YHBHS Interview : Peter Loughrey of LAMA

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Pioneer & Founder of LAMA : Los Angeles Modern Auctions

Los Angeles Modern Auctions announces its 50th Auction.
scheduled for October 17, 2010. This auction will be LAMA’s 50th auction since opening in 1992, and will include offerings of iconic 20th century modern art and design, proving modern material is still a sought after commodity.

"There must be a collector’s gene that can be isolated. Perhaps it will eventually be possible to develop a pill, like a statin, that will not cure the collector, but it would allow them to keep their condition manageable."



above: Steve Salisian, circa 1965, ceramic vases (current LAMA auction, a YHBHS pick!)














Los Angeles Modern Auctions, Van Nuys, CA





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Peter Loughrey was raised in rural Maryland by antique-collecting parents. He has early memories of visiting antique shops and decorative arts museums; both were slow and deliberative compared to the fast pace of auctions.

Peter has collected many various objects since the age of 6, including vintage toy cars, coins, stamps, and baseball cards, even antique beer cans. I'm thrilled to interview Peter about the idea of collecting, his personal highlights at LAMA, as well as his picks for the current auction.
As my career takes me further into the history of furniture and craft, I become more and more addicted, and increasingly thankful that LAMA exists here in L.A. It's a place to experience a large amount of work in one space. And, after the auctioneer states it is "sold," it will once again go into hiding, for maybe another 50 years.

Perhaps that is the beauty of it all? A disappearing act. Catch it while you can........


Thank you Peter.....

Frank Gehry Grandpa Beaver chair,
1987 cardboard
(not in auction)

What was the first important item you ever sold at LAMA that made you think, "Yes, this is what I was meant to do" ?

In our first auction there was a Frank Gehry “Grandpa Beaver” chair that didn’t have any interest at the preview. When it came across the auction block, I saw an expression on one man’s face in the audience that seemed completely surprised; like he had just realized how great it was in that instant. The auctioneer saw it as well and waited a few extra seconds before “passing” the lot at its reserve.

I just knew this buyer was going to bid, even though he had not previously planned or even noticed the piece before. I knew that instant that this format was how I was going to succeed.

As a kid, you wanted to be.... when you grew up?

Actor/Stuntman. This was one reason I moved to California. After making some awful, low-budget movies, I dedicated myself to antiques and design, which I had been doing well on the weekends and in my spare time.

Edward Ruscha, Vowel #58 U (From Vowels: Paintings on Book Covers)
August 6, 1996, Estimate 15,000 -20,000 (in current auction, one of Peter's picks)

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The psychology of a collector. Do you collect anything yourself? Do collectors have anything in common with each other?

I often answer this question by explaining I collect items that haven’t sold yet. BUT, I do have a nice collection (pieces not for sale) of Gio Ponti furniture and objects such as glass by Venini and enamels by Paolo di Poli.


"There must be a collector’s gene that can be isolated. Perhaps it will eventually be possible to develop a pill, like a statin, that will not cure the collector, but it would allow them to keep their condition manageable."

Evelyn Ackerman, California Poppies, 1970 embroidery (not in LAMA auction)

Do you feel that LAMA auctions has a "West coast/ California" vibe, and if so, what is this vibe? Any important California or West coast artist/designers you pay particularly close attention to?

The West coast aspect of LAMA is, in my opinion, our pioneering spirit. We were the first independent auction house that specialized in this field. Also, the first to create special themed sales, one-owner sales. Also, first to produce full-color catalogues and to use the internet as a promotional, selling tool.

There are many unsung California artists. For example, the designs of Evelyn Ackerman have been consistently increasing in value. Museums are beginning to show interest in acquiring her work, so this will probably ensure continued interest.

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I feel confident in stating that every collector enjoys "the hunt," aka "the obsessive search." What is the most bizarre or interesting place(s) you have gone to find works for the LAMA auctions?

I have flown to Buenos Aires, Cape Town, & South Africa on moment’s notice when rare objects are uncovered. I have also traveled to a Grand Rapids basement on a complete hunch, which turned out to be one of only three known surviving examples of a chair designed by Eames and Saarinen exhibited in MoMA in 1941.

