACKO]. The additional space has allowed the artists to really expand and make larger works.” It’s true. A walk into their 3,200 square foot space reveals massive artworks by L.A. icons Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Liz McGrath and oodles more. The L.A. “lowbrow” style, lent legitimacy beginning in the late ’80s by La Luz, is characterized by a contemporary blend of pop art and surrealism. It borrows ideas and characters from pop culture, early- and mid-20th Century cartoons and advertising, street style, Japanese design, California hot rodders, and for the cherry on top, macabre and religious imagery borrowed from Hieronymous Bosch and local Catholic culture. It’s a glorious chimera that only could have been bred in a city as weird as Los Angeles, and it’s all ours. Calling it “lowbrow” is really selling it short-it’s a new sort of surrealism that’s keenly aware of the cult of images that our modern American culture is built on, and it asks us to remember what’s important.

“Information, imagery and artifice: L.A.’s always had that tradition…art in New York comes from history. L.A. does not,” says Benjamin from Western Project. “But I’m not interested in artists who want to be celebrities. I’m interested in people with a deep obsession with the content within their work.”

That’s a seriousness and a professionalism that seems to be a hallmark of the Culver City scene. Caryn Coleman of sixspace doesn’t just operate her gallery; she runs Art.blogging.la with her husband, blogger extraordinaire Sean Bonner. Combining fresh technologies and media with her keen eye for the pick of L.A.’s litter of artists (she represents locals Heather Cantrell, Coop, Sarah Cromarty, Donovan Crosby, Wendy Heldmann, Sean Higgins, kozyndan, Chad Robertson, Rachell Sumpter, and Seonna Hong), she’s able to bring out the diverse idiosyncrasies of each individual she represents. Seonna Hong, whose technical virtuosity (just check out her portraits on the sixspace website) combines with affection and advocacy, makes you root for her little girls-and big girls-as they tackle life in the city. Up right now are Chad Robertson’s “Rise”-oil paintings of zombies-yes, zombies. His subtle and softly-painted images of brain-starved, staggering un-dead are inspired by the films of George A. Romero and the zombie genre, and standing in front of them makes you think about current events and Western culture. When I asked her to pick a favorite, she demurred. “I honestly cannot pick a favorite among the artists that I show. I’m really proud of the fact that I have a very diverse programme, which means that each artist I show brings something different to the table.”

While Coleman’s taken L.A.’s diverse artists to a focused, personal new level, galleries like BLK:MRKT and lightbox work with individual artists who are just coming into their own, and who pull down cool, clout and cachet. BLK:MRKT’s 2001 opening at 6009 Washington Blvd. saw the gallery working to bring street-influenced artists to a wider audience. From Shepard Fairey’s famous screen prints and posters to Jose Parla’s gloriously beautiful elevation of graffiti through calligraphy and into the transcendent ether, it’s always quite the scene, and usually deservedly so. “Street” artists haven’t yet established that they’ll have longevity in the art market (they will, with time), but it’s not about that: BLK:MRKT is supporting a subculture so full of vitality and creative juice it may fuel culture in L.A. for decades to come.

Lightbox-the new gallery from Kim Light-is just shifting into full throttle, and Light’s hitting her stride again with a slowly building celeb tide. LAXART’s wordy façade (look for the large sans serif type marching across the stucco, a poem by artist Daniel Joseph Martinez) fronts a nonprofit exhibition space that works to interact with the community, whether it be through arty billboards, disguising the walls of freeways, or a film that asks us to examine new possibilities for housing and social justice in Tijuana. The list of high-quality galleries goes on and on-Lizabeth Oliviera, George Billis, Susanne Vielmetter, D.E.N. Contemporary-and the degree of quality in what’s offered means that even if you’re just learning about contemporary art, you’ll be assured you’re looking at art work that’s probably 70 percent guaranteed to fetch you a good-even great-appreciation in value over time. And if you’re not in the market to buy, it’s a good place to get a bead on what’s going on in fine art without worrying that a gallerist is trying to sell you on something that’s just plain lousy.

As always, the art world isn’t without its BS (or spin sans substance), but Culver City has far less of it than other art enclaves in L.A. right now. The gallery directors of Culver City mean business. But they’re good folks all, and they don’t get so caught up in the commerce and valuations of the art world that they forget what a bitchin’ job they have. “We all live on the head of a pin,” concedes Cliff Benjamin. The art world is a tiny one, subsisting on the generosity of the affluent and the creativity of artists, with proles like me, who love looking at art, sandwiched in between the consumers and the creatives.

This isn’t ponderous, dour, “Art-with-a-capital A” art, the kind you feel squashed by when you walk in as the gal at the desk looks down her nose at you. “I designed this space specifically so that you wouldn’t feel watched as you looked around,” says Cliff Benjamin, gesturing around Western Project. A walk into LAXART discovers the staff leaning on one another and beaming at the visitors like proud, teary-eyed parents. The gallerists of Culver City aren’t jerks. They have big smiles, genuine laughter and are generous with their restrooms. “I love working with Billy Shire,” enthuses Adjchavanich when I ask her what she likes about her work; Shire recruited her from Washington D.C. where she’d been working for a non-profit. “And people in L.A. are so friendly!” Well, Annie, it might be because people are used to getting snubbed at galleries, and you-and the folks at sixspace, and Western Project, and all the other galleries I visited-are a breath of fresh air.

Any L.A. art enclave worth its promo budget launches an artwalk, and Culver City’s no exception, with their first one scheduled for June 3. The 30 galleries in the area will be open late, a specially-priced bus pass will zip you from one cluster of galleries to another, and jazz musicians from the Henry Mancini Institute will be peppered along the route. Go upscale at Blum & Poe and just try to compete with the staff’s fuck-me stilettos and couture pegged jeans, or try the other end of the spectrum with downtown alum Black Cat Gallery, whose live fashion show, rock band the Dagons, live painting by oilographer Kevin Rolly and “mutant vehicle” show are sure to bring a bit of oxygen to the rarefied air. And of course, stop by early to check out the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

An artwalk is not about buying artwork. It’s about seeing artwork. For po’ folks like me, it’s important to remember that (a) quality artists deserve to get paid as much as they can get for their work, because they’ve probably given up everything to pursue their dreams, and (b) buying isn’t everything. We forget there’s an intrinsic value in seeing art, in taking it in, thinking about it, just having it in the space around you. At the very least, it can remind you that you, too, might find a little wiggle room in the cracks and crevices of daily reality to pursue your own dreams, whether you do it in micromovements or grand gestures. It’s also just plain sweet to be in a room filled with painted pictures of zombies.

So, maybe this little warp in the weave of L.A.’s grid is an okay thing to have. There’s a lot of magic to be found in the paths that shift direction, the wisdom of the topography, and the creativity that pops up in the most unexpected of places. You should probably seek it out.

Even if it means getting a little bit lost.

“The learner must be led always from familiar objects toward the unfamiliar - guided along, as it were, a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life.”
-Plaque inside the foyer at the Museum of Jurassic Technology LAA