The Pink Bus was born out of Victoria and Caroline’s growing concern with trash and its negative impact on their surroundings. While in pursuit of their fine art degrees at University, they decided to use their sophomore year project as an opportunity to take their apprehension and do something positive. They began collecting unwanted possessions donated by charity shops, front gardens, skips, and hedgerows, motivated by the desire to transform them into something beautiful. That was before they knew their idea would sprout wheels.

In transforming a rusty old bus into an art installation using junk, Victoria and Caroline hoped to make a difference in the way people saw their refuse and its long-term effects. They did not expect that in cobbling rubbish together they were also building a community. Having lived in Los Angeles long enough to let the sprawl of the city make crossing the East/West border akin to crossing the Alps, I could really appreciate the importance and difficulty of their achievement. From the shopkeepers they met in their search for just the right pieces of refuse, to the fans of comedy and music who got a chance to experience one-of-a-kind shows on the top deck of the Pink Bus, Caroline and Victoria harnessed the power of old cast-off objects to build a new environment. Here they share this transformative experience in their own words.

Sofiya Goldshteyn: The most obvious question first – does the bus run?

Pink Bus: The bus sadly does not run. It is a 25 year old Metroline. When we were preparing to take it up to Edinburgh, we did try to get it fixed, as we wanted to run it on Biofuel. We had the support of SEPA (the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) but financially, we could not afford the repairs at the time so we had to have it towed up instead. As soon as we have raised a bit of funding we will get it fixed as we think it would look very spectacular being driven around.

SG: I know the original inspiration for the Pink Bus was all the trash you saw, what other environmental issues are a daily concern for you and the people in your particular area of England?

PB: Air pollution. Coincidentally, since we begun our bus project, there has been a big campaign to encourage people to leave their cars at home and travel by public transport. This drive has been matched by investment in the transport system, but there is still a long way to go to make a noticeable impact on the levels of carbon emissions from cars. We think attitudes towards environmental issues are definitely changing for the better, but it is at a very gradual rate. People accept that they need to make changes, but perhaps are unsure as to how big a change has to be made to be effective.

SG: What kind of reactions have you observed from people towards your project and towards environmentalism in general?

PB: The people we collect our materials from are initially very surprised that we want to take away whatever they’ve discarded. Once we explain what we are using it for however, we have found everyone reacts very positively about their ‘rubbish’ being re-used. We found an old metal shop sign for Hovis bread left out in a garden and on approaching the owner he was very protective about it, even though he had left it in the elements (in fact he gave it to us strictly on loan, threatening to remove our kneecaps if it didn’t get returned). We invited him to the unveiling of the bus with his Hovis bread signs mounted on the outside of the bus and he was so pleased to have them displayed and appreciated, he donated them (and we got to keep our kneecaps). The attitude to environmental awareness is slowly changing in households but by being able to take people’s waste and turn it into something visually unexpected and entertaining is a very effective way of promoting change.

SG: You didn’t know from the beginning that you wanted to use the bus as a performance space, right? What are the unique benefits of having such an unusual venue?

PB: When we first begun the project, I don’t think we thought past the bus being anything more than an installation piece. But after holding a party on the bus to celebrate our degree marks and thank everyone involved, it became clear the atmosphere on board was completely unique. As a venue, the atmosphere is instant as soon as you enter the bus, and the intimate ‘stage’ at the front of the top deck creates a performance experience like nothing else, particularly when watched from the double bed.

SG: I bet! What are your favorite parts of the bus?

PB: We love our double bed on the top deck, which became one of our performers, the comedian Paul Foot’s stage as he conducted bedtime story shows from it to a pajama-clad audience. We also have a ‘love corner’ for our romantically inclined visitors which is complete with Mills and Boon wallpaper, pink chandeliers, posters of great lovers (Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart) and a velvet heart that sings love melodies when squeezed (we were very excited to haul that treasure out of a skip still working).
We find that although we put the bus together, there is still new angles to see it from and things to find, particularly as on every flat surface we have papered up old newspapers, song sheets and discarded documents so there is always something waiting to be read.


SG: That ‘s awesome! What was the best part of working on the bus for you guys?

