Marlene Ortiz, “But It’s Calm Under the Wave, In the Blue of My Oblivion,” materials variable. Photo by Breanne Lynn Patterson.
It requires more than one visit to appreciate the array of works exhibited for Long Beach City College’s Winter Student show. Four galleries at the Bungalow Art Center feature student portraiture, abstract and figurative painting, elegant installation, whimsical graphic arts, found object sculpture, film and time-based digital expressions. The exhibit focuses on photography, showcasing work with a penchant for hyper-real and surrealist manipulations of time, investigations into female and personal identity and narrative.
Demonstrative of this trend is Nate Lubben’s “Broken Sorrow,” an oversized digital print. A seated female figure grasps her head, while her duplicate image simultaneously reaches for her ankles. She is seated in a cross-legged pose, draped with a light shirt in a non-descript and desolate room, devoid of color or identifiable markings of place. A textured band around her forehead creates an uncanny fabric cage over her face. Shards of broken material form a cautioning pile beneath her feet, signaling danger and metaphorically communicating her uncontrollable state of mind and motion. Her vertical, open pose indicates agony and aggression, but as she retracts on her body’s axis, she expresses remorse and vulnerability.
Lubben states that this work expresses the complexity of emotion, which so often deals with binary states of mind. The composition is contradictory and produces anxiety, yet it is so profoundly graceful in its arrangement of the compositional elements. This is also achieved in the artist’s treatment of light, accomplished by increasing the image’s sharpness and saturation. Like the surrealists’ fascination with dangerous women, this photograph reflects what the artist identifies as the subject’s “exotic elegance.” Lubben’s volatile image is a distorted expression of feminine turmoil.
The show was curated by art historian, Seija Rohkea and Carol Roemer, art history faculty member at LBCC. The curators employed a salon-style hanging strategy to ensure that each contribution from the student artists was accommodated. Rather than force a particular theme, the curators opted for aesthetic pairings. The exhibition functioned like an arts practicum, a high level course in the process of exhibition production. Rohkea commented, “Many of these students are still finding their artistic identity.”
To assist in this process, she required that each participant provide a plan to hang the work, write an artist statement (each is displayed next to the artist’s piece) and fill out a loan form. For many of the 65 artists, this was their first professional art show.
Rohkea mentored the students in the “art of the hang,” the creative outlet of the preparator and curator. Few envision the artistic process of installation, or how to use the white cube as a point of departure. Arranging the objects in an exhibition checklist to form a spatial and aesthetic dialogue without compromising the object’s condition is a creative activity and a separate process beyond the production of the work.
Accessibility is important to the mission of the Bungalow Art Center, an artist-centric
space managed by the Cultural Alliance of Long Beach (CALB). CALB founding
member Karen Reside shared that her goal is to serve as a resource for artists. The
285-member, 17,000 square-foot facility opened in October during arts month and has
plans for future arts programming. CALB is an important voice in the city of Long Beach,
representing a constituency of creative professionals seeking increased access to
exhibition opportunities, collectors and professional support.
Although the curators did not decline student work, LBCC fine arts professors only invited select students to exhibit. Especially after seeing this exhibit, one cannot overstate the role of professors and mentors in the arts. It is a misconception that all artists have innate skills or “natural talent.” Rather, critique is built into the learning process. Through a series of test flights artists gain mastery level skills and develop a cohesive style.
The timing of the show is particularly important for the LBCC photography department,
one of the most represented departments at the Bungalow show. For many of these art
students, this winter exhibition could be their last. The photo department is perhaps the
next fatality at the institution as budget cuts threaten 19 programs at one of the state’s largest community college. Should this plan go into effect, many students would lose access to specialized facilities. They would also be devoid of critical feedback from professionals and a place to gather with their peers to engage in aesthetic dialogue.
It is imperative that this department survives. It functions as a site for creative expression, and it is unquantifiable how this department affects the rigor of art production in the city of Long Beach. Losing this resource would be a devastating blow to the local arts scene. It also sends the following dystopic message to young artists and community college students: the arts are expendable.
The 2012 Winter Student Show runs through December 31 at the Bungalow Art Center, 727 Pine Avenue.
—Second photo: Nate Lubben’s “Broken Sorrow.”
—Third photo: Anthony Sok, “Bronze Light Apparatus,” mixed media, 27.25” x 9” x 10,” 2012. Photo by Breanne Lynn Patterson
—Fourth photo: Zak Harris, “Vein—a vessel which transfers blood,” oil on wood, 2012
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