Ed Ruscha Other color lithograph 11 1/4 x 14 3/4
While in Los Angeles last week we stopped at the West Hollywood workshop and galleries of Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited). Ok, to be honest, the draw had been the building itself, whose interest had been touted by an artist friend of ours; we didn't know about the galleries, and hadn't really expected to get inside. In fact, we were really welcomed, and graciously invited to walk about the exhibition spaces on our own.
Gemini has collaborated with famous artists nationwide in a great portfolio of first-rate prints, "Artists Coming Together," to help ACT (America Coming Together) defeat Bush and elect Democrats in federal, state and local elections in November. The prints are available, for those with pockets ample enough, individually or as a series. Here's more information.
Back to the building. It's less than two blocks from the Schindler House, and shows curious references to that structure, which was erected more than half a century earlier. The architecture is that of Frank Gehry, but it's the really good Gehry, the one whose early modest originality excited an entire world now so eager for duplicates of Bilbao flamboyance. These are a couple of almost abstract images of the Gemini shelter's 1976 shapes and textures:
[travel tip from Dennis Kane]