Post-War and Contemporary Art - Afternoon Session [antikvár]

n r\ nhen Walter Hopps and Ed Keinholz opened the Ferus WAV/ Los Angeles in 1957, they may never have \j \j envisioned the cascading effect they would have on not only the artists that showed there but also the cultural panoply that would emerge over the next five decades in Los Angeles. As a distinct act of rebellion, the opening of the gallery fostered groundbreaking exhibitions that would take place over the course of the nine years it was in operation—a resounding effect that would belie its relatively short-lived existence. Artists including Wallace Berman, Ed Ruscha and Ken Price would all emerge onto the broader context of the growing international art scene, and some of the most iconic early exhibitions of work by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein would bridge the gap between the East and West coasts. In the early 1950s, Los Angeles was dominated by a highly conservative outlook that shunned the avant-garde, so much so that "the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors made it illegal to exhibit modern art in the city of L.A. on the grounds that modernism was a front for communist infiltration," K. McKenna, The Ferus Gallery: A Place to Begin, Gottingen, 2009, p. 11). Walter Hopps had already staged a number of pioneering exhibitions in 1952 including an exhibition on the Santa Monica Pier, engendering artists including Jay Defeo, Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn onto the broader Los Angeles cultural scene. Having already established themselves as leading characters of the Beatnik generation in L.A., Wallace Berman and Robert Alexander began envisioning the "outlaw gallery" for the art they were already making (ibid. p. 13). When Ed Keinholz came to Los Angeles in 1952, his distinct communal energy and involvement placed him as a central figure for artists and writers. Finding little to no outlet for the artistic ventures and investigations of circle, Keinholz was determined to provide a much-needed platform to a city he deemed a "cultural vacuum" (ibid. p. 13). When Keinholz, Hopps, Berman and Alexander met in 1956, it was only a matter of time before Ferus opened its doors on La Cienega. "Ferus was a kind of nutty, underground clubhouse during its first eighteen months of operation, and the gallery supplemented its