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| Huguette Caland, Appleton I, 2009. Private collection |
Huguette Caland (1931-2019) was the rebellious daughter of Lebanese President Bechara El Khoury. She left Lebanon to make her name in Paris, as an artist and then a fashion designer for Pierre Cardin. Caland moved to Los Angeles, where she spent the plurality of her art career. She was at once under-appreciated and a vital nexus of the Venice social network.
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| Huguette Caland, Red Sun / Cancer, 1964. Private collection |
The Hammer's "Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines" (through Feb. 28, 2027) is a traveling show that has appeared in Madrid and Hamburg. It starts with the artist's first painting, Red Sun / Cancer, and threads its way through a dizzying succession of styles. The show pays off in a resplendent room of late works, created in Los Angeles but rarely seen here.
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| Huguette Caland, Enléve ton doigt (Remove your finger), 1971. Pierre Caland collection |
In 1970s Paris, Caland produced trippy feminist cartoons and then pneumatic abstractions of butts, boobs, and cocks. The latter group, known as
Bribes de corps, are probably Caland's best-known pieces, found in several major museum collections.
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| Huguette Caland, Bribes de corps, 1973. Private collection |
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| Huguette Caland, Untitled (Ed Moses), 1992. Private collection |
Caland's L.A. connection starts with Ed Moses. She first saw the Cool School abstractionist at a Paris gallery. After her move to Los Angeles in 1987, Caland and Moses became neighbors, friends, and perhaps rivals. It was Moses who convinced Sam Francis to sell his studio to Caland. Moses and Caland had dinner together several times a week, and Caland painted at least 175 portraits of Moses. The example here is vulpine and unsettling. Moses seems not to have appreciated Caland's art and told his gallery (L.A. Louver) he'd quit if they gave Caland a show.
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Huguette Caland, Apple Green and Green Tomato, 2010. Private collection
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In the 2000s Caland began making large, scintillating paintings inspired by Byzantine mosaics and the Palestinian tatreez tradition of cross-stitch embroidery. (The cushions of the show's benches have tatreez designs.) Caland would start by dying the cloth in a washing machine and then adding washes of local color and motifs such as the tree of life, the Lebanese landscape, flowers, and checkerboard abstractions. Sometimes Caland burned the edges of her paintings.
Comments
> appreciated Caland's art and
> told his gallery (L.A. Louver)
> he'd quit if they gave
> Caland a show.
I wonder why he felt that strongly? The opinionated nature (overly?) of various people never ceases to amaze. It likely inspired the saying, "opinions are like buttholes. Everyone has them and they all stink."
Caland was one of those artists that has more apparent aesthetic than technical skill. Her type has been the mainstay in the world of contemporary art and art museums specializing in works made during the past 50-100 years.
Having an opinion - particularly a strong one - where the common contemporary style (abstract, non-representational) is judged as valid but artworks that have more technical than necessarily aesthetic skill are not has become way too much "been there, done that."
It has been the opposite extreme of opinions of decades ago, when a Pollock was more likely to be dismissed as "even my kid can do that." In turn, very figurative and very representational art was the mainstay and preferred.
Also, when a LACMA has a mixed track record of doing things in a very professional or sophisticated way (regardless of artworks' style or period), lots of people (who might like throwing stones) have been living in a glass house. Although to give credit to Michael Govan, he did push for the building of the Lucas Museum and is part of its board.
Harrison Blackman, California Post:
Astonishingly, a world-class art museum has been designed not for intellectuals, but for the masses. In fact, George Lucas’ latest creation might be the most unassuming, unpretentious, anti-elite museum of all time.
…the Star Wars filmmaker has championed the kind of art that ordinary people have embraced on a daily basis… The Lucas Museum is straightforward, nostalgic — and a temple for the “everyman.”
It’s clear Lucas and his wife…have tastes that are vastly different from those at a typical museum curated by Ivy League-trained art historians…. this museum features work that would be laughed out of the Louvre.
Granted, the Lucas Museum does include traditional big-name artists among all the pop... However, it’s the workaday artists that are the stars of the show. As it turns out, movie-making is a team sport…. you can get a feel for Lucas’ team players — another cool departure from your typical high-brow museum.
Lucas couldn’t have done it without people like them. He’s giving credit where credit is due — and showing fans how the process came to life. People get that instinctively, if not conceptually. And they connect with the museum’s down-to-earth sense of humor.
So, don't keep us hanging.
Did they?
And, did he?
So far, the Lucas Museum hasn't gotten quite as much pushback from both the media and visitors. However, both have naysayers, but LACMA's director and staffers seem to have made more errors or shown more poor judgment. Which means that history (since 1965) is repeating itself.
Right now, I'd just be relieved if the Geffen had fewer areas of blank concrete walls and fewer areas of barren floor space. Even more so when too many objects in LACMA's collection remain in storage.