The Gaslight Anthem Helms Strong Rock Lineup on a Summer Night at the Greek 

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On a balmy night at the Greek Theatre, a rockin’ triple lineup headlined by The Gaslight Anthem brought three and a half hours of exciting rock n’ roll.

The concert began with The Dirty NIL,  a tight four person punk rock band all the way from Ontario, Canada. The band offered a lively set that veered toward the punk as the first opener at the Greek tonight. Lead singer and guitarist Luis Bentham was in strong voice and Ross Miller brought cheers for his robust bass work and wild stage leaps. Highlights included the terrific song “The Light, the Void and Everything.”

Joyce Manor, local natives out of Torrance, Calif., got the growing audience to their feet with a super danceable “My Tattoo.” Channeling a taste of Blink 182, they powered through a 45-minute set that also included the must-dance power rocker “Gotta Let It Go” from their new album, “as well as End of the Summer,” “Eighteen,” “House Warning Party,” “Stairs,” 2014’s sing-along “The Jerk,” and “Dance with Me,” along with many cuts from their 2022 album “40 oz. to Fresno,” finishing up with a raucous “Catalina Fight Song.”

Lead singer and guitar Barry Johnson totally brought it – including during a moment in which a “big f@&% spider” crawled across the stage – he’s not an arachnoid fan, but even the spider was probably dancing throughout the 45 minute set.

The Gaslight Anthem came on stage to a recording of Cindy Lauper singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and I think every girl and boy at the Greek had a lot of fun on the LA installment of the band’s History Books tour.

Offering strongly anthemic melodies with lead singer and guitarist Brian Fallon in fine voice, fans sure weren’t disappointed with a galvanizing, tight set that began with “45” and moved through 20 songs in a generous 85 minutes set, including the beautiful, lush, and romantic “The Weatherman,” from the band’s latest 2023 LP, History Books. The song’s titular narrator is just “trying to read you …” and the audience hushed in anticipation.

Every member of the New Jersey native band came ready to raise the roof – if there was one at the Greek, that is –  Fallon who handles rhythm guitar as well as vocals; Alex Rosamilia, guitar; Alex Levine, bass; Benny Horowitz, drums; and Bryan Haring on keyboards.

There were many highlights , including the high energy “Bring It On;” a poignant “Film Noir;” and the lightly nostalgic “Here’s Looking at You Kid,” the latter of which was followed by a tender cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers’  “Soul to Squeeze.”  

Then it was time to rock out again to a set that included the pounding drums of “American Slang,” as well as the location-appropriate blusey rocker “Mulholland Drive,” which concluded with delicately rendered blues-based guitar riffs. 

Favorites like “Autumn” brought a vibrant Springsteen-like vibe (note: Springsteen himself played on their new album’s title track which wasn’t on the set list tonight)  while a beautiful “Michigan 1975,” from the new album, led into a closing trio of songs that included “Mae,” crowd fave “Great Expectations,” and a rousing version of “The 59 Song,” as the finale that got the crowd clapping along and anyone still seated up on their feet.

Celebrating the October release of their new album after almost ten years on hiatus, the concert nonetheless focused on classic tunes which merge elements of indie rock, grunge, Americana, and blues rock that is at turns propulsive, sharp, and elegaic. It was a fine show under the starry sky tonight.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Jack Burke

 

 

Neon Delights at the Fine Arts Building

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Yes, they’ve done it again! Linda Sue Price and Michael Flechtner have created two killer cool exhibitions of neon and exciting inventive visual bliss now on display at the Fine Arts Building in DTLA.

Price’s work, above, includes many pieces that are brimming with kinetic moments – movements of all kind, including fantastic digital and video elements as well as her signature, utterly unique abstract neon. Here, her solo show series is called Lunatic Shields, a necessary tool for defending ourselves against the cultural zeitgeist and emotional burn-out as well as nasty neighbors or social meida trolls. This is brilliant, mysteriously alchemic work that dazzles the viewers eye with its integration of motion, color, light, and vibrancy.

Flechtner’s work (above) is equally special: from the cutest and hippest cat to mechanical robots, his work is witty, exciting, and remarkable in its fluid and figurative dyanmic forms. I’d recognize an original by this artist anywhere – because each piece is completely original: an object, being, or statement reimagined as a blaze of light.

