Los Angeles in the 1960s
LIGHT, SPACE, AND PLACE ON THE “LEFT” COAST
If you were an artist living in Los Angeles in the 1960s, your artwork might echo a city filled with sunshine and golden opportunity, a landscape burgeoning in new postwar technology and industry. The imagery emerging at this time reflected both utopian and dystopian views of LA; the sleek, luminescent work of the so-called “Light and Space” artists coexisted with the gritty, often politically charged work of the assemblage and California pop artists. The gap between art and life vanished as artists captured the unique sense of space and light found only in southern California and embodied the changing cultural landscape of Los Angeles.
In the 1960s, many Los Angeles-based artists began using materials and technology made for the burgeoning aerospace industry.
“Finish Fetish,” the “Cool School,” or the “Light and Space” artists like Robert Irwin and Larry Bell used materials and technology employed in Southern California’s surfboard, aerospace, and automobile industries, favoring slick, translucent surfaces. Assemblage artists Ed Kienholz, George Herms, and Betye Saar created sculptures and collages from found objects and detritus that had lived other lives, now joined together to form new connections for the artist and the viewer. The infamous Ferus Gallery in Venice and the Pasadena Museum of Art (now Norton Simon Museum of Art) attracted artists Ed Ruscha, Marcel Duchamp, and even Andy Warhol, becoming lively centers for creative exchange. These artists and institutions helped shape the identity of Los Angeles as an emerging art nexus with a cultural perspective and aesthetic unique from New York and Paris. —SBR