“Old” Europe Shows New Media Art

Abstract

Few, if any, unifying themes or styles can be attributed to photography in Southern California, or any other cosmopolitan center in the information age. Aided by the Internet and digital image-sharing, the spread of globalism in commerce is as evident in art as it is in food, culture, and clothing. This is a recent development and with it something is both gained and lost; Los Angeles now rivals New York City in terms of art production and number of exhibition spaces, signaling its progression beyond just another regional art center. Long gone are most cultural signifiers of the place so often derided as lacking culture in the popular imagination. La-La Land still exists, but the art world was never really an important part of it and has benefited from never being co-opted by the entertainment industry, which has plenty of problems of its own. The speed of information transfer, proliferating art fairs, and a burgeoning economy have made regionalism a quaint thing of the past for all but the most stubborn or isolated people and places. While this development is mostly a good thing, it has come with a price: distinction. Seeing the same artwork in LA, Miami, and New York is like watching television-there are interesting programs, but our viewing location is irrelevant. With that comes a homogenization reinforced by the desire to appeal to the national or global market and a loss of identity that reflects the unique character of place. Place has been one of those cliches of photography practice for as long as the medium has existed, and it has generally distinguished regional practices from broader concerns. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This loss of place is most evident in our exurbs and their aesthetic conformity. Major urban centers, try as they might to mimic each other with a Frank Gehry-designed building or two, are naturally more resistant to homogenization due to their slow-fading old city cores. The most regional areas, that is to say visually distinct areas, are driven less by commerce than by a lack of it. Depressed local economies have preserved local character due to their inability to homogenize. It is these overlooked cities and towns that are the best places to find what makes regionalism interesting-the local taco stands, open-air auto repair joints, surf shops, botanicas, and classic car dealers that are so much a part of Southern California. The challenge many photographers face is how to embrace the best aspects of regionalism with an awareness of how their work fits into the historical and aesthetic continuum--which is to say contemporary issues. How does photography express the unique character of geography, populations, and ideas while engaging the larger dialogue of artmaking? Fortunately, Southern California is home to many fine photographers who run the gamut of practices and many excellent institutions that serve to make this place highly individual and yet deeply engaged on the most international level. Among the thousands of photographers, many do deal specifically with the region of greater Southern California, including John Divola, Robbert Flick, John Humble, Sant Khalsa, and Catherine Opie. All focus their attention on unique aspects of the region without being branded as regionalists. Their work creates a portrait of Southern California that stands among the best photography being made anywhere and fits comfortably in an international context. Flick is the uber-documentarian of greater LA. His obsessive and complex grids of trajectories across the urban landscape stand as the ultimate portrait of the city. Tens of thousands of images of storefronts and intersections across the city take Ed Ruscha's earlier documentations into the age of streaming video, balancing the artist's coherent vision with the complexity of the exploding urban sprawl. Ruscha's recent exhibition, Edward Ruscha: Then and Now (2005), at Gagosian Gallery in New York, mined similar territory, in a less frenetic way, and linked his historical topology of Sunset Strip to the LA of today. …