Both artists have a wide range of works you can visit and purchase on a magical mystery tour of their Van Nuys studio, but do visit this beautifully laid-out exhibition in the Fine Arts Building, whose historic design makes an apt showcase.

The Fine Arts Building is located at 811 W. 7th Street, with this exhibition running through September 20th; typically, hours are weekdays 10-5 p.m., but this article will be updated with any scheduled weekend closing events if you missed the opening. Pro-tip: go shopping at Target just across Figueroa, buy a few things and get validated $2 parking!

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

TAG Gallery: Open Juried Exhibition Made in America

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Made In The USA: Let Freedom Ring, opened last week and runs through August 9th at TAG Gallery in mid-Wilshire. The exhibition will be one of the largest to date and a concept that TAG’s president Bob Chew describes as one of three annual group shows that help promote the gallery to the art community.  “This year, we are honored to have the illustrious art critic and former KCET Arts and Culture Editor and KCRW Commentator, Edward Goldman, as the juror for our largest national juried show. The Artists Gallery has always tried to showcase local artists and emerging talent around the country, with members coming from across the country, from Seattle to Maine, Maui to Florida, and now internationally. Being an art collective, we wanted a way for non-members to experience the terrific space and spirit of TAG.”

For more than 30 years, Edward Goldman has been an art critic and host of Art Talk, a former weekly program that aired prime-time Tuesday evenings during All Things Considered on LA’s largest NPR affiliate, KCRW 89.9 FM. Edward also contributed weekly art reports to the Huffington Post and has  written reviews for numerous art publications and served as a panelist, moderator, and speaker for various museums, arts organizations, and workshops.

Through an anonymous jurying process, Goldman reviewed approximately 550 submissions from around the country to choose 100 for the TAG exhibition. He will also choose Best of Show, three winners for cash awards, and Honorable Mention Awards for Excellence for each medium included. The awards will be presented at a reception and ceremony TODAY Saturday, August 3, from 4:00 -8:00 p.m.

Jurying a show of this size can be a daunting task, but Goldman is a veteran, and says for him, it was not that hard. “For me, the most important thing is that the art must grab my attention. I look for original work that stands out, like a breath of fresh air. The longer it holds my attention, the higher it’s ranking, and that helps create the list of possible winners. I look for something that surprises me, is perhaps somehow challenging, and makes me want to spend more time with it. There are sometimes works I have juried that I want to own, as they hold my attention for a long time.”

Selecting the Best of Show and the other winners often calls for jurors to see and select the award winners in person rather than from a computer screen. Luckily, Goldman has three days to review all the work at the gallery during the installation process. “To choose the winning artworks, I must see the work up close, in real life. Keeping my mind and eyes open, I look forward to meeting each piece of art, to see how they communicate in person. I listen intently, getting very close to the work. That way I can observe the dimension and intensity of each brushstroke, hear it, smell it, and perhaps even touch the work. Art that speaks to me, that has a voice I can sense from the texture or the spirit of the image, that is how I make my decisions.”

Participating artists have been alerted but have not yet been announced to the public on TAG’s website, www.taggallery.net. With a widely diverse collection of art in all mediums, it will certainly be a dynamic, inspiring, and thought-provoking exhibition. The Artists Gallery invites all art lovers to view this exceptionally curated exhibition and attend the awards reception to meet the participating artists and winners.

For Made In The USA, submissions were open to all residents of the US over the age of 18, with all styles and mediums accepted. Artists submitted paintings, drawings, photography, printmaking, mixed media, sculpture, digital, and video art. Each year, the number of submissions grows as the word of the exhibition spreads amongst the art community and is advertised nationally through PR Wire and other media outlets. Formerly named The California Open, this year’s MADE IN THE USA presentation builds on many years of TAG’s experience curating national exhibitions.

Goldman will be walking through the exhibition and speaking at 3:00 pm today prior to the reception which starts at 4 p.m. tonight. An art talk with the winners will be held on the final day, Saturday, August 10, at 1:00 pm.

