I'm interested in the digging out of each artist, to dig out their innermost capacity for feeling, for empathy, for reductiveness, to translate human values and frailties into art.

-Joni Gordon

Good to Go
Newspace Gallery
5241 Melrose Avenue
September 16 – December 16, 2006

Newspace Gallery's Good to Go exhibition is a crash course in 33 years of L.A. art history. Featuring the work of 114 artists from 1972 to today, including Jeff Price, David Amico, Martha Alf, Robert Cumming, Mike Kelley, and Arata Isozaki (to name only a few), this show is more than a satisfying assault on the senses. It's an explosion with a big flash that celebrates the art, the artists, and the indefatigable efforts of its leader, Joni Gordon all before the light fades and the doors close forever.

After ten shows a year for thirty-three years, Gordon is finally worn out. She commented in a recent Vernissage TV interview, "I am physically tired. It's still compelling to me, joyous, and fascinating but it's physically exhausting." On December 16, 2006 the exhibit space of her gallery will close as she embraces her new status as a private dealer. This is the final bang. Though the gallery was originally founded by artist Jean St. Pierre in Laguna Beach, CA, Gordon took over the failing operation in 1975 after it moved to the current Melrose space. From there, Newspace became a launching point for many young artists, some of whom went on to garner fame and the occasional fortune.

The individual works featured in Good to Go range from knock-out to plain-Jane. Combined, however, they make for an amazing installation piece, something akin to an Italian salon on meth. Sculptures, oil paintings, works on paper, tapestries, photography, furniture, steel, metal, plastic, light and dark, all packed and pushed into every corner of wall space with various pieces on the floor. Judging from the range, quantity, and quality of the imagery, Gordon must still have serious pull with her collectors and artists, as it would take a curator at MOCA five years to pull off something half as elaborate.

One refreshing aspect for me...and perhaps I just needed a break from all the smarty-pants museum curating...is that this show is not interpretive. There's no theme or thread except that all of these artists have shown with Gordon over the years. Some works are for sale and some on loan but all are displayed like a diary of creativity for a very honest, raw look at Gordon's career and her contribution to the Los Angeles art scene. The only framework is the space, the history, and Gordon herself. So much is left to the viewer that one can't help but be inspired, if not a bit overwhelmed. Even as a new comer, I felt a kind of sadness, a sense of loss as I scanned the photos, press clipping and works from three decades of art exhibitions. Many names I knew, some I did not, but I could see their place in time and the movements that they represented.

The show includes a rare abstract piece by David Amico, one of the pioneering artist of the downtown art scene who started showing with Gordon for the first time in 1976 (that was before Amico opened his 9000 square foot loft space on Broadway to the youthful creative contingent of the time). And there is an earlier work by Mike Kelly, who started with Newspace in a group show called "Balls" back in 1981, two years before MOCA had anything to do with him. Even David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein enjoyed their time in the mild light of Newspace for a group show called "Important American Art," though neither have work featured in the current exhibition. You can see drawings of MOCA by architect Arata Isozaki, photographs by Laura Aguilar, and several works by Jean St. Pierre, the original founder of Newspace.

But this show is perhaps more about Gordon than the art. Gordon developed a compulsive interest in art as a child. She recounted, "If I made one dollar I'd go out and spend fifty cents on art." That continued throughout her life. It was Gordon, for example, who bought Vija Celmins first piece out of Celimns graduate show at UCLA in the 1960s. Then she called up gallerist, LACMA curator, and collector Betty Asher to boast about Celimns. Asher in turn phoned Irving Blum of Ferus Gallery fame. The chain of events in which Gordon either participated or inspired shaped the West Coast art scene and figured on the national and international spheres as well. Gordon's experience is full of such pivotal moments and Good to Go is an exciting visual memoir of her story.

While Joni Gordon will no doubt continue to be an important presence within the contemporary art scene, the symbolic significance for Newspace closing as a public exhibition space cannot be overstated. Don't miss this opportunity for a glimpse of history.

-bryson strauss

For miles of anecdotes on the L.A art scene, see Gordon's oral history interview with the Smithsonian Institution. www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/gordon02.htm