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Dissed in New York, Painting Thrives in LA

For LA Times critic, the medium's doing fine, thank you

By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff

Posted Dec 20, 2007 2:00 PM CST

(Newser) – Is American painting dead? For the art critic of the Los Angeles Times, it's a question only a New Yorker could ask. In LA painting has been the dominant medium for more than half a century, as a new exhibition, Birth of the Cool, makes clear. From pioneers like Ed Ruscha and John McLaughlin to a younger generation showing in the city's Chinatown, the allegedly embattled medium is thriving.

In the 1970s, "what actually was dying was not painting but its complement—a provincial enslavement to the primacy of the New York School," writes Christopher Knight. And with Los Angeles galleries flogging ever more canvases and a new biennial of local paintings this January, Tinseltown continues to reassert the medium's vitality. To theoretically inclined art critics who still sound painting's death knell, Knight says, "What century is this?"

Works by Gary Panter, a Los Angeles-based artist.
Works by Gary Panter, a Los Angeles-based artist.   ((c) S:U:P:E:R:M:O:D)
A work by Camille Rose Garcia, a Los Angeles painter.
A work by Camille Rose Garcia, a Los Angeles painter.   ((c) S:U:P:E:R:M:O:D)
A painting exhibition at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los Angeles.
A painting exhibition at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los Angeles.   ((c) S:U:P:E:R:M:O:D)
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