Venice is losing a bit of its cool

At the entrance to a brick building in Venice, painter Billy Al Bengston greeted two younger artists before ascending the stairs to his studio.

Bengston, who turned 70 in June, has a gray buzz cut and clear blue eyes. Bum knees make walking a pain, surfing an impossibility, but he scaled the stairs rapidly, with little support from the banister.

At the top, he took a few waltz steps, holding an invisible partner. “This used to be a dance studio,” he said, finishing a twirl, gesturing to the room. On the wall: paintings hung shoulder to shoulder, a visual diary of his life, beginning in the early ‘60s.

Then, Bengston was one of the hottest artists in town, admired and envied in equal measure by a large group of artist friends. His first solo show -- at 24 -- took place in 1958 at the Ferus Gallery, then emerging as the premiere L.A. venue for contemporary art. At 34, he had his first retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1988 he had a second retrospective.

But by the early ‘90s, Bengston had nearly vanished from the art scene, showing intermittently and then, for long stretches, not at all. His friends developed theories: Bengston had given up on the art world, or the art world had given up on Bengston; he was a victim of changing sensibilities, or he had opted out of a corrupt system.

Bengston himself gave contradictory answers. “Billy Al is retired and in his retirement, doing all the things one shouldn’t do while retired,” his website said.

Now, a show of old and new work, ceramics and paintings opens today at the Cartelle Gallery in Marina Del Rey.

The show is a farewell to Los Angeles. Billy Al Bengston, contrarian, is leaving town.

Lifeguard from Kansas

A quintessential West Coast artist who became synonymous with L.A. cool, Bengston was born in Dodge City, Kan., but came west in 1948. He worked as a lifeguard and studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland before joining the ceramics workshop run by Peter Voulkos at the Los Angeles County Art Institute in 1956 (now Otis College of Art and Design).

“He was the only guy I’d met who wanted to be an artist,” said Kenneth Price, who met Bengston on Doheny State Beach in the ‘50s. The two remained friends as the L.A. art scene came to life in the early ‘60s. “He was really talented.”

When artist Ed Kienholz opened the Ferus Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard with Walter Hopps in 1957, they created an incubator for young L.A. artists and a gallery that, only a few years later, introduced local audiences to work by New York artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol. By the time Bengston showed there, he had dropped school and turned from ceramics to painting.

“I wasn’t going to pursue any form of employment that entailed having to report to someone,” said Bengston, who had given himself until his 25th year to make what he considered a work of art. “Not a bunch of stuff, but something I thought was a contribution, and if I didn’t do that, I would pursue something else.” He was 24 when he made something he felt held up -- a blue and red lacquer on Masonite painting. “It was getting close,” he said.

In the early ‘60s, Bengston began to race motorcycles professionally and found inspiration in the bikes, incorporating them as a subject.

“Whatever he wanted to do came really easily to him,” said fellow painter Chuck Arnoldi.

Bengston started using spray paint, creating layered and metallic surfaces. In 1965, he began his Cantos Indentos series -- also known as the Dentos -- dented and spray-painted sheets of aluminum.

He developed a couple of “signatures”: The iris (named Dracula by Price, who thought it resembled the count) and the chevron or sergeant stripes.

“Although critics have tried to align his art with various schools, from pop art to p&d; -- pattern and decorative painting -- Bengston has eluded specific classification,” wrote Karen Tsujimoto in the catalog for his 1988 retrospective. “No movement has convincingly described his work because its core has never been art history or theory. Bengston’s art, while seemingly eclectic, is firmly circumscribed by a singular refusal to be categorized.”

But it was influential. “I’ve learned a lot from Billy, as a colorist, as an inventor, as a talented artist,” said Frank Gehry, a longtime friend who made the installation for Bengston’s first retrospective -- a series of furnished rooms in which to see the paintings.

“It was a really tough statement, borderline Kienholz,” Gehry said. Unknown to Bengston, Gehry had a wax statue made of the painter. The figure, leather-clad on a motorcycle, stood at the entrance.

“It freaked him out,” Gehry said of the statue, which he still has. But “it said everything about him, where it all came from, the sergeant stripes and the whole aesthetic.”

By the late ‘70s, Bengston was concentrating on watercolors, spending long stretches in Mexico. And in the early ‘80s, he established a second studio in Hawaii. He began adding collage elements to his watercolors and introducing running stick figures, flying fish and other fantastical elements. But while the scale of the work was growing, Bengston’s participation in the art world was shrinking.

