Anthony James uses math and science to explore concepts of the infinite in his Portal sculptures. One of them, 80″ Great Rhombicosidodecahedron, 2020, pictured above, is currently on view at Palm Springs Art Museum.
Dec 132024
Aug 152024
After seeing the Albert Frey exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center, you can visit his recently unveiled Aluminaire House near the museum’s main location. It’s incredible at every angle as it reflects its surroundings.
The structure has an interesting history. Before it arrived in Palm Springs, it was rebuilt on architect Wallace Harrison’s property in Huntington, Long Island where it remained from 1931 until 1987. From 1988-2012, it was partially rebuilt on New York Institute of Technology’s Central Islip campus before being dismantled and stored in a trailer.
From the museum-
Designed by Albert Frey, Aluminaire House is one of the first examples of European-style modernist architecture in the United States. Built in 1931 as a full-scale model house for a temporary exhibition, it was intended to be a prototype of mass-produced housing, factory made with modern materials. Composed primarily of aluminum, steel, and glass, it was an experiment in realizing a democratic ideal in architecture of creating affordable, well-designed homes using modern industrial methods and materials. Palm Springs Art Museum acquired the Aluminaire House to add to its rich holdings by Albert Frey, who spent most of his life and career in Palm Springs.
Aug 142024
Frey House I (1940) as pictured in House & Garden magazine, January 1948
More images of Frey House I
Palm Springs is famous for its mid-century modern architecture and architect Albert Frey played a large part in creating that legacy. Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center’s Albert Frey: Inventive Modernist celebrates his career with a creatively curated show filled with an extensive collection of historical photographs.
From the museum-
Albert Frey (American, born Switzerland, 1903-1998) helped to establish Palm Springs as a world-recognized center for modern architecture and design. He was the first architect to design a modern International Style structure for Palm Springs and paved the way for modern architecture and the architects that followed.
Steeped in early European modernism, Frey’s adroit handling of low-cost and low-maintenance industrial materials, sublime desert color combinations, and appealing geometric compositions give him a unique and permanent place in the idiom of “desert modernism” and succinctly expressed his two greatest loves—nature and architecture.
His mark on Palm Springs is indelible and includes such recognized icons as the Palm Springs City Hall, Fire Station #1, The Palm Springs Visitors Center, The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station, The Loewy House, and his final home, known as Frey House II, as well as hundreds of other notable projects.
“….the sun, the pure air and the simple forms of the desert create perfect conditions for architecture.”
Albert Frey in a letter to Le Corbusier, 1935 about Palm Springs
More selections from the exhibition below-
In 1937, Frey left California to join the staff of Philip Goodwin who was commissioned to design the new Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum has included documentation, photos and a model of the building- pictured above.
Above are stills taken from North Shore Yacht Club (1958), a promotional video for the structure that Frey built when the Salton Sea was a thriving resort destination. The refurbished building is now used for community events in Mecca, California.
The Tramway Gas Station, pictured above, is now the location of the Official Palm Springs Visitor Information Center.
From the museum-
At the same location where some 23 years earlier Clark & Frey had designed the graceful stone entry gates to Palm Springs, Frey created another welcoming structure-the Tramway Gas Station, a bold and assertive monument. Architecturally speaking, its roof offers a hyperbolic paraboloid design. Its cantilever suggests a spectacular soaring bird and indicates that visitors were entering a decidedly mid-century modern, forward-thinking city. About its genesis Frey said, “When you think about what nature produces in fantastic forms, in birds and animals-that’s where creativity comes in.”
In 1996 the building was approved by the city for demolition, sparking the beginning of the mid-century preservation movement in Palm Springs. The building was saved by those who bravely stood up for and championed its daring artistry, its physical representation of a moment in time and place, and the legacy of Albert Frey.
This exhibition closes 8/18/24.
If you are a modernism fan, every year Palm Springs celebrates Modernism Week- this year with a four day event in October and next year a week long event in February.
Aug 122024
After hearing the sad news of Shelley Duvall’s passing, I decided to watch a few films from her filmography and started with 3 Women, released in 1977. Based on a dream writer/director Robert Altman had, the film follows Duvall and Sissy Spacek as their lives and identities intertwine in the California desert. Later a third woman played by Janice Rule, becomes more important in the pair’s world.