PB: We felt the most rewarding part of creating the installation was meeting the people who donated all their unwanted possessions. As well as gathering items from our local community, we also had a team of charity shop volunteers who collected up all their unsellable stock for us each week. Although charity shops try not to throw away a lot, they have to get rid of items that they can’t shift and so it ends up in a landfill. Even now, despite the fact that the bus is packed to bursting with objects, we can remember where the pieces were found, why we chose them and who they were given by. We both feel that the best part of using recycled materials is the history of the object that is contained within it.

SG: That’s beautiful, and you really feel like you’re looking at something special when you see any of the objects on your bus – especially the stuffed animals, those really struck me and made me think about their past lives. And of course, all ordinary objects have such lives.

PB: Yes, Germano Celant sums this up well in “A Bottle Full of Notes and Some Voyages,” in which he discusses Claes Oldenburg’s and Coosje van Bruggen’s interest in the mundane and everyday objects: “It is on the stage of the ‘everyday’ of the world of things and objects in the world, that the self, through the process of its imagination, gambles with constructing an ‘alternative’ to the world, a history and identity of its own.” It is this identity that interests us; how is it that individual people can sometimes project something of themselves onto inanimate objects and make them their own. It is this essence that we are tried to capture.

SG: What are some of your favorite objects you found for the bus?

PB: When we were looking for the bar materials, we found an old curved bath surround in a front garden on top of which we melted on vinyl records to make the perfect bar top. One of our favourite finds was a car seat cover with “pink wheels” written on it which is now on the driver’s seat. This particular item we rescued from the bottom of a skip. At times it felt very much as though the bus had already created itself and then exploded, scattering its contents, and our task was to put it back together. It was a very organic process.

SG: What are some of the ideas about waste that you’d like to impart on your viewers?

PB: Most of the objects we gathered had already been designed and manufactured to fulfil certain functions and had since become obsolete. Redeploying them in a new environment, brought a new perspective and challenged the roles they were created for. We hope that by doing this we inspire the potential in the huge amount of objects we waste. 


SG: What were some of your influences or inspirations for the Pink Bus?

PB: The root inspiration was Christoph Buchel’s exhibition, “Simply Botiful,” an installation piece set within a warehouse in London’s Brick Lane. The show is a series of illusions, playing on the psychological and environmental connections we have with material objects.
We strongly connected with the carved out habitats that Buchel created. Like Buchel, we like to impart something about the people who once owned the objects and that sense of remnant energy prevents it as merely being a pile of rubbish. Our visits to the Whitley estate (an expansive post- World War 2 housing estate in Berkshire, Reading) that houses a wide range of different people have further inspired us, meeting people and photographing houses and driveways that display similar hoarding, with some people creating cocoons of protection built around their individual living space.
Celant has a great quote about this: “The self is constantly confronted with the irrepressible oscillation of the things of the world, and risks getting lost in the labyrinth of their infinite travels. In order to avoid that loss and to face down the terror of being drowned in the world’s avalanche of objects, the self tries to capture some of these things, to make them its own, it gives them personal value, whether positive or negative.”
In a similar way, we have become drawn to observing how people hang on to so much. The way they are kept, stored, hoarded, can tell us something about their lives. It is likely that our interpretation is not the actuality, but we have satisfied our own need to understand how these objects function within people’s lives.

SG: That’s really interesting, viewing the world as an avalanche of objects, and making up your own histories based on the way a person hangs on to their stuff. I hope you keep sharing the bus with people, the discussions and thoughts it stimulates are really worthwhile… Speaking of sharing, what is the next stop for the Pink Bus?

PB: We are currently applying for funding to take the bus to a series of Festivals coming up throughout the year. The bus has recently been the anchor exhibit to The Royal West of England Academy’s Autumn Exhibition and we hope that other galleries will be interested in showing it. The bus is also for sale and so if it is snapped up by someone it will provide us with the funds to continue making work together. We feel the bus is best when it’s inhabited and so our goal is to keep bringing it to new audiences. We also get people bringing their unwanted possessions on board and taking things away from the bus so it is continually evolving.

SG: I love the interactive aspect of that! And I’d really like to see what your artistic process will evolve into next. Have you started thinking about your next collaboration?