“I think the art world turned him off somewhere and he decided he wasn’t going to play anymore,” said Gehry.

British Columbia bound

On the corrugated wall of his house, Bengston has painted in tall, red letters: “No War.” He meant to write: “No War. Nowhere. Ever.” But as he was getting ready to move out, he wouldn’t finish. In mid-August, he’s moving to Victoria, Canada, with his wife, Wendy, and his 14-year-old daughter, Tica -- a move prompted, he said, by Tica, who wants to live in “horse country.”

“My friends seem to be more concerned about it than I am,” Bengston said. “As most of my friends are artists, they are all so career-conscious that if anybody takes a step that’s different, it’s doubted.”

He is, he said, retired. And doing what retired people do: painting and -- especially -- making ceramics.

“If you look at Western art as a tradition, it’s sort of folksy until the middle of the 20th century. Practically everything was allegorical -- it always had jungle drums behind it. There are still very few people that don’t work with jungle drums behind them, the reinforcing of the ‘Well, I’ll get into heaven with this someday.’ ”

At Cartelle, the plates Bengston has been making -- low-fire ceramics decorated with various color glazes -- will be used for an invitation-only dinner before the show, then cleaned up and sold. The invitation promised 100 small heart paintings, the “sweets,” as well as butterflies, kites and “a little Mr. Nasty” -- some larger paintings.

“A lot of younger artists look up to Billy Al but don’t necessarily get to see his work,” said Heather Harmon, the gallery director. “He’s really inventive. That’s one reason I feel that he fits in with these younger artists.”

As for his new work, Bengston didn’t want to make any great claims: “I don’t really think these plates are works of art, but I sure ... think they’re different. But then again, what is a work of art?

“If you make a painting, people are going to sit there and think, ‘Hmm, that’s a painting.’ And look at it real serious. Give them a plate, people are going to throw mashed potatoes on it.” He laughed. “Much purer than the so-called high arts.”

Mr. Contrary

“Both pop culture and decorativeness are kind of dirty words in the art world, and Billy was willing to address them again and again,” said Paul Schimmel, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

None of the art labels adhere to Bengston, he said. “He’s sort of the insider-outsider, outsider-insider.”

In “Sunshine Muse,” a survey of the West Coast postwar art scene, critic Peter Plagens wrote: “An anti-archetype artist, Bengston smoothly ingratiated himself with the art public when the prevailing style was sweatshirts and snarls; when a buyer’s market prevailed, he ruined a Whitney Museum show by asking what the rental fee for his paintings would be. When hair was long, Bengston cut his short.”

“Billy can be like sandpaper sometimes,” said Ed Ruscha, a friend, who designed the catalog for the LACMA retrospective and chose sandpaper for the cover.

“Most artists like to be different, but it’s kind of a cliche, but Bengston is not a cliche,” said Ed Moses, another Ferus alumnus. “He’s a radically independent individual.... He doesn’t like to play ball.”

“He’s just contrary: If it’s green, it’s blue,” said Arnoldi, Bengston’s neighbor. “It’s got to be Billy’s way or the highway.”

Arnoldi, who hosted Bengston’s going-away party, added: “He claims he’s retired. I don’t know any artist who’s retired. You die with your boots on.”

Price, who lives in New Mexico, offered one explanation. “Maybe he got bored,” he said. “There’s something about L.A. The promise is never fulfilled. Everything is always in place and ready to go. The financing and blah, blah, blah. But nothing happens.”

On a lazy summer morning, Bengston’s view was a Southern California tableau: An ocean breeze rustled the palm trees in his garden and rippled the surface of the pool. But Bengston was happy to be leaving it all behind.

“I’m so thankful I’m not young and having to do it the way they do it today,” he said. “It was a lifestyle when we used to do it. Surfing absolutely paralleled the art world: It used to be a lifestyle, it became a business. When things become a business, your values change. There was no dollar value in surfing, and there was no dollar value in being an artist.” The real value of art, he said, is mystery and surprise.

“A work of art is always supposed to leave you, ‘I don’t understand that. But it sure isn’t boring,’ ” Bengston said. The only function of art is to be “something that you ain’t seen before,” he said. “To be itself.”

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Billy Al Bengston

Where: Cartelle Gallery, 310 Washington Blvd. No. 119, Marina del Rey

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Sept. 5

Contact: (310) 574-9689