“Gypsy Love Potion,” 2007, Linda Stark Oil, mixed media on canvas over panel, 9″ x 9″
Photo: courtesy of Angles Gallery and Pasadena Museum of California Art
Pasadena is known for its Rose Parades, craftsman homes and streets filled with sidewalk shops and eateries. But it is also known for its thriving art institutions with artwork spilling out–quite literally in the case of Yoko Onos trees, Daniel Buren’s skywriting, and Lynn Aldrich’s fountain–into the surrounding community. At the same time, it is also a world-class technology center. Pasadena embodies this unique trichotomy as few other cities can: California Impressionism meets Contemporary Conceptualism meets Caltech. Located just east of Los Angeles, it might be overlooked in favor of beaches and show-biz spectacle. However, if it is innovation you’re after, Pasadena has a long-standing tradition of shaking things up.
Among the innovators is Jay Belloli, longtime Director of Gallery Programs at the Pasadena Armory for the Arts, who retired from his position this summer after 20 years to pursue other projects. Even before his involvement with the Armory, Belloli was part of the Pasadena art community, most noticeably as the director of the former Baxter Gallery at Caltech. “Jay’s been part of the DNA of Pasadena for many years,” says Stephen Nowlin, director of Art Center’s Williamson Gallery, and collaborator with Belloli on numerous projects. “He’s sort of always been here, been a leader, and one of the people who has consistently been on the forefront.” Belloli has become synonymous with Pasadena art, and speaking about the historic path of the small city with him is something akin to an audio-encyclopedic experience.
“The story of Modern art in Pasadena goes back to the early 20th century, probably the 1930s…” Belloli says. From there he speaks of artist and professor Lorser Feitelson and his student/wife Helen Lundeberg, and their involvement with the nascent Pasadena Art Institute. “But it really got interesting when the donation of Galka Scheyer’s collection of over 400 works went to the Pasadena Art Institute,” he says. Scheyer was best known for her promotion of the Blue Four, but her collection also included many iconic European modernists–think Picasso, Arp, Leger and Kirchner. The donation
of her collection to the Institute–which subsequently became the Pasadena Art Museum and now the Norton Simon Museum–propelled the regional institution into the national spotlight as one of the few museums to collect art of its own century. By the 1960s, Walter Hopps of Ferus Gallery renown came on board as curator and then director. “Then all hell breaks loose, and it literally became one of the most important contemporary art museums…” says Belloli. “Anybody who was anybody showed at the Pasadena Art Museum.” Hopps’ exhibitions included an early Pop Art survey, as well as the first retrospective of Marcel Duchamp, in 1963.
In 1974, Norton Simon took the reins of the then financially strapped museum, which opened in its current location late 1969, and merged it with his own collection, concentrated largely on old masters, early modern icons, and Asian art and statuary. After his death in 1993, his widow, the actress Jennifer Jones, continued to push to museum’s legacy forward, overseeing a $3-million renovation, completed in 1999. This fall, the museum pays tribute to its past with the exhibition of John Cage’s elegant chance-composed lithograph, Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel (1969).
The Pasadena Armory for the Arts shares its history with the Norton Simon; the innovative center began as the education department of the Pasadena Art Museum. True to its origins, teaching has remained an integral aspect of its program. “The Armory’s mission is ‘artist as educator,’” says Irene Tsatsos, incoming Director of Gallery Programs, and former Executive Director of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). “There are so many artists whose work is research-based, within the exhibition program… I’m very interested in looking to explore ways to integrate the educational mission with the exhibition mission.”
Nestled in the hills above the Rose Bowl, the internationally recognized Art Center College of Design weaves the latest innovations in technology into its art and design programs. The Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery reflects, and sometimes refracts, this paradigm. “A very apt definition of design is: innovation at the intersection of art and science,” says Nowlin. “Anything I do that talks about how these two worlds come together resonates with our students… and, I think, on a more public, broader level. Emotion and intellect, intuition and reason… People seem to always be interested in it.”
“The Curious World of Patent Models” and “The Future of Objects,” on view at the Williamson this summer, juxtaposed 19th century innovation with futuristic the “Star Trek-like technology” of 3D laser printing. Their fall offering, titled “Energy,” approaches the subject as commodity and essential component of today’s world.
