Crazy babies and pantyhose: 5 must-see works at OCMA’s ‘Avant-Garde’

Avant-garde is one of those terms with a short shelf-life. It refers to the new. But the new can only be new for so long. As curator Dan Cameron writes in the catalogue of the latest exhibition at the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA): “Taken at its most literal, the ‘avant-garde’ is a phenomenon that occurs ... relative to a specific historical moment of quite limited duration, in which the art or artist referred to was leading the charge, in the front ranks — it is a military expression, after all — of the latest reliably disruptive manifestation of the new.”

“The Avant-Garde Collection,” a show that opened at OCMA this past weekend, examines the museum’s permanent collection from the lens of what was considered cutting edge at the time it was made.

“The avant-garde is not a movement, it’s not a style,” Cameron says. “But it’s very alive, and it’s been fascinating to look at the collection in this way.”

It certainly makes for an engrossing exhibition: a compilation of art-world rock stars and one-hit wonders, venerable statesman and young whippersnappers. It is a reminder that what may reside on the forefront today may lay practically forgotten tomorrow. But it can then re-emerge to surprise and inspire.

The exhibition kicks off with a 1924-1925 painting of flowers by the influential Stanton Macdonald-Wright, a key figure who supported the tenets of Cubism, an abstraction in Los Angeles in the 1930s and ‘40s. It ends with a tongue-in-cheek installation by the New York-based William Powhida, whose 2013 installation “A Post Minimalism” manages to skewer both minimalism and the art market while commenting on economic inequity.

Who of these will be remembered in 100 years? Who knows?

The show offers plenty to look at: geometric abstraction, feminist video, light and space, assemblage, minimalism, photography and queer politics. Not to mention an insane 5,000-piece toy battle scene by Chris Burden that should fill any 8-year-old with awe and envy.

With so much to take in, we winnow it down to the essentials. Here are five pieces that are not to be missed:

SOUTHWEST PIONEER: Emil James Bisttram abstractions
Born in Hungary in the late 19th century, Bisttram was a dedicated Modernist who thought that making compositions out of abstract forms was, according to Cameron, “the ultimate creative action.” By the 1930s, he’d made it to New Mexico, where he ultimately went on to found the Taos School of Art.

“He kind of had his moment,” Cameron says. “Right now he’s really known to specialists.”

The piece on view at OCMA — “Modern Sensibility” (1924-1925) — is remarkable. It resembles an Indian sand painting and looks as if it’s in the process of being blown apart by the wind, with textured geometric shapes that seem to fly across the canvas.

“He was interested in a redemptive almost mystical art,” Cameron explains. “These abstractions, I think of them as kind of healing exercises.”

It’s a small painting, and one that could be easily overlooked. But it caught my eye for the very American nature of the shapes and the colors.

NAUGHTY BITS: Bruce Conner’s curious assemblage
A lot of California artists worked in assemblage in the 1950s and ‘60s, but Conner was one of the pioneers in the form, putting together all kinds of old bric-a-brac into sculptures that could be grotesque and hilarious all at the same time. He has a pair of works on view at the OCMA show, but “Bedroom,” from 1959, is by far the winner: a pair of women’s pantyhose pulled tight over more balled-up hose, as well as bunches of fur and a nest with two eggs. It is clearly a depiction of a woman’s body, but one that is experiencing its inevitable decay.

“His work had a poetic sensibility,” Cameron says. “But at the time, it was absolutely shocking. People found it deeply macabre, sordid and perverse. Today we wouldn’t go that far. But it still retains a kind of fatalism about mortality. Conners’ work is always about that kind of realization that your body is going to one day give up on you.”

Plus, if you’ve ever been forced to wear pantyhose, the piece evokes a sense of strangulation that may seem quite familiar.

POWERFUL SYMBOLISM: Llyn Foulkes’ cross
It is not your average crucifixion. In fact, Foulkes’ “Abstract Cross,” painted in 1961, is not even technically a crucifixion. It is a roiling sea of black and gray, a cross, which at its center, bears a shadow of a ghost. The dim tones look as if they could be inspired by the inky skies of crucifixion scenes painted by the 17th-century master El Greco or 20th-century surrealist Salvador Dalí. Except Foulkes completely does away with the human figure, making the painting all about darkness and the very small promise of light within it.

“This is the moment when Foulkes is transitioning,” Cameron says. “At this point, he’s an interesting composer of paintings, but he hasn’t yet found the subject matter for which he would become known. You look at his work five years later, and you see all of those terrifying heads. I see all of that development in this cross, where splotch and splatter becomes this powerful symbolic image.”

It’s a piece you can get lost in. A very moving work.

GREAT USE OF O.C. ARCHITECTURE: Tom LaDuke’s Fluor building
Located alongside the 5 Freeway in Irvine, the old Fluor building (now known as the more commercially friendly “Park Place”), was long an architectural landmark in a city that has few. It is a low-slung glass compound, designed by Welton Becket and completed in 1981. Its main distinguishing factor is a series of 93-foot-tall heating and ventilation towers that stand separately from the main structure. My father, who worked in the building for well over a decade, likened them to guard towers at a prison. In the mornings, when he was leaving for work, he’d say he was going to jail.

LaDuke’s ghostly white painting, titled “Ice Age” and created in 2002, captures just the top-most features of the structure, which he places against a vast swath of cotton-white June-gloom sky. It has the effect of making the building seem more sinister than usual, even as it disappears into the background. That is the sort of thing that LaDuke is known for, says Cameron. “He is someone that takes subject matter that is not at all bizarre or exotic, yet he make it totally strange and unfamiliar. He is also doing things on the threshold of invisibility, which is something not a lot of artists are able to do.”

If you live in Irvine, or better yet, worked in the Fluor building, do not overlook this piece.

BEST IN SHOW: Kim Dingle’s psycho toddlers
Sometimes you walk into a show and wonder where a work of art has been your whole life. That’s how I felt upon seeing Dingle’s 1984 installation “Priss Room,” which shows two crazypants-looking toddlers standing defiantly in a crib. The room around them has been trashed: crayon scrawl covers the cute sheep wallpaper, Skoal tobacco tins lay around the floor, along with diapers and empty cans of tuna. The faces on these wild girls are determined and maniacal. If you’ve been around little girls, you know this scene holds a lot of truth.

Dingle was born and raised and continues to live in the L.A. area. For a while she owned and ran the Eagle Rock restaurant Fatty’s, which has since closed, allowing her to return to her art. (Dingle’s first solo show in six years was last December at Coagula Curatorial.) Her early work was part of a profound exploration into the darker recesses of the psyche during the ‘80s and ‘90s, a firm step away from traditions like minimalism, which are all about shape and form. Her character Priss, she once told the Brooklyn Museum, “is like Shirley Temple as a psycho pit bull.”

Cameron says this was in keeping with the era. “There was this idea of psychological self-portraiture, of showing oneself as an evil child with these demonic characters,” he explains. “That’s our toddler side. So the idea of the evil twins in the crib just waiting for the next chance to cause more mayhem, that’s a self-portrait — an artist looking at themselves the way society might see them.”

I have no doubt that the articles that cover this exhibition will spend a good deal of time documenting Chris Burden’s room-sized toy battle scenario. It is macho, it is mammoth and it is obsessively fun to look at. (The seashell ships are a nice touch.) But in my mind, the raw energy of Dingle’s piece is what steals the show.

Don’t even think of missing it.

“The Avant-Garde Collection” is on view through Jan. 4 at the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach, ocma.net.

Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.