Another Day in L.A. (part one): Forum Gallery and Gagosian

Tula Tulfair at Forum Gallery

Today we are going to Culver City Art walk with a group of artists friends: Maura, Jane, Carol and Molly. This time we optimized carpooling by having 5 in a car!

First Molly wants to take us to the Forum Gallery to see Tula Telfair’s work on Beverly Boulevard. It is my first time there. Tula’s paintings are large, impressive and extremely well crafted. It is a series of “perfect landscapes”, each of the paintings is one-quarter land and three-quarters sky. Many of the skies are tormented and beautifully lighted. The frames are large and golden. Overall I am stunned by the technique but not really moved by the work. I find that artists who chose to extract themselves from the reality of the world we live in do not interest me as much as those who decide to talk about the world as it is, with all its imperfections. That said, it is always interesting to see a beautiful work.

Beverly Boulevard - the contrast is interesting between
what is going on inside and outside the Forum gallery...

Gregory Crewdson at Gagosian - Beverly Hills

We head to Gagosian on Camden Drive. Beautiful space. Gregory Crewdson’s prints have an unbelievable perfection. There is a series of 19 huge prints (approximately 64x94”). All the works are untitled but on the list each print gets a “name”: Untitled (secret liaison), Untitled (The Madison), Untitled (Trailer Park)…

Trailer Park is actually the first photo I see when I enter the main space. The print is stunning, there is an incredible atmosphere, the light is haunting, I can see a rain curtain that is, I am sure, impossible to detect if the photo is printed in a book: it is so light and almost invisible. The magic of that work is to discover each detail, even expressions, on the faces that are no bigger than a nail.

There is of course the very intriguing “Untitled (Shane)”: the boy under a bridge, who is looking up, in what seems to be one of these abandoned places, right in the middle of a town, where almost no one would dare to go. I saw the image on Gagosian’s website and now I can see some people I did not notice before. There is a group of young men behind Shane, in the fog.

In almost all the photos, I am asking myself “What is going on here?” Snowy urban landscapes, decaying suburbs, trailers, old cars, lonely people… Everything is so bleak and worn out. It is like there is almost no hope, except may be the light. The light is heavenly. “What are those people waiting for?”: the question will haunt me all day.