Highlights from the LA Art Show

Tim Tate, Virtual Teapots, blown and cast glass, electronic parts, original video 14x6x6, 2008

Last night kicked off the 14th annual Los Angeles Art Show at the downtown convention center featuring some 165 galleries showing high-end art while live jazz played throughout the mind-numbingly enormous space and art buyers, dealers, lovers and patrons mingled throughout the booth aisles sipping wine and tasting desserts. This is the first of several blogs about the highlights of the show and stay tuned on Friday and Saturday for news about the art talks given by various art-illuminaries like Peter Frank.

D.C. artist Tim Tate, represented by London-based The Steps Gallery, had a most compelling piece entitled Virtual Teapots (pictured left) suspended from the booth wall at shoulder level. His marriage of blown glass, video, and found objects is unusual and allows the viewer to respond on multiple levels to the piece, which is simultaneously futuristic and archaic, reminiscent of the production design of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Tom Haney, Dubious, 16x29x11, 2008, courtesy the artist

New Orleans based Red Truck Gallery featured apple-crate sized works by an awesomely intricate inventor-sculptor-artist Tom Haney. If you click the photo (right) you can see a movie of this piece which showcases the street-seller opening and closing his jacket to reveal his wears, looking indeed quite dubious. Haney says on his site that most of his time is spent behind the scenes orchestrating the mechanics that move his pieces.

Josh Dorman, Loose Bridge, Ink, acrylic, antique maps and paper on panel, 20 x 16", 2007, courtesy George Billis Gallery