The relationship between art and science has extended beyond the chaparral-covered hillside surrounding the college through collaborations between Pasadena’s art venues, often filtering through the biennial Art + Ideas Festivals with themes such as “Origins” and “Skin.” The first collaboration, “Radical Past,” celebrated the contemporary artists who had shaped the artistic dialogue from 1960-74. The multi-venue event was conceived through the collaborative efforts of Belloli and Nowlin, and ample support from the Norton Simon. The Pasadena Arts Council has since taken on the role of organizing these events, along with the twice-yearly Art Weekend, which showcases the powerhouse trifecta of visual arts, theatre and music that exists in the city.
But the tradition of painting in Pasadena goes back farther than its modernist roots, stretching back to the California Impressionists. The first generation of the so-called “eucalyptus painters” came to the region trained in Europe, Chicago, or New York. Established in 1909, the California Art Club was formed as a means for artists to collaborate, support, and exhibit with one another–founding members included Franz Bischoff, William Wendt and his wife, sculptor Julia Bracken Wendt, and Frank R. Liddell. After flourishing through the 1920s, the CAC began to decline with the onset of modernism, followed by the depression and WWII, until “it eventually became a kind of hobby-club,” explains Elaine Adams, current President of the CAC. Adams came on board in ’93, with husband, and fourth generation Pasadenian, artist Peter Adams, when the once-thriving organization had dropped to just 70 members. (Today, it boasts 3,000 members.) “What we promote as traditional fine arts–representation, realism, impressionism–hearkens back to techniques that almost died out, to revive those skills and techniques and push those techniques as far as we can without going into conceptualism,” says Adams. In addition to her work with the CAC, which last year celebrated its 100-year anniversary, Adams runs American Legacy Fine Arts, a salon-style gallery located in near the Rose Bowl also dedicated to promoting the work of “Contemporary Traditionalists.”
The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA), which opened to the public in 2002, actively embraces the co-existence of the traditional and contemporary. “When we opened, the question we confronted was ‘does Pasadena really need another Museum?’” recalls Jenkins Shannon, Executive Director at the PMCA. Shannon describes the process of creating the identity of the museum, “People were confused as to who we were, Pasadena Museum of… Contemporary Art? Contemporary California Art? And people came in expecting just contemporary work.” While the PMCA does consi
stently present contemporary-themed shows–the modern gallery space is located over a jubilant, Kenny Sharf-ed parking garage–they also focus on California’s early years. The goal of bringing these audiences together was met earlier this year in the concurrent exhibitions “Millard Sheets: The Early Years (1926-1944)” and a show on the Los Angeles River featuring contemporary artists such as “Chaz” Bojorquez and Rob Saito. Current exhibitions featuring contemporary artists and designers, “Action/Reaction,” the California Design Biennial, and “Desire: 6 Los Angeles Artists” guest curated by Shirlae Cheng-Lifshin, run through October 31.
Located just a parking lot away, the Pacific Asia Museum demonstrates the great variety of art found in the City of Roses. Once the site of the Pasadena Art Institute, the unique architecture at the Pacific Asia, built in 1924 for collector Grace Nicholson, now houses one of the few museums in the country devoted exclusively to Asian art. In addition to its permanent collection, which spans over four thousand years, the museum regularly brings in outside curators for its contemporary exhibitions. Last winter’s “Calligraffiti: Writing in Contemporary Chinese and Latino Art,” curated by Collette Chattopadhyay explored the cross-currents of contemporary urban visual language; Kalim Winata’s current “China Modern: Designing Popular Culture 1910-1970” encompasses the visual evolution of Chinese advertising and popular culture.
Pasadena’s art galleries embrace a similarly broad audience as its institutions. A trio of contemporary venues–Haus, Offramp Gallery, and Project 210–focuses on the work of emerging artists. The Xiem Clay Center on South Lake starts the fall season with a pottery tour led by studio technician Junzo Mori. Located centrally on Fair Oaks Avenue, Folk Tree features Latin American and Mexican Folk Art along with work by local artists; Artworks Gallery features American modern and contemporary fine art prints in a space around the corner on Del Mar Street.
Just east of Pasadena, in San Marino, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens actively incorporates a similar blend of traditional, contemporary, science and history into its programming. Established in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington, it is equally dedicated to research, conservation, education and the arts. At any given moment, exhibitions as varied mid-century printmaking, Baroque Bronzes and Charles Bukowski–this fall’s menu–will inhabit the halls and galleries situated across the lush, sprawling gardens. Proving that, while it may inhabit a different ZIP code, it exhibits a philosophy very akin to Pasadena’s.
The next Pasadena Art Weekend takes place October 8-10, 2010.
For further details, please visit: www.pasadenaartweekend.com