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19/5/2004

Masters of Venice

half a dozen rose, Venice

Billy Al Bengston, Laddie John Dill, Ed Ruscha, Ned Evans, Nancy Kay, Eric Orr, Ann Thornycroft, Ed Moses

Gaze. Feast. Muse. Mingle. For supporters of the unique presence of half a dozen rose in Venice, these are familiar words. Now we can add to that. Transmute. Transcend. Transform.
End.
Begin.

After ten years in this seminal, eponymous location – and countless exhibitions, performances, concerts, screenings, happenings, bashes and festivities – half a dozen rose is closing its doors. We blame Capitalism, of course. Artists make a place more human and landlords get greedy, but that¹s a story for another time. . .Right now, it¹s time to celebrate this requiem for a rose, to let the mind wander, to realize it really has been ten years, sigh, and lift your glass to the first time you fell in love with a piece of art.

We can think of no better way to commemorate this bittersweet moment in the history of our community than with an epic art show featuring the Masters of Venice, the pioneering generation of painters and sculptors that defined a revolutionary aesthetic and made possible so much of what came after. In fact, it was the global reputation of free-thinking, artistic experimentation and spiritual evolution that first drew half a dozen rose¹s founder, Sabine Gebser, to the place. An accomplished photographer herself, she was soon transformed into a gallerist by the irresistible power of the artists she came to know, love and respect through the years, and by the experience of watching a new kind of environment for art appreciation taking shape.

Billy Al Bengston is a much-beloved member of the community who is saying goodbye to Venice after more than 25 years. A pioneering figure whose early work, reconciling the conceptual demands of fine art with the mediums and sensibilities of surf and car culture, helped radically redefine painting in the 1960's.

Laddie John Dill demonstrates a wit and humor in his formally innovative paintings that, combined with his virtuoso technical abilities, has created some of the most unexpected and fascinating abstract painted surfaces in modern art.

Ed Ruscha is a living legend whose poignant text-images have hypnotized and inspired generations of art lovers and artists around the world. His abstractions of objects and language are lyrical in their specificity, while their openness to interpretation often gives them the quality of an oracle.

Ned Evans is one of Venice Beach's best-known surfer-painters, striving to capture in pigment the magical, elusive quality of light and color in his dynamic, emotional, expressive abstract painting. A new body of work reflects the evolution of this goal to profound effect.

Nancy Kay makes exuberant abstractions that evoke architectural deconstruction as they move the eye and stir the spirit. She continues her investigation into the representation of form-symbols from the world, on a never-ending quest to expand her vision.

Eric Orr¹s legend has been carried on by Sean So & Orr Studios since his untimely death in 1998. Orr was an early and passionate proponent of incorporating natural elements into conceptual and minimal works, such as his seminal work with fountains, in order to celebrate an unmediated sensory experience of each.

Ann Thornycroft is renowned for her energetic and organic grid paintings, which have been shown internationally to great acclaim. In her new work she revisits this format but with a freshly exploded lexicon of natural forms and emotionally charged structure.

Ed Moses invents forms of abstraction that consistently demonstrate a love of paint, physical movement and natural harmony. A deep spiritual foundation and a facility with evolving theories of surface, line and color, have combined with an unparalleled willingness to take risks and push the envelope in his painting practice for decades to inspire countless others and help secure Venice's place in the history of American Abstraction.

These masterful men and women are the generation whose effervescence, chromatic expressivity and evocation of electric atmosphere have laid the foundation for what has come to be identified all around the world as the Venice aesthetic. Curator Deanna Izen Miller has been working right along with them from the beginning, as a dealer, collector and friend. Proprietor of the Izen Miller Gallery in the heart of Venice, she has witnessed the inception and growth of the community as friends, neighbors and colleagues, and now brings her expert eye to the curation of this exhibition which is both an end and a new beginning.

And not to fear - the spirit of half a dozen rose shall live on at Sabine's new space. . .AiR (Artist in Residence) at the brand new and very sexy Venice Art Lofts on Main Street. We¹ll be back. . .with a vengeance and fiercer than ever!

Curated by Deanna Izen Miller. Produced by Sabine Gebser/half a dozen rose. Essay by Shana Nys Dambrot.

Opening Party: Thursday, May 20th, 6 - until the cops show up.
Venice Art Walk Gallery Hours: Saturday & Sunday, May 22nd & 23rd, no
on - 8pm
Sunset Salon Hours: 5 - 8pm every Friday & Saturday

half a dozen rose
6 Rose Avenue, Venice, CA 90291
ph 310.396.0938 fx 310.399.7411

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