Using reflections, water, mirrors, mirrored actions, and twins, Altman creates a mysterious space for these women to inhabit. Adding to the unsettling energy of the film are a series of murals created by artist Bodhi Wind (Charles Kuklis).
It’s definitely worth a watch, with an ambiguous ending that has been subject to many interpretations.
Aug 102024
Melissa Chandon, “Abstract Blue in Ultramarine”, 2023, Oil on canvas (left) and Kory Alexander, “Night Splash 2”, 2024, Oil on canvas (right)
Skidmore Contemporary Art, which recently moved from Bergamot Station in Santa Monica to El Paseo in Palm Desert, is currently showing the group exhibition, Summer Splash.
The exhibition features the work of eleven California-based artists, including Melissa Chandon and Kory Alexander, whose paintings (pictured above) are perfect for these hot August days.
This exhibition closes 8/30/24.
Jul 262024
Helen Lundeberg, “Interior with Two Paintings”, 1982, acrylic on canvas
Room with sculpture by Chakaia Booker, “The Privilege of Eating”, 2012, rubber tires, wood, shovel
Max Neumann, “Untitled”, 1986, oil on linen
Liza Lou, “Dog”, 2002, glass beads on fiberglass and plaster
Ori Gersht, “Against the Tide, Diptych Monks”, 2010, archival pigment print on aluminum
There’s a lot of exceptional work on view for A Shadow Set Free, the group exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum. Above are a few of the standouts, as well as one of two walls on which numerous works are grouped together.
From the museum about the exhibition and its theme-
A Shadow Set Free presents a selection of sculpture, photography, painting, drawings and prints from roughly the last 100 years. Though very different in style, subject matter and historical context, the works are united in their ability to evoke a sense of memory and convey an otherworldly aura.
The artists forgo an interest in the bright light of objective reality in favor of creating dream worlds, maintaining a rootedness in everyday reality while remaining free from specific histories. Together they demonstrate the various ways that modern and contemporary art imbues the familiar, external world with a spirit of subjectivity.
This exhibition closes 8/4/24.
Feb 092024
This sculpture, The Only Other, 2021, by the artist Midabi, was located in Union Square Park in NYC from June 2021- June 2022.
It is currently located adjacent to Palm Springs Art Museum in California.
Dec 142023
Mirror House, 2016 by artist Paige Jiyoung Moon was one of the paintings in her 2019 exhibition, Days of Our Lives at Steve Turner in Los Angeles. Her works are all of scenes from her life, painted from memory.
She is currently part of Hammer Museum’s most recent biennial, Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living, its sixth iteration, on view until 12/31/23.
The house in the painting, Mirage, was created by Doug Aitken for Desert X in 2017. On the fictional television series, The Curse, created by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, the main characters are building houses with similar look.
Nov 232023
ALIVE! by artist Jeffrey Gibson was created for the first edition of the biennial Desert X in 2017, and is on view in the sculpture garden of the Palm Springs Art Museum.
It was recently announced that Gibson was selected by the U.S. State Department to represent the country at the 2024 Venice Biennale. He is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, and will be the first Indigenous artist to have a solo exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the event.
The artist’s statement about the work from the Desert X site-
ALIVE! is a found object ready made sculpture altered with paint and text that reads: I am alive! You are alive! They are alive! We are living!
I chose to work with a wind turbine blade because of how it alters one’s perceptions when they look out across the desert landscape. They are enormous and when viewing one up close you get a sense of the expansiveness of the desert landscape that they occupy. They are also really beautiful in form and their shape reminds me of something like a wing, a fin, or a bone from a massive whale. The text references the people who live in Palm Springs and the original indigenous people who occupied this land and their belief that the landscape is living.
Jul 202023
Built Landscape I, 2015, by Paul Davies, was included in Palm Springs Art Museum’s 2018 group exhibition, Eighty @ Eighty.
From the museum’s wall plaque-
Through a rich process of layering, mirroring, and mimicking, Davies explores the fusion of manmade and cultivated natural elements that comprise our environment. Reflecting a contemporary Southern California sensibility, his paintings are at once a dream of an idealized lifestyle made popular by midcentury modern architecture, and a commentary on how such structures interact with and fragment the world around us. This image references the unique periscope-like structure of architect Albert Frey’s first home in Palm Springs.
Davies’ work can currently be seen as part of Stark White gallery’s exhibition Surface Tension in Queenstown, New Zealand, on view until 8/20/23.