  • Guest Post by Dale Youngman; photos provided by Youngman and TAG Gallery

Cream of the Crop: Exceptional Modern Art Collection at Ronald H. Silverman Gallery

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Color, color, color. Shape, shape, shape – the glorious combination of vivid palette and extraordinary geometric precision makes Back to Basics: Contemporary Art from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation now at Cal State LA’s Ronald H. Silverman Gallery exceptional viewing. The show features more than 50 artworks, created between 1947 and 2023. The timespan covers a wide range of work that explores a variety of mediums and techniques.

Curated by Billie Milam Weisman, the artists on exhibit collectively and individually pack a powerful punch. You’ll recognize many of the names:  Jason Adkins, Josef Albers, Saradell Ard, Tim Bavington, Charles Biederman, Isaac Brest, Casper Brindle, Tom Burr, S. Byrne, Ronald Davis, Tim Ebner, Ned Evans, Paul Gadegaard, Betty Gold, Daniel Jackson, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Ellsworth Kelly, Melissa Kretschmer, Sol Lewitt, Vladimir Llaguno, Joe Lloyd, Pard Morrison, Andy Moses, Kenneth Noland, John Pearson, Brian Porray, Kevin Reinhardt, Michael Rey, Dorothea Rockburne, David Ryan, Robert Schaberl, Arthur Silverman, Frank Stella, Gary Stephan, Jeremy Thomas, and Victor Vasarely.

 

The show’s vibrancy percolates from the moment the viewer enters the gallery space, presenting stellar examples of works that range from the minimalist to the conceptual. Overall, one word comes to mind to describe the exhibition: radiant. The works emanate light, they pull, revel, and reveal in it. Some works are layered, others deceptively simple. The emphasis throughout is on geometric constructs such as circles, squares, lines, spheres, angles. Color jumps from the art, whether created in eye-popping primary shades or lush jeweled patinas. The works dance with light and change upon approach – viewed in extreme close up, the images differ in appearance from a longer-range view due to the way in which their geometric patterns shape how the eye perceives each work.

Anish Kapoor’s astonishing, ruby rose red “Blood Mirror III” is an intensely reflective example of the use of both light and color. The circular bowl-like mirrored surface contains reflective meaning within meaning and serves as a beautiful example of a work’s appearance altering based on the viewer’s proximity to it.

Jeremy Thomas’s “Iseki Yellow” is an indefinable layered shape, a flower, a collection of sun bubbles, a collection of cells about to take shape and metamorphosize. Both works exude their singular color as if it were a halo around the piece.

 

Joe Lloyd’s “Incline” is a very different work, a large-scale canvas with a varied color palette that traverses a literal and figurative ascent of light and shadow in angles bisected by colors from a dominant rich gold to a sky blue and violet. It is both structure and stairwell, handrails leading to a rooftop or along a path to a mountain peak. Each level is both platform and angle.

A more diminutive work, Pard Morrison’s “So Nice to Be Here With You,” packs a multi-colored series of striped lines into a rectangular canvas, color gradients that draw the eye forward and back with their precision and shifts.

Ned Evans’ color field painting “Got Red” is a large work that stripes a range of oranges, reds, golds, and yellows vertically across the vast canvas, colors that resemble the shades of a burnished summer sunset. Cooler shades prevail in the blues and aquas of Evans’ “Quarter,” which uses a variety of square and rectangular shapes within one canvas to create a lush vision of shadow and light that at once resemble the shape of buildings, the patterns on ocean waves, and leaf shadows in a forest. It is a quietly poetic vision.

While some works are simply beautiful to look at, others contain a visual experiment.

Such is the case with Josef Albers’ “Homage to the Square: Upon Arrival,”  in which three squares are utilized to reveal the subjectivity of color.  Painted using varied light conditions, Albers’ work is both art and alchemy, as it tests the way in which the alignment of different colors side by side create different visual experiences.

Beautifully curated with color the dominant criteria for grouping in each gallery space, the exhibit fully reveals the absolute poetry in the geometric form, the passion of color, and the compelling visual spectrum that makes up the way in which artists – and all humans – view the world.

As multi-faceted as a diamond, the works in Back to Basics dazzle. The closing reception takes place on Saturday,  July 27 from 12 – 5 p.m. The gallery is open 12-5 Monday-Friday only. It is located on the campus of California State University Los Angeles.

  • Genie Davis; exhibition images provided by LA Art Documents; additional opening day images by Genie Davis