PB: The next idea we are exploring involves storage facilities. We are inspired by the idea of the secrets, the excesses and the forgotten in storage warehouses. We are currently looking into taking over a floor of a storage facility and creating installations in each of the bays for an audience to walk around. The eerie atmosphere and voyeuristic element we feel will provide a memorable viewing experience.

SG: Sounds creepy and fascinating in all the right ways. I can’t wait to catch up with you then, I’m sure it’s going to be amazing!

Bianca’s keen attention to the ‘forgotten’ parts of our landscape began before she moved to Los Angeles for graduate school, but it was there that her professors recommended she look at the work of photographer Allan Sekula for ideas on how to get closer to her subject. Sekula would hang out in longshoreman bars, befriending the denizens and eventually gaining unprecedented access to shipping yards, ferries, and their inner workings. Bianca knew that as a woman, building friendships with longshoremen in the comfort of their watering holes would not be right approach for her, so she tried to find her own way in. “I just had to be a total nerd about it – I studied the maps, and I spent a lot of time [at the ports].”
Yet her initial plein air sketches for the port series proved challenging, to say the least. Plein air work is a constant battle with the elements: fading light, shifting spatial relationships, lousy weather. Bianca eventually transitioned into using video to capture details of the port landscape, upon which she would base her collages. This was not a transition without some angst since Bianca is quick to lament the way technology can remove us from directly experiencing the world around us. But in this case, the video camera has set Bianca free: “I am now using technology to get closer to the landscape. With video I have more time to look at the birds flying in, I have time to look at the water, the air, the movement of things.”

Bianca sees meaning in the details of these places society ignores. “We’re disconnecting too far from the landscape, the further we get away from it the less we care about what happens to it.” The ports are our dirty secret, the cost of a consumerist lifestyle. But Bianca is not out to proselytize or point fingers. To avoid knee-jerk reactions, she even refrains from incorporating corporate logos or other such easy targets for capitalist critique. “The work for me is very political and very environmental, but I would never have it be overtly political…It is a place you can have your own thoughts.”
But Bianca’s work eschews the coolly detached intellectualism of ‘thoughtful’ or ‘political’ art. It is, unequivocally, beautiful. And while it is nothing new for an artist to bring the ‘forgotten’ or abject into the gallery – Kiki Smith and Paul McCarthy have made long careers of it – few have addressed such ugly things with such formal beauty.
The striking intricacy of Bianca’s cityscapes is revealed when your face is five inches from them, your eyes endlessly running over tiny strips of every color and pattern imaginable. As soon as you take a step back, the illusion of painted lines springs up, the meticulous strips turning into brushstrokes. Citing Cezanne as a big influence because of the way he could define a space with just a few planes, Bianca hacks away at her structures until only the most integral lines are left. The visual depth of the collages, especially the largest work Outward-Inward 2, is enhanced by the fact that some colored strips have been pasted over and over, the layers raising away from the gallery wall like mountains on relief maps. She likens the visible thickness to the erasure marks she leaves when drawing, a tangible record of her process.
The joy of discovery comes when a line of ink gives way to the hatch pattern of a security envelope or the vibrant red of what surely must have been a candy wrapper; Bianca’s medium is not limited to paint or ink: she is making art from packaging. In this case, the medium has and obvious intrinsic connection to the message. Shipping ports are the universal gateways to the cheap, prepackaged goods that fuel our lives. Goods we consume; packaging we throw away. It seems ludicrous to think of the billions spent designing the perfect wrapper or box for everything we consume, when it all winds up in the trash heap. Our trash is incredibly expensive, and also highly designed for maximum aesthetic appeal. Bianca’s shredding renders this packaging anonymous, breaking it down into its most basic components, and using those to rebuild our cities in vibrant color.
When Bianca first started to use packaging as her medium, she was really proud of herself for being so green. However, her Prius-owner-like self-satisfaction didn’t last. Bianca didn’t generate enough trash to populate her collages. Soon friends and relatives from around the country were called upon to carefully gather their most picturesque packaging, box it, and mail it in. The irony to convey the environmental impact of importing while receiving packaged trash in the mail did not escape Bianca. “It made me realize that I’m just as attached as anybody to all the packaged stuff we have.”
Despite seeing marshland destroyed before her eyes, Bianca is positive about the future of our environment, “I feel like I’m hopeful. The landscape is stronger than anything we can create.” Since the last time she painted at the Oakland port, some of the industrial property has been converted back into marshland; there is even a new park. At this rate, we may one day look back on Bianca’s urban port-scapes as relics of a faded past, nostalgic for trash in our unsullied future, wistful for our own Mont Sainte Victoire.

