Great God Pan

Aside from vague memories of watching some animated shorts on The Electric Company after school, I don't really know the whole story about New York painter/animator Carmen D'Avino, the guy who made them. He was a combat photographer in Europe during WW II; studied painting in Paris after the war; and spent time in India before permanently settling in New York. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his short film Pianissimo in 1963. His Finnish wife wrote a memoir that tells the whole story, except that it's in Finnish. There are a bunch of his films posted as part of a particularly timely segment North County Public Radio did pretty soon before he died. There's also a nice tribute page with photos of Carmen and his wife Helen and their upstate digs here. The majority of D'Avino's films are extraordinary stop-motion "evolving painting" sort of deals, but when he pushes his visions into the actual world—like in A Finnish Fable or Piannissimo—our recognized world cleverly becomes his canvas, rather than the other way around. If you dug the stuff Henry Jacobs was doing out West at about the same time, then you'll get into this too.

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Came across this great clip on You Tube this morning and it got me thinking. Remember that big'ol spread we did on Monitor back in the '90s? Well, I pulled one of those out and it's a pretty fascinating history (lots of interviewing done by Slovenly/Red Krayola/Encounter Group guitar wiz Tom Watson) with tons of great pictures and flyers reprinted. For thos of you who can't remember, Monitor sprung from the San Fernando Valley in the late '70s, hung out with Jeffrey Vallance, made an incredible LP on their own label World Imitation, AND "discovered" the Meat Puppets. We still have a few copies left of this Issue 11 for $10 ppd. Write to ggpmag(at)gmail(dot)com for info on how.

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Lo and behold, our good friend Paul Gellman will be exhibiting his Pattern and Decoration-inspired figurines at Tiny Creatures in Echo Park. "Figures" opens Saturday July 28, 2007 at six and runs till September 15. Expect possible guitar pulse explosions and mouth-hole caterwauling at the opening courtesy Paulus and some sort of New Energy contingent.

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This summer Angeleno's get a rare chance to view a seminal installation unviewed since it's original unveiling 37 years ago. Known for his investigations of "narrative structure through installation, theatre, sound, and painting," William Leavitt's focus has teetered between surreal depictions of modern gadgetry in obviously landscaped landscapes and moodily disjointed stage plays, such as The Radio (2002), which was performed at LACE. During the early '70s he collaborated with Bas Jan Ader on the "critical" journal Landslide. This summer he revisits his 1970 installation, "Forest Sounds," an artificial “natural” environment in the gallery space. According to gallery literature, "this project was originally a contrary reaction to the minimalist sculpture being made at the time, an 'installation of the absurd,' an ambiguous and falsely dramatic environment." Leavitt, as some of you might remember, discussed this topic at length in a piece I did for ArtUS a while back called Minimalism's Rubble."

Also on view is colleague Allen Ruppersberg's "Wondrous Remains," which features ephemera from the artist's past and current projects "placed on shelves to model possible arrangements in the collector’s home, a prospective modern day 'Kunstkammer.'"

Margo Leavin Gallery is located at 812 North Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

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Take it to Highland Park this Saturday, July 7th (7/7/7!) for the reception for "Time Writers from the Mirror Horizon," a show curated by Gabie Strong. The exhibition will feature the work of Andy Alexander, Kent Familton, Wendy Heldmann, Kathleen Johnson, Alice Konitz, Tracy Nakayama, Gina Osterloh, Sean Sullivan, Kristine Thompson and Jeremy Yoder who will be using the gallery as a starship for explorations of time and space. Some might consider the word "landscape" a proper painterly term to describe some of the work presented in this show, as an analogy for the curious rub between past, present, and future; others will just say, "far out!"

For the opening on the 7th there'll be a sound performance by Sharon Cheslow and Steven Kim at 7.
The show will until August 4th with another set of performances planned for the closing featuring L.A. based New Zealander Helga Fassonaki as well as Red Krayola/Encounter Group guitar wizard Tom Watson.

David Patton Los Angeles - 5006 1/2 York Blvd. L.A. Calif. 90042 T- 323. 478. 1966
Gallery Hours: Thursday - Saturday, 12-6pm and by appointment

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