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  Current
Exhibition
   
Group Show
West Coast Sculpture
August 1-August 29, 2009
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The Frank Lloyd Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of sculpture by six major West Coast artists. While each sculptor will be represented by recent work, all artists included in this show made innovative American sculpture during the 1960s. During that decade, West Coast sculpture emerged on the international art scene. Prominent in the first critical surveys, these artists (except for Graham) were included in American Sculpture of the Sixties, curated by Maurice Tuchman at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1967. All of the artists were discussed by Peter Plagens in his landmark survey, Sunshine Muse, Art on the West Coast, 1945—1970.

Larry Bell is represented in this show by two recent and exquisite glass cubes. Bell emerged in the middle 1960s, and is often included in major exhibitions of Minimal art. His work was shown in the first exhibit to focus on Minimal art, Primary Structures, at the Jewish Museum in 1966. Bell's work was also included in the seminal MOMA exhibit, The Responsive Eye in 1965.

Robert Hudson, well-known for his polychrome steel sculpture, has been a primary force in the West Coast assemblage movement. His two new works combine cast iron, steel, stainless steel, enamel and epoxy in a complex, layered hybrid form. Robert Hudson's work has always been a combination of painting and sculpture, formally complex, with a stunning lucidity to the composition.

Robert Graham, well-known for his monumental bronze sculptures and civic monuments, has previously worked in fired clay. Like many sculptors, his ceramic sculptures convey a direct relationship to his other works, and for Graham the pieces continue his work with the female form.

John Mason's new work is concerned with the issues of symmetry and rotation. Continuing his investigation of spatial concepts in abstract sculpture, Mason exhibits large and medium scaled works. The newest work includes a towering, twisting vertical sculpture composed of modular forms. Also exhibited is a smaller rotating piece composed of planes.

Ken Price produced a remarkable series during the early and middle 1970s known as the "Geometric Cups". Glazed with bright colors over a substrate of fired clay, the intimate sculptures combine the artist's interest in sensuous color, immaculate finish, and inventive architecture. Price is represented in this exhibition by a rare and refined Geometric Cup.

Peter Voulkos is perhaps the West coast's most influential sculptor from this period of time. He is represented by an extraordinary late work titled Mimbres, cast in bronze. As Peter Plagens has noted in Sunshine Muse, "Voulkos's reputation as the West coast's major sculptor is at least equaled by his influence as a teacher at both Otis and Berkeley."