Bianca Kolonusz-Partee explores industrial landscapes that exist within the more complex natural world. Working in industrial landscapes – birds, water and land reclaim the manufactured landscape. Bianca creates monumental landscapes that the viewer moves through in hopes that this simulation will allow the viewer to have their own experience of the contemporary world.

BIO
After living in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Manhattan Bianca Kolonusz-Partee and her hubsand have recently settled in the Russian River area of Northern California, where she grew up. Bianca will continue to explore the American and eventually international shipping ports with the much more tangiabltangibleson of the natural world at her fingertips.

Don Argott’s new film The Art of the Steal is closer to a conspiracy flick than institutional documentary. On the face of it, the film tells the tumultuous history of The Barnes Foundation, a maze of political and art world chicanery with twists and betrayals to rival a season of “Lost” – only at the end of the day, it all makes sense. The motive: money, over $25 billion to be exact, the estimated value of the late Albert Barnes’ unrivaled collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Early Modern masters. The crime: betraying the old man’s legal trust by hijacking the entire collection from its rightful home at an eccentric educational institution in Lower Merion County to a shiny new tourist hot-spot in downtown Philadelphia. But the most surprising element of the mystery is the culprit: the big business of big philanthropy.

Public radio listeners and museum-goers probably know the Annenberg Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust for their diligent support of the arts. In this case, however, the question of support is dubious. Argott’s film tells a tawdry tale of collusion between local politicians jockeying for tourism dollars and supposedly philanthropic organizations vying for prestige and beneficial tax status, laying Barnes’ legacy to waste along the way.

Dr. Albert Barnes was a cantankerous working-class contrarian who made his fortune on a drug called Argyrol. Unlike many collectors who view art as purely an investment, Barnes delighted in acquiring only what he loved. Defying the conservative tastemakers of his day, who described painters like Cezanne, Picasso, and Modigliani as “savage,” “primitive,” and “debased,” Barnes amassed a collection that showcased his unique eye. After an early show of his treasures earned scathing reviews from the Philadelphia art establishment, Barnes determined to create an establishment of his own.

The Barnes Foundation was founded in 1922 in Lower Merion, five miles outside of Philadelphia. Unlike traditional museums, which Barnes scorned as mere backdrops for socialite gatherings, his Foundation would not be a place to be seen, nor merely to see art, but to learn. With help from his wife Laura and philosopher John Dewey, Dr. Barnes developed a progressive educational program in which students would intimately engage with his art collection on a daily basis. This earned him the respect of artists like Matisse, who called The Barnes Foundation “the only sane place to see art in America.”

By the time of Barnes death in 1951, the tide of critical opinion had turned. The same museum establishment that once mocked his collection was now clamoring to receive it. It was precisely to protect his beloved treasures against this fate that Barnes established an ironclad indenture of trust, which in the event of his death would safeguard the future of his eccentric educational Foundation and ensure its art never under any circumstances be moved, loaned out, or sold.

Which brings us back to the crime at the heart of Argott’s taut little documentary thriller: how the Philadelphia political establishment, in cahoots with two of the nation’s top philanthropies (one, not coincidentally, endowed by Barnes’ lifelong nemesis and rival—but by no means equal—art-collector Walter Annenberg) conspired over the course of decades to dismantle and ultimately break Barnes’ trust.
Art Editor Sofiya Goldshteyn sat down with director Don Argott and producer Sheena Joyce.

So I know it was shocking for me to associate the Pew that I’m used to hearing mentioned after various NPR programs with the Pew that uses The Barnes Foundation to better their tax status. Was it shocking for you as well, or is this something you knew going in?
DA: Not at all! It was probably naïve of us to think if you’re a charity you are all good. They’re not all bad, of course, they fund a lot of arts programs, but the problem is because they are a charitable organization they somehow seem to get a pass for any kind of criticism or any kind of accountability they should be held to. They are just like a big corporate institution, they just happen to be a non-profit corporate institution.
SJ: Sadly, good people can do bad things. Charity is big business.