Frederick Kiesler 1935-38. Cast aluminum nesting tables.
(not in current auction)

However, the most bizarre was a late night (on Halloween!) visit to a local couple’s house to uncover a previously undocumented example of Frederick Kiesler’s aluminum nesting tables - a very long story involving chanting and being anointed with oils.

Why an auction, why not a gallery/retail? In 1992 you changed from a gallery to an auction house. Any reasons? Other auctions houses, such as Phillips de Pury & Company, Wright Auctions, have been curating shows, do you see this ever happening with LAMA?

Gallery/Retail was boring! I am an auction junkie of sorts and never liked the slow daily pace of the gallery. Also, the volume of an auction means more revenue.

We have curated many important events. Some were sales others just because we believed in the artists.

1999: “Fabulous Fifties”, California Heritage Museum, Santa Monica, CA
2000: “Work from the Office of Charles & Ray Eames”, LAMA Gallery
2001: “New designs by Byran Thompson”, LAMA Gallery
2002: “Gio Ponti and figurative paintings”, ACME, Los Angeles
2003: “Design by Decades” West Week, Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood
2005: “New Designs by Dutch Artists”, ACME, Los Angeles
2006: “R.M. Schindler: The Gingold Commissions”, Pacific Design Center, LA
2010: “Jews on Vinyl”, Skirball Cultural Center, LA
2010: “Gaetano Pesce: Pieces of a Larger Puzzle”, Italian Cultural Institute, LA

David Hockney , 1978-80 #23 of 34 Lithograph
Made of Thick and Thin Lines and a Light Blue and a Dark Blue Wash"
estimate 25,000- 30,000 (in current auction, one of Peter's pick)

If you could, what are 3 items in the current auction, that are closest to your heart, and why?
1. Giacometti table and lamp (It is rare with proper provenance)
2. David Hockney Swimming Pool (This is quintessential LA)
3. Ed Ruscha “Vowel” (First original work by this artist we have ever sold. One of my favorite artists of the 20th century.)

Diego Giacometti, Pedestal table with Harpies Studio first designed in 1955 for Cecil Beaton. Estimate 70,000 - 90,000 (another of Peter's picks)






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You cosponsored a Gaetano Pesce show this year at the Italian Cultural Center, which was personally one of my favorite exhibits this year in Los Angeles. Why is his work so important to you, and to the design world?

We produced the event and co-curated the show with John Geresi. We also designed, published and editioned the catalogue for the exhibition.

Pesce has devoted his life to a seemingly impossible task: creating unique pieces for mass production. His “fish designs”, I believe, is one of the most important breakthroughs design of the 20^th century; tens of thousands of pieces, each one different from any other.

Is furniture meant to be used, or should we treat it very carefully, and refrain from using them? Thoughts? (such as a Pesce table, a McMakin chair, Gehry lounge chair... etc.

Use and care are not mutually exclusive. I use all of the pieces in my house and recommend my clients to do the same. One piece on a pedestal is okay, but a house full of furniture you can’t sit on or touch, really belongs in a museum. Pesce, McMakin and Gehry will all tell you to use their designs, not to be afraid to relax and enjoy their function as intended.

Archizoom Associati Pair of Mies chairs Poltronova designed 1969
(in current auction, YHBHS PICK!)

LAMA is celebrating its 50th auction on Oct 17th. Congratulations! Any highlights?

Highlights in the history of LAMA:
Eames Auction, July 2000
Playboy Auction, June 2002
Prestini Commission, December 2003
Atlantic Richfield Corporate Art Collection, 1999

Hi

Anytime you felt like quitting?

I felt like quitting, and indeed did take time off when I lost my brother and partner to AIDS in 1993. I studied and worked at Sotheby’s Institute in London for a year, which gave me back the passion for auctioneering.




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Los Angeles Modern Auctions announces its 50th Auction.
scheduled for October 17, 2010 This auction will be LAMA’s 50th auction since opening in 1992, and will include offerings of iconic 20th century modern art and design, proving modern material is still a sought after commodity.



