Rosamund Felsen Gallery

Rosamund Felsen Gallery[1], regarded as one of the longest running art galleries in Los Angeles, California,[2] is an American art gallery that has been involved in and has influenced the broader American art community since the late seventies. Later the gallery would operate on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, and eventually - through the 90s and the turn of the millennium - Bergamot Station. Now in its 4th phase, the gallery operates in the Wholesale District, Los Angeles in Downtown Los Angeles near the Arts District, Los Angeles.[3][4]

History

1970s

Rosamund Felsen Gallery was established in 1978 on N. La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.[5] In the gallery's first year, the artists exhibited were Guy Dill, Richard Jackson, Keith Sonnier, Peter Lodato, Alexis Smith, Maria Nordman, and William Wegman.[5] In the second year, Karen Carson and Grant Mudford were added to the gallery’s program, and Chris Burden’s Big Wheel was exhibited for the first time, now in the Permanent Collection of Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles' collection.[6] The La Cienega space had been formerly occupied by gallerist, Riko Mizuno and later by Gagosian Gallery.[3]

1980s

In 1980, Richard Jackson exhibited his first installation of stacked paintings, Big Ideas, at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Later versions of stacked paintings, would be exhibited at his retrospective at Orange County Museum of Art.[7]

In 1981, the four out of sixteen artists who were in Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA)’s exhibition, The Museum as Site – Sixteen Projects,[8] an exhibition devoted to significance of site-specific art in the 1970s, included Richard Jackson, Chris Burden and the only women artists in the exhibition, Karen Carson and Alexis Smith, were represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery.[5] On New Year’s Eve, 1981, a black tie opening was held at the gallery for the exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg’s photographic series, In + Out City Limits: Los Angeles, one of several series the artist has made of specific cities.

Also, in 1981, Jeffrey Vallance was shown, then in 1983 the gallery had its first exhibitions with Mike Kelley[5] and Lari Pittman.[9]

In, 1983, Mike Kelly showed "one of his breakthrough works", Monkey Island, "a performance/installation" which had been shown at Metro Pictures Gallery in New York the year prior.[10] Later, in 1987, Mike Kelly had another notable exhibition, where he "splayed blankets across" Rosamund Felsen Gallery's "floor and arranged tattered animals around them in formal groupings, like they were attending a picnic without people." The largest piece in this show, More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, "composed of animals and afghans and stretched 10 feet wide" hung next to The Wages of Sin, "a pedestal table dripping with candles in rainbow hues, as though audiences were standing before a holy shrine at mass, a nod to his Catholic upbringing." Both those pieces were in included in the Whitney Biennial that year and they were purchased by the Whitney Museum of American Art.[11]

The 1980s and the 90s also saw the additions of prominent women artists such Renée Petropoulos, Erika Rothenberg, Meg Cranston, Ann Preston, Joan Jonas, Marnie Weber, and Laura Owens,[5] as well as male artists Tim Ebner and Jason Rhoades.

1990s

In 1990, after 12 years at the La Cienega site, Rosamund Felsen Gallery moved to West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard to a space that had previously been the studio of entertainment photographer, Tom Kelley, and where Jason Rhoades had his first gallery exhibition, Swedish Erotica and Fiero Parts.

In 1992, for Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s, the historically significant exhibition curated by Paul Schimmel at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, four of the seventeen artist chosen to be in the show were Rosamund Felsen Gallery artists Richard Jackson, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, and Lari Pittman.

In 1994, Rosamund Felsen Gallery moved to Bergamot Station in Santa Monica,[5] and the important New York video artists Judith Barry and Joan Jonas were added to its list of exhibiting artists, as well as Mindy Alper, Jacci Den Hartog, Andrew Falkowski, Steven Hull, Steven Hurd, Nancy Jackson, Gegam Kacherian, Mary Kelly, Jean Lowe, Kim MacConnel, Patrick Nickell and Pauline Stella Sanchez.

2000s

In 2011, Rosamund Felsen Gallery saw the addition of Charles Arnoldi to its roster of exhibiting artists,[12] and for the gallery's November–December show, Charles Arnoldi would show influential artworks from the 1970s as part of the Getty Center's Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. art program throughout Los Angeles.[13]

In 2012, for the gallery's end of the year show, Mary Kelly had a gallery exhibition which framed "an epoch — the period from World War II through the Cold War — in a few shrewd conceptual strokes, employing as she often has in her work, the voice of the individual bystander as a mirror to the broader forces of history."[14] From this exhibition, the piece Mimus, Act I (Posner) - which was "made of sheets of compressed lint from domestic dryers affixed to variously colored cardboard"[14] using language which had been "sourced from the court transcripts of the red-baiting House Committee on Un-American Activities and centers on the depositions of activists in the 1950s movement Women Strike for Peace."[14] - was acquired by the Hammer Museum and would later be shown in the museum exhibition, Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology, two years later.[15]

In 2013, Rosamund Felsen Gallery was featured in Los Angeles Magazine as one of the top galleries in Los Angeles.[16]

In 2014, two of the gallery artists, Mary Kelly and Judith Barry, had works that were included in the exhibition, Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Take It or Leave It would be "the first large-scale exhibition to focus on the intersection of two vitally important genres of contemporary art: appropriation (taking and recasting existing images, forms, and styles from mass-media and fine art sources) and institutional critique (scrutinizing and confronting the structures and practices of our social, cultural, and political institutions)."[15]

In 2015, Tanya Haden was added to the roster of exhibiting artists and had her first one-artist exhibition while gallery artist Joan Jonas was selected to represent the United States in at Venice Biennale 56th International Art Exhibition.[17]

In April 2015 the gallery moved from its Bergamot Station location to a new space in Downtown Los Angeles near the Arts District, Los Angeles. The inaugural exhibition, which ran from April 18 through May 16, 2015, consisted of paintings by Pattern and Decoration pioneer Kim MacConnel.[18]

2015 List of Represented Artists[19]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.artnet.com/gallery/118637/rosamund-felsen-gallery.html
  2. ↑ http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/art-talk/regen-projects-turns-25
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.glasstire.com/socal/2015/03/13/rosamund-felsen-leaves-santa-monica-for-downtown/
  4. ↑ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-roundup-george-lucas-museum-koons-art-dustup-la-mystery-museum-20150315-column.html#page=1
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-rosamund-felsen-11719
  6. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/11/entertainment/et-bigwheel11
  7. ↑ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-richard-jackson-20130217,0,6170726.story
  8. ↑ http://www.lacma.org/sites/all/themes/custom/lacma/reading_room/The_Museum_as_Site_Sixteen_Projects.html#page/n0/mode/2up
  9. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-04/entertainment/ca-2839_1_folk-art-museum
  10. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/02/local/la-me-mike-kelley-20120202
  11. ↑ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324678604578340322829104276.html
  12. ↑ http://artweek.la/issue/jan-17-2011/article/charles-arnoldi-at-rosamund-felsen-gallery
  13. ↑ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/12/charles-arnoldi-at-rosamund-felsen.html
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/06/entertainment/la-et-cm-art-review-mary-kelly-at-rosamund-felson-gallery-20121204
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/244
  16. ↑ Harvey, Doug. "Art of the City." Los Angeles Magazine April (2013): 136. Print.
  17. ↑ http://joanjonasvenice2015.com
  18. ↑ Miranda, Carolina. 16, 2015 "Why Rosamund Felsen left Santa Monica for downtown's industrial arts district". Los Angeles Times.
  19. ↑ http://www.rosamundfelsen.com/artists.html

External links