L.A. International brings the world to the City of Angels

Art Business News, Sept, 2003 by Laura Meyers

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles long ago stopped calling itself a melting pot, instead embracing its multicultural heritage and current identity as a "mixed salad" of cultures, races and ethnic backgrounds. Some 100-plus languages are spoken in the City of Angels, a fact never more in evidence than during this metropolis' recurring Absolut L.A. International Biennial Art Invitational, held this summer amid a cacophony of artistic voices from July 8 through Aug. 16.

Some 70 galleries, exhibition spaces, cultural institutes and area museums participated in this year's citywide event, hosting more than 200 artists from 40 countries in individual and group exhibits that showcased the newest art from across the globe. Among the countries represented were Germany, France, China, Italy, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Ghana, Malaysia and Guatemala.

For art cognoscenti, the biannual Absolut L.A. fete, first held in 1993, holds forth the promise of seeing an eclectic and varied sampling of cutting-edge international art, with a range of painting, sculpture, prints, multi-media installations and conceptual works. For art dealers, the L.A. International offers the opportunity to not only meet the international collectors who travel to Los Angeles for the event, but also to experiment in their exhibition spaces for five weeks with art works that may well be outside the galleries' normal scope of work.

Although German and French artists were, as always, well represented at the L.A. International, the gallery shows as a whole demonstrated the globalization of today's art market. Many participating art dealers and curators stepped outside the routine U.S. and Western European gallery offerings to investigate art currents in Catalonia and Colombia, Honduras and Hong Kong, Poland and Peru, Sweden and Slovakia.

Featured exhibits included landmark retrospectives of two major European photographers' works. Peter Fetterman presented Henri Cartier-Bresson's "The Image and the World" (in collaboration with Atelier Cartier-Bresson in France), while Griffin Contemporary mounted "Olympia: The Original Portfolio of Photographs by Leni Riefenstahl," the first time these Naziera works have been on view here. But for the most part, the Los Angeles galleries exhibited new work by both emerging artists and mid-career pros whose names may be familiar in their homelands--but not in ours.

"I'm especially pleased and excited that young galleries jumped in to participate, bringing in artists who otherwise wouldn't be seen here in Los Angeles," said L.A. International co-organizer Robert Berman, owner of two eponymous gallery spaces in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station. "The L.A. International gives young and small galleries a vehicle in which to join with larger, more established dealers and to build a little more of a profile than they would otherwise have."

For his part, Berman exhibited works by artists from The Netherlands, Germany and France. His L.A. International co-chair, William Turner, introduced two Canadian artists and a well-received photographer-sculptor from Guatemala, Lissie Habie. "We're thrilled with all the exhibitions this year," said Turner. "It's far and away the best work we've seen."

The Biennial is not the standard "big tent" art show with elaborate exhibition booths and a short but hectic run in a convention center or on a pier. Rather, the five-week L.A. International turns the notion of an art expo inside out, according to Los Angeles art critic Peter Frank. In his annual "Letter to New York," published in the July/August issue of ArtScene, he wrote, "Instead of myriad galleries under one roof, it's a number of galleries under their own roofs showing art from around the globe."

The event, said Frank, is "entirely a sum of parts. It's an entirely commercial venture, it has no overarching program, no curator or director and only the loosest framework for selection." The Biennial's participating venues are spread out over the Los Angeles area, from art clusters like Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, West Hollywood's Avenues of Art and Design and Beverly Hills to the La Brea-Beverly-Wilshire galleries and the arc of Chinatown-Downtown-Brewery Lofts. It also includes individual galleries in San Pedro, Venice Beach, Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.

Participating galleries pay a small fee to help pay for joint publicity and a catalog. (Sponsors like Absolut Vodka and Hornburg Jaguar help foot the bills). The galleries are free to mount whatever exhibits they please, so long as they stick to the international theme. The only rule is, explained Turner and Berman, there are no rules.

As a result, the phrase "international in scope" may mean that a gallery space hosts a foreign art dealer's organized exhibit, or its own roster of artists. For instance, Patricia Faure Gallery hosted Studio La Citta of Verona, Italy, and several of its mid-career artists, including Luigi Carboni and Pier Paolo Calzolari. It may mean the local gallery collaborates with an art curator to put together a show of artists from that expert's global region. I-5 Gallery collaborated with Deborah Zafman, curator and art historian at Les Arts Visuels Actuels in Paris, to bring three rising young French artists, Stephane Pencreach, Michel Gouery and Philippe Richard, in an exhibit titled "Wild Weird and Whimsical" to Los Angeles. Many gallery owners--often in conjunction with the cultural ministries of foreign nations--now curate their own exhibits, showcasing the works of one or more international artists. Support for these efforts comes from some foreign ministries; this year, special aid was given by the Consulate Generals of Sweden, Canada, France and Burkina Faso.