Thanks Peter and Elizabeth!
Follow the LAMA blog... go here!






YHBHS Interview
Peter Loughrey, founder of LAMA Los Angeles Modern Auctions






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YHBHS Interview:

Eva Berendes
Pt 2. "material presence"

(read Pt 1 here)

untitled 2008
Wood, stain, wool

I can’t help but to imagine your sculptures as an essential element to a room. Are you inspired by interiors, furniture designers, as well as other artists? How do you see your work fitting into this spectrum?

Most of the work I have been interested in operates along the boundary between Fine and Applied Art- Art Deco, Bauhaus, Sonia Delaunay, Constructivism, Supremacism, Arts & Crafts, even Minimalism and other work from the 60’s that is focused on the factual presence of the material.

They all deal with the distinction of "a work“ and "a thing“. Over the past few years I have been looking at Italian design from the 80’s a lot, Memphis and all these groups and individuals surrounding them. I am very impressed with the irreverence, almost innocence in their shaping and colouring objects but also with the earnestness that I hadn’t really been able to recognise in Postmodern work before I encountered them. More recently I started to look at some 1970’s/ 80’s Japanese architecture. I just find it really inspiring how few conflicts these elegant mixtures of Modern, Postmodern and traditional Japanese influences reveal in spite of drawing from these contradictory references.

My own work I would clearly position within the realm of Fine Arts as I don’t make anything that is meant to be used or even things that resemble functional things. I do often make works which approximate to things that are commonly associated with craft or decoration, like screens, curtains, wallhangings, etc.. However, I am not aiming at transgressing the boundaries towards the Applied Arts. It’s more that the works address the concept of the distinction between the two categories and their implications which bring up relevant questions about material presence, the potential metaphysical dimension of an object and how this manifests itself, and the genealogy of abstract language in general. And it enables me to take a side path towards painting which is still at the core of what I do.

untitled, 2010

Metal, brass, varnish

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More so than historical references, Constructivism, Art Deco, Bauhaus: Anni Albers that are apparent in your practice, I feel there is almost a ghostly presence that is present in the faded color palette and your choice of material.

Do you believe in ghosts, or the afterlife?

I like your impression of my works exerting a presence of unsubstantiality very much, it is such a nice paradox. However, I don’t associate that unsubstantiality with ghosts or the afterlife, I think I am lacking the fantasy for that. I am more for dry approaches.

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Your curtains bring to mind the work of an artist Felix Gonzalez Torres, and his series of curtains, and wall dividers. His work to me speaks about loss and the fragility and quickness of life. In “Jasmine and Trellis” there is such a quiet strength, and spirituality to these works, that is so powerful. What is the motivation behind these works?

The curtain was part of an ensemble of works made for a solo show I named Jasmine & Trellis after a tapestry design by William Morris. I always liked the idea of a backdrop or a piece that functions as an abstract drawing but also as exhibition design. The gallery space in Frankfurt has big windows facing the street that I think you can either go with or agaist. For Jasmine & Trellis I transformed the space into a more intimate, domestic, cabinet-like space by means of the curtains and grey wall paint which dimmed the reflections of the glossy floor in there and gave the whole show an introverted, quiet and private atmosphere.

An important aspect of those curtains, but also the screens, the new silk pieces and even new the perforated steel sculptures, is their semi- transparence. The works are constantly being animated by their surroundings. I use this recurring motif in my work to break the rigidity of the abstraction and to attribute it with this sort of unsubstantiality you mentioned which could be a metaphor for many things. It could be doubt or modesty or conflicting thoughts, like saying something and taking it back at the same time. Or about transition and penetration between things, ideas, etc..

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How important is the space in which you show your work? Is there a conversation in your mind about the architecture of the space and the work in which you bring to it?

The space is of course always very important, a starting point to roughly think about the type, the scale, the number and the position of the works. I try to make use of the space so it can resonate with the works and vice versa. Sometimes I have a point of reference for it, say the idea of a shop like in Silk, Grids & Souvenirs in which everything was facing the window and the sculptures resembled architectural display elements. Which was kind of the opposite of what I did for Jasmine & Trellis which took