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| Greg Ito, Time Flies, 2024 |
A trigger warning at the admission desk of the Long Beach Museum of Art informs visitors of fire-related content in the show "Greg Ito: Motion Pictures" (through Feb. 23, 2025). Burning landscapes, windows, and still lifes are signature motifs of Ito's art. So yea, the timing could be called awkward. OTOH, it's fitting. Like Joan Didion and Mike Davis—quoted in countless op eds of the past few days—Ito sees California's wildfires as a memento mori relevant beyond a particular climate, landscape, or golden frontier.
Ito's chromatically lush acrylic paintings are hard-edge figuration with a metaphysical bent. The painted flames are fractals, drawing on Japanese tradition. They are often accompanied by California ("fire") poppies, one of the first plants to bloom after a wildfire. The LBMA exhibition is small, just 15 objects spanning paintings, sculptures, installations, and an animated video, Ascend. Every work is dated 2024, evidence of a productive year. For all of us, time is running out.
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| Greg Ito, Burn Brightly, 2024. Courtesy of Greg Ito Studio, Los Angeles |
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| Greg Ito, Feast, 2024 |
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| Greg Ito, Full Circle, 2024 |
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| Full Circle (detail) |
Comments
> paintings are hard-edge figuration
> with a metaphysical bent.
Both creative and technical skill are evident in his work. By contrast, various other artists have more of one than the other. Or when they're more hype than substance, they seem to lack both.
The symbolism of LA as a landscape of loss or fleeting moments has been magnified 10 times over during the past few weeks. It's sort of a reminder of how LACMA dates back only a meager 60 years, and - as with LA city government, the LAFD, etc - it too has been torn apart by questionable judgment, policies and politics.
If more of metro LA were like the Pacific Palisades instead of, say, the hardscrabble areas around the Lucas Museum (ie, old central LA), I wonder if the cultural life of LA would have evolved differently?