Imaginative Exhibit Maps L.A.’s Love-Hate Relationship With Cars

Car and driver romances have become as complicated in the ‘90s as romances between people. We may feel great passion for the beauty and power of loved ones who take us places we have never gone before, but we resent their control over our lives, which keeps us from breathing freely.

Substantial evidence to support that notion is on view at the Sherry Frumkin Gallery in the exuberant show, “L.A. Drives Me Wild.” This imaginative used-car lot presents a cornucopia of car images that reflect the comedy and tragedy of driving in Los Angeles. More than 20 artists are participating.

“We all have this love-hate relationship with cars. They are our freedom, our symphony orchestras, our news, our telephone booths, but they are also a prison,” Sherry Frumkin said. “We all have to drive. There’s no other way to get around. Many artists use cars to make a statement.”

Anthony Natsoulas comments on drivers who have turned their cars into mobile offices and amusement parks in “Afternoon Drive.” A life-size ceramic man, who will never make one of those “Ten Sexiest Men in L.A.” lists, sits in a real car seat, shoes off, cigar in hand, phone attached to his ear. A pizza rests in his lap. A book dangles between his legs. A crumpled can of soda lies on the floor.

“Made in L.A.,” Richard Gerrish’s urban assault mobile made of scrap metal, embodies Los Angeles drivers’ tensions and fears in its pistol, ball and chain and DOA license plate. Going for a ride just isn’t what it used to be.

Scott Greene doesn’t romanticize. Cars in his paintings spew exhaust. His oil on canvas “Serpentine,” which depicts bumper-to-bumper cars and trucks, is very painterly, yet it has a high quality of realism. “I see something like it every day,” Frumkin said.

Steve Lapin responded to the weariness of being stuck in traffic in a more vitriolic way. In his mixed-media “Angel on the Four-Level Interchange,” the angel bursts forth from the interchange, ripping it up as she goes.

Despite these darker visions of our car culture, the charm of the automobile still holds sway with several artists in this show. Nicola Wood, who was born in Liverpool, paints extraordinarily detailed, sensuous images of big, shiny, circa 1960 Cadillacs and a Chevy. “She’s knocked out by the sculptural beauty of American cars,” Frumkin said. “I’ve never seen anybody paint chrome like that.” Feminine icons appear in most of the paintings--lipsticks, high heels, dancing girls--perhaps suggesting that some men’s sexual preference is cars.

Camille Chang’s “German Chocolate-Covered Car,” and a box of mini German chocolate-covered cars look good enough to eat. Walter Gabrielson’s paintings address the agony and deception inherent in buying a car and getting it serviced, but his painted wood homage to a drive-in evokes a sense of the good times people have had in cars. And Richard Pietruska’s sleek sculptures of Ferraris and Mercedes race cars remind us that the pure beauty of form in some automobiles cannot be denied.

Other artists represented in the show are Kim Abeles, David Bottoms, Keith Collins, Margaret Dodd, Michael Chapman, Sy Edelstein, David Gilhooly, Jane Gottlieb, Bruce Houston, Gilbert Lujan, Frank Romero, Dustin Shuler, James Strombotne, Chris Unterseher and Patti Warashina.

“L.A. Drives Me Wild” is open 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday at Sherry Frumkin Gallery, 1440 9th St., Santa Monica, through Sept. 5. Call (310) 393-1853.

ILLUMINATING ART: The Gallery of Functional Art in Santa Monica presents one-of-a-kind and limited edition “art furniture”--objects ranging from tables, chairs, beds, sofas, lighting, screens, dressers and bathroom fixtures created by artists, architects, designers and craftsmen from throughout the United States. When several artists asked gallery director Lois Lambert to organize a show of lighting fixtures, she responded with the voluminous exhibit, “Lighting as Art.”

More than 70 artists have created everything from floor lamps and table lamps to chandeliers, sconces and torchiers. Made from such diverse materials as twigs, plaster, steel, aluminum, wood, concrete, glass and feathers, lights range from simple to ornate, neoclassical to contemporary.

“A lot of artists who do functional art forms like the idea of illuminating them,” Lambert said. “They like to see what light can do to the form.”

Stan Pavlou fashioned four sconces in origami folded forms using a different material for each one--perforated steel, paper, galvanized sheet metal and fabric. Kathleen Edwards gathered twigs from various trees to make her graceful, small stick lamps. Noel and Janene Hilliard’s cast bronze and leaded glass “Porcupine Lamp” has been beautifully executed in the Arts and Crafts style.

Jim Reva created a handsome, traditional-looking chandelier out of red goblets, keys, hair curlers and other assorted objects. The base of Matt Duncan’s floor lamp, “Bernie,” is a bowling ball, its shade a portion of a bowling pin. In his “Rapunzel” table lamp, one must pull a lock of blond hair to turn it on and off.

Art Demarest encased his light source in a beautiful old white piano accordion, which hangs on the wall. Susan Kornfeld topped off her floor lamp with a briefcase. The bulb in Phil Garner’s table lamp sprouts from a leather purse. David Long and Debby Beck used a faucet pipe, complete with faucet, to make a table lamp. A lawn sprinkler serves as its dimmer switch.

Not to be missed is Eric Namson’s red sprayed-foam “Lava Lamp,” a tribute to the lava lamps of the ‘50s, which sits on Lambert’s desk and appears to be mushrooming.

“Lighting as Art” is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday at Gallery of Functional Art, 2429 Main St . , Santa Monica, through Aug . 9. Call (310) 450-2827.

WORK OF 14: In 1944, photojournalist Horace Bristol, then one of five members of Edward Steichen’s famed U. S. Navy photography unit, took a most unusual photograph of a nude machine-gunner at his post on a Navy amphibious plane. The young man had just rescued a downed pilot from the water, and hadn’t had time to get dressed again because he’d been under fire from Japanese coastal defense guns.

When Darrel Couturier of Couturier Gallery saw that photograph recently, it stuck in his mind and inspired the show in his gallery, “bare essentials: The Nude in Photography.”

“To see a nude in this context, totally unposed, was so surprising,” Couturier said. “I was interested in finding images that had an element of surprise because of the context the nude was in, and also images that had expression and emotion.”

Couturier has assembled 36 black-and-white images--divided almost equally between male and female nudes--by 14 photographers. Many of them convey intriguing, sometimes amusing narratives.

Elliott Erwitt’s 1983 photograph, “Bakersfield, Ca.,” shows two clothed older women with Judge ribbons on their chests facing a nude man whom we see only from the back. The women are judges at a nudist colony contest. They’re laughing, but we don’t know why.

In “Masterpiece Theatre” by Brad Fowler, two gents in the buff, one with a dignified face reminiscent of Alistair Cooke’s, relax on a willow wood sofa, having drinks. Jessica Tanzer presents a woman wrapped in tape from head to toe, except for one exposed breast. The tape repeatedly warns “Caution.”

Other images proclaim the beauty and power of the human form. These include Tom Bianchi’s photograph of a man and woman swimming together, Craig Cowan’s classical study of the male body in his Golden Section series, and Ed Freeman’s graceful, elongated female figures, created with the aid of mirrors.

“bare essentials: The Nude in Photography” is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Couturier Gallery, 166 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, through Aug. 15. Call (213) 933-5557.