Were you surprised by all the support and acclaim the film has received despite the fact that it casts a shadow on such gigantic well-respected charities? Did you expect a backlash?
DA: The coverage has been phenomenal, even in Philadelphia, we had 4 articles in the Inquirer last week. This film really hits a nerve especially in the art community. There are obviously tons of art documentaries, but none that I think expose a lot of the underbelly of the art world that people aren’t used to seeing.
SJ: It’s a polarizing story. The most consistent criticism has been that it’s biased, or it’s one-sided. It’s very difficult for us to accept in a sense, because we tried desperately to get all sides to speak with us, and when one side refuses, we still tried to get people who share their opinion to speak for them so they would have a voice. People have said the film is biased, but no one has said it’s not true. We like to say we are on the side of Dr. Barnes, and if that’s not the right side to be on, I don’t know what is.

Did you expect that no one from the trusts would agree to be interviewed for the film?
DA: Not at first. They didn’t flat-out say no. It was unfortunate because we really begged them. I called them, Sheena called them a bunch of times, and said listen, you should really be a part of this, because it’s really getting heavy, and they said that basically they didn’t want to acknowledge there was another side, and they were moving forward with moving the collection and they didn’t want to dredge up the past. That’s what they said on the surface, but what they really felt was that they didn’t have to talk to us, and they didn’t think we were going to be anything anyway, so why bother.
SJ: There are two things – they never want a dialogue about this, and the second thing is that we were underestimated. They really thought nothing of us, and they could steamroll us like they’ve done everyone and everything else, and we would just go away, and I think it was the shock of their lives when it was announced that we were making our world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

What impact do you see your documentary making on the art world, and beyond?
SJ: Cultural organizations are sitting up and taking notice. And this Barnes case is going to have ripples throughout the art world and the philanthropic community, and the impact on trust and estate law alone not just in the commonwealth in Philadelphia but across the country is staggering. I’d be thinking twice, as a donor, certainly, about where I would give my collection, to whom and where I would bequeath what I love, because even if it comes with stipulations, there’s already a precedent set that they don’t necessarily have to be honored by the trustees.

What other questions does the film raise, other than obviously the ones that deal directly with the legal question of how Dr. Barnes trust was basically dismantled?
SJ: The film speaks to bigger themes – art as commodity, or art versus commerce, charity as big business, and this sense of entitlement that we have as a society right now. What do you mean, I can’t just walk up and see it whenever I want? What do you mean I have to make an appointment, or take a train or drive ten minutes outside the city to see it? It’s funny, we’ve been there so many times and it’s filled with Europeans. Somehow they figure out how to cross the Atlantic and get into the place, but a guy in Center City in Philadelphia can’t wrap his mind around ‘how do I get to the Barnes.’(laughs)

Yes, one of the main arguments I keep reading from the Pew and Annenberg people is that moving the collection is going to make it so much more accessible to the public, which strikes me as a little bit sacrilegious – it’s like moving Stonehenge because Wiltshire is a bit of a pain in the ass to get to.
DA: Exactly! That becomes the infuriating argument. There are places like this that exist all over the world, and no one seems to have a problem with those places. This isn’t in coal-mining country in Pennsylvania; it’s five minutes outside the city of Philadelphia, literally one block outside the city limits. It’s basically destroying something that’s significant and special in the name of turning it into something that’s ordinary, and saying that is the way to best serve the public.
And ultimately it’s about tourism, they can’t accept the fact that there is a building with all these paintings that they could be exploiting 100 times more if they could just move it from this place to this place. It’s everything the Barnes was not about.

What do you think the visitors to the Barnes’ new home going to miss out on? What is the biggest disadvantage of the move for the visitors?
SJ: It dilutes the experience that Dr. Barnes wanted you to have, that intimate relationship with the art that he created. He wanted you to see art in everyday life. It’s a conversation between the individual pieces. They say they’re going to recreate the ensembles, but it’s not in the same place, it’s not on the arboretum. Just because you’re hanging them the same way, doesn’t mean you’re recreating the experience that Dr. Barnes created.
DA: It’s like a bad cover song.

