Serl Extended
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| Jon Serl, Two Faced, 1947. Messer/Gaver collection |
The Langson OCMA's "Jon Serl: As One, As Many" has been extended through Sep. 13, 2026. Serl (1894–1993) was, under various names, a female impersonator in vaudeville; a Hollywood scriptwriter; a voice actor who dubbed the lines of actors who couldn't make the transition to talkies. He quit show business after seeing a horse killed by accident on a movie set. For the rest of his life Serl took a succession of odd jobs, culminating in that of an artist. Once pegged as art brut, Serl's work defies pigeonholing and "continues to influence contemporary artists in ways that verge on the esoteric."
Comments
Serl's portrait reminded me of Henri Matisse's "Young Sailor II," of 1906, in the Met's collection.
Not sure if his creative skill makes up for that.
Time magazine's former art critic, Robert Hughes, years ago dismissed Jean-Michel Basquiat. When it came to the visual arts, since Hughes was quite a wordsmith, I took him seriously. Although I think he was also derisive of Wendy Beckett---so was Hughes a snob or did he resent a nun getting a TV series while people like him didn't?
Years later I learned that Eli Broad was a major collector of Basquiat. Because of Hughes' opinion, I kind of winced. Or the way various people do when learning that George Lucas collects Norman Rockwell.
In today's world, when standards, expertise and sophistication are all over the map, I'm never quite who's the rube, who isn't.
If LACMA (from the early 1960s) has a history of being affected by an ongoing odd lack of professionalism or sophistication, I think of the history of NYC's Lincoln Center---also from the early 1960s. That place too has been affected by an odd form of hayseed, most recently their building named for David Geffen.
Sooie, sooie. E-I-E-I-O. lol.