Richard Hutman - Gallery 825 - Los Angeles

On September 24th I attended an opening at the Los Angeles Art Association’s Gallery 825 for our friend Richard Hutman’s work.

 Hutman has degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from Cornell and Washington University, St. Louis and moved to California to pursue that career.  He has collaborated on such iconic Los Angeles landmarks as The Getty Center, The Hollywood Bowl, Farmers Market, and the Disney Hall.

Hutman has always drawn, sketched, and painted for himself.  These works have been his diary for all his travels around the world.  In retirement Hutman began to revisit these works and came up with a concept to incorporate them into new unique artworks based on his architecture skills.  Hutman scans his watercolor paintings and drawings then prints them on heavy weight paper.  He then cuts and folds the paper in to forms to create three dimensional structures.  The paper is cut with an attention to detail, the image fragments on the structures are carefully chosen and there is meaning with the juxtaposition.  Shape, color, form is carefully chosen.  With his new larger pieces, the reverse panel sides are specific to give deeper meaning.  Hutman sees his works as “A means to discovering a new reality from archaeological remnants from an ancient civilization that never was via a mythical archaeological dig (the dig part is the act of collecting segments of his paintings to create the paper structure panels - Statement Link).”  I also think Hutman’s process and art product is a means for him to reflect on his life and document his passion and experiences.  In thinking about his work more, I also see an element of self-portraiture with his work, not with actual drawing of him but through the selection of materials and the design.

This is the second opening I have been to for Hutman’s work, every time I see his work, I like it more.  I love the scale of his new larger works.  Personally, and we have talked about this, I could definitely see his designs being turned in to large scale public art where viewers could walk in amongst the panels, maybe even incorporating some reflective elements into the experience. 

I always enjoy “talking art” with Dick Hutman, it gives my artistic mind a chance to venture out an explore beyond the world of photography. 

This was my first visit to Gallery 825 which is a nice intimate space formatted for four separate exhibition spaces.  I was impressed with what the Los Angeles Art Association is doing there.

Kat Flyn - Hardball, Racism in Sports - Gallery 825 - Los Angeles

After a busy October I am trying to get caught up on a bunch of pending blog posts so I will start off with a review of a September 24th visit to the Los Angeles Art Association’s Gallery 825.  I went specifically to see my friend Richard Hutman’s work, which is fantastic, and discovered Kat Flyn’s work.

Kat Flyn - “Camptown Racists” 2017

Kat Flyn is a self-taught assemblage artist from San Diego. She had a long career as a costume designer in Southern California during which time she amassed a trove of artifacts and collectables. Thirty years ago, she began using these items as a base to create assemblage art dealing with many different social justice issues. Kat describes herself as follows: “I am a white Anti-racist Feminist artist. My sympathies almost always reside with the underdog, so my works highlight rigged institutionalized aspects of our culture. Strictly speaking I am an assemblage sculptor because I construct more than assemble my works. My process is to search out artifacts, collectables, and wood carvings and then build scenes to make statements regarding American society. Even when I use artifacts from earlier periods, my subject is almost always about contemporary America.”

I immediately was taken by how strong Kat’s work was when I saw it.  The pieces are well crafted and beautiful objects in themselves even though the subject matter is usually not.  The message of each is tight and most all the pieces I saw would be good additions to museum collections interested in her subject matter.  I think it is a good thing that Kat is “self-taught”, I think that allows her to maintain that folk art style better because she isn’t trying to conform to any structured design rules she was taught, she is just following her feeling which is wonderful. 

I had two concerns about her work but the more I think about them I don’t know if I have a valid position on either point.  The work she showed at Gallery 825 was titled “Hardball, Racism in Sports” and it basically dealt with how America has treated African Americans in the past as well as today.  My first thought was the work would have deeper value if it had been created by an African American artist expressing their experiences rather than by a white Anti-racist Feminist artist.  I realize anyone can, and should, call out racism but that message seems stronger from people experiencing it personally more than those witnessing it.  Then when I researched Kat and her work I saw where she pointed out that many of the black face artifacts which she incorporates into her work were created by white artists for retail products.  With that knowledge then it made perfect sense for a white artist to take those objects and use them to tell a different narrative.  The only other concern was altering antiques and artifacts which should be preserved so we learn from our past. The more I thought about it I realized that these items were often mass produced and should be in many museums already and what Kat is doing is just finding another way to preserve them and stimulate thought and dialogue on something wrong from our past.  I am sure that Kat and I don’t share all the same opinions about the world today but that’s fine, she is a good artist, and her work should be seen.

This exhibition was Kat’s fourth solo exhibition, hopefully her work starts finding its ways into the right permanent collections soon, it has value on many levels. She is represented by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, their website has an outstanding collection of her work available for viewing.