Yes, one of the most interesting things I found about the way Dr. Barnes created the ensembles was the way he mixed African art with European. Not only is it impressive from a civil rights perspective during his time – this is when people considered African art savage and primitive, but also from an artistic perspective. In museums everything is separated into rooms by period and genre, you never get a sense of unity.
SJ: Really he wanted there to be art for everyone, and for people to see how connected we all are. That’s why he has African sculpture, and a Modigliani, and a Hinge, where all of the lines mimic each other and you see this thread that ties us all together, and you could look objectively at art and decide what you like. It shouldn’t be intimidating, and should not be for the elite. He bought what he loved, not what other people thought was popular at the time. There are paintings there where the artists are completely unknown. Some of them are by local artists, who would literally walk in and show Dr. Barnes their work, and sometimes he’d buy it.

How successful do you think the collection is going to be at its new home?
SJ: People aren’t visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art now – the PMA is struggling for funds. The Philadelphia orchestra is on the verge of bankruptcy. I’m sure there’s be an increased interest when the building opens, but once that shiny new building smell wears off, they’re going be in the same trouble as everyone else. There have been no feasibility studies, the real cost of the move has never been revealed, we don’t know how much of the funds have really been raised and where they’ve come from, so we’ll see.

Are you guys going to visit the collection once it moves?
SJ: Jay Raymond from the movie said it best – it’s going to be like going to a cemetery to visit a relative.

One of the saddest parts of the movie is when Lincoln University, the tiny black college Barnes specifically named as trustee, traded the cow for the milk, so to speak – involvement in a collection that’s worth billions of dollars for state funding forth millions. Do you blame them for their own fate?
SJ: Not really. When [the attorney general] Mike Fisher, who has the power to go to court and say they are not taking care of [the collection], and take the trusteeship away from them, is saying to them you need to play ball, what choice do they really have? They tried, but they withdrew that petition in court. When the attorney general plays bad cop, and governor Ed Rendell plays good cop, what can you do?

What’s your favorite Dr. Barnes story?
DA: There’s a really great, not a Barnes story, but a ghost story from a guard at the foundation at night. I believe it involves The Postman. Van Gough’s The Postman? So somebody tells the guard that there was a puddle of water near The Postman, so he cleans it up thinking I was a leak or something.
SJ: This happens over several nights.
DA: And they come back, and the puddle is there again, and there’s no leak!
SJ: And that was Dr. Barnes’ favorite painting.

Spooky! Maybe he knew all that was coming and those were tears. In conclusion, what would you like the people coming to see film to leave with?
DA: At the heart of it, it’s a character story, and it’s an emotional story. Dr. Barnes was a man, he’s not just a name on a wall. He was a man with a vision, and the foundation was his work of art.

When I found out that the 15th Annual Los Angeles Art Show is taking place at the LA Convention Center this year, I immediately flashed back to the last time I was there, about 5 years ago, getting sworn in as an American citizen. Instead of being surrounded by fellow foreigners awkwardly waving our tiny American flags as a video George Bush, wheat fields, and smiling children played on a large screen, this time I was surrounded by rich old people, hipsters, and hungry reporters.

“Who’s here? What celebrities? Who’s checked in so far?”
“Tatyana … hm… something,” the publicist was a bit taken aback by his ferocity. “Let me look it up, I’m not good with celebrity names.”
“Honey, if you can’t remember the last name, they’re not important.” BURN.

All I was hungry for was pasta and possibly champagne. Journalism is usually an individual sport, lonely, cold and demanding, like curling, so when fellow reporter Tommy Tung, a freelancer for Juxtapoz, suggested we wander the art show together, I was excited to have a partner in crime. Especially when it came to snagging a drink and food at the same time – teamwork was of the essence.

The LA Art Show is vast in size and scope. Kim Martindale, the Director/Executive Director of the show, had a very clear vision for utilizing the space to its maximum advantage, including giant live painting installation Vox Humana, the Downtown Gallery Association, and the Sister City Los Angeles International Art Exhibition. “The great thing about the convention center versus any other facility in Los Angeles, is that you have the potential to do these things. When we moved the show here we were at 70,000 square feet, this is 150,000 square feet.”

The size of the space is important, since Kim’s view of the LA Art Show is encyclopedic, “We have [everything from] very historic work to really cutting edge. This show is about showing all the different types of art.” That may account for some overheard grumblings at the show about Holly Hobby art, or declarations that the LA Art Show is no Art Basel. But for every complaint, there is a gallery or an artist that has a chance to show its work to an outside audience. Be it the art of Uruguay, the debut country for the brand-new Guest Country Program, or the graffiti of Retna and El Mac, this convention center is a site where many unlikely matches of artist and art lover will occur.

Tommy and I were most excited for the Vox Humana Art Performance, which is curated by Bryson Strauss of LA ART MACHINE. There are two separate 12’x12’ murals for Mear One and Kofie, and a joint mural that’s a collaboration between Retna and El Mac. It is a black and white photorealist portrait of a woman, a universal mother figure with pained eyes and a wrinkled face – El Mac’s contribution. Her face touches something primal inside, a nostalgic guilt that is so familiar to every kid who’s ever upset his mother. Starting from the top left corner, Retna has begun to cover the background in his signature calligraphy, beautiful in its fluidity and grace. By the end of the show, he will complete the Spanish quote, which so far reads “I am your mother, who gave you the earth that bore you, now my tears…” I can’t wait to see the finished product.

A featured spot at the LA Art Show brings a certain legitimacy to an art form that is illegal in its natural environment; a fact that’s easy to forget with artists like Shepard Fairey and Banksy having become pop culture staples. Kim Martindale is proud to aid this shift in perception with Vox Humana, marking the first time a prominent art fair has featured street art: “Graffitti art is part of that latest movement that has gone through transitions, where people pushed it aside, saying it’s an evil thing for our society, and in the last 5 years you start hearing a lot more about those artists, and they really are artists.”

Just as the live graffiti art installation is a first of its kind for any art fair, not just the LA Art Show, it is a first event of its kind for the artists as well. Retna tells me he’s excited to paint here, “It’s nice to be able to be in an environment like this and be able to produce the pieces that we would normally do on the street.” For El Mac, the ability to paint on a 12’x24’ canvas is another bonus – he says his work has a lot more impact large, in addition to minimizing a perfectionist streak that can run wild when he is working on a small scale.
Retna and El Mac are glad to expose a different kind of audience to their work, seeing the difference between this gig and what they usually do as merely a difference between the private and public sector. “We kinda do it for everyone, it’s a universal thing, there’s stuff we give away to the people and there’s stuff we give away for a commercial purpose, but the meaning is the same,” says Retna.
For El Mac, creating the giant murals under the watchful eyes of an ever-changing crowd goes hand in hand with the exhibitionist nature of being a graffiti artist, “The more the better. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Wanting people to see the work, whoever they are, whether they are little old ladies, or rich Italian people. Whoever might like it, whoever it might do something for.” Both artists hope that the exposure will lead to new opportunities and new investors.

After taking some video of Mear and Kofie working their magic with aerosol cans, acrylic paint, and rulers, I head over to the giant Hershey kiss that has been beckoning to me throughout the evening; even more than the pomegranate martinis.

The 20’x12’ kiss is one of several delightful offerings of CA mosaicist Jean Wells, presented by Timothy Yarger Fine Art. Its Oldenberg-like oversized playfulness draws people from all around the show like a shiny silver beacon, and its little paper flag flies a promise of something fun, silly, and sweet. It does not disappoint – inside there is a little bench, where videos of silent movie kisses play on a loop. It is an escape pod from reality, a giant piece of brain candy.

Elizabeth Yochim, the Director of International Exhibitions for the gallery, shared what she thought made Wells’ work so popular internationally in the last couple of years, and so attractive to serious collectors: “It seems very simple, but it is very highly crafted mosaic works, each piece is hand-cut glass. [And] they find her work refreshing, whimsical, funny, nostalgic – which can be a trite word, but it truly does remind you of a innocent happy time, and also [attracts] people who are just drawn to objects of pop vernacular.” Ah yes, Jeff Koons fever.

Other pieces include a ritzy gold teddy bear in a hilarious brightly patterned vest – it has the expensive look of the Damien Hirst diamond-encrusted skull but it comes with a sense of humor. As I let a giggle escape, I catch an older man frowning at me and the bear, which reminds me that a lot of people do not consider this art. Elizabeth is used to hearing that. “Whether or not the art world accepts it as art, or fine art, it touches people. Everybody who looks at that teddy bear smiles,” says Elizabeth. “Is that art? Is it an expression of the human condition? Of course.” As I watch people interact with the bear and the kiss, I see their emotional response, and the whole argument becomes moot.

On our walk back to the parking lot, I overhear a formidable-looking gentleman with neck tattoos tell his friend with a shiver, “That painting sucked the life right out of me.” I want to recommend that he check out the Hershey’s kiss, where his vigor would be surely restored, but he heads straight for the bar. That works too.

I leave the LA Art Show feeling excited and inspired by what people are trying to create here, the city that Kim Martindale believes is the new epicenter of the art world. He tells me that there is a far greater purpose to the obvious desire for the commercial success of the show: “You are trying to develop an interest in art, in the community. It’s about uniting all those non-profit, for-profit, institutions large and small so that more people talk about art, and create an excitement about art, because without that, my soul is lost.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Listen to the Interview

For his first homework assignment at the prestigious Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, Alexey Steele brought in a seven-foot by seven-foot canvas. His fellow students laughed and declared him an incurable ‘gigantomaniac,’ thereby sealing his fate as a man with big ideas.

Fast forward several decades to a Monday night in Los Angeles at Alexey’s (you guessed it) large warehouse in Carson, where his biggest idea to date, Classical Underground (CU), is about to begin. Over two hundred people swirl around in eddies, checking out Alexey’s paintings as they wait for L.A.’s most unique classical music concert to begin. In addition to the snatches of Russian I expect to hear, there is French, Romanian, and Spanish. In the room nearest the entrance, there are long tables laden with all kinds of food and drink—it’s BYO everything. Myriad cultures represented gastronomically, as well as linguistically, in the form of fruit pies, pickled herring, hummus, dolma, donuts, gyoza, vodka, beer, and sake. The atmosphere is that of a Thanksgiving dinner with a family you actually like.

Amidst the teeming masses I make my way to Alexey, who is easy to spot due to the white Panama hat perennially perched atop his mountainous pile of dark curly hair, and underscored by a roguish black mustache. He is simultaneously kissing a grandmother, shaking hands with a pale disheveled young man and his paler girlfriend, and rubbing the head of a round, bald man in a Hawaiian shirt. The people don’t seem to know each other, but once all are squeezed into Alexey’s bearish embrace, they make introductions. Although I can’t hear what he’s saying, his donkey’s bray of a laugh cuts through all crowd noise like a hot knife through butter.

Before Classical Underground became L.A.’s most talked-about venue for classical music with hundreds of fans willing to drive to Carson on a Monday night, it was simply an impromptu gathering of Alexey’s friends, many of whom are classical musicians. Although Alexey cannot play a note, he finds inspiration for his painting in chamber music.

“I moved into this place, heard the acoustics in here, and said, ‘My God, we must have people play!’ My great friend Sergei” —with Alexey, everyone is a “great friend” and you believe it— “I wanted to hear him play, so I invited a couple of people over, he played, it was great. Then our other friends played, then it grew and grew until… Uh-oh! Suddenly I have a problem with people coming over!” He laughs his donkey laugh until I’m cracking up myself, then continues gesticulating wildly, “So I said if we do this, let’s REALLY do this! LET’S INVITE SOME PEOPLE!” His laugh runs away from him again, and I gladly follow.

For the September CU, Alexey and Maxim Velichkin (CU musical director and a phenomenally talented cellist to boot) decided for the first time to use an RSVP system. The email went out at 9 A. M., and by noon the 250 slots were full, but over 800 people tried to sign up anyway. Steinway Piano Gallery of Hollywood even donated a piano worth thousands of dollars to the cause. “And they told me classical music was dead?!” Alexey thunders, shaking his fists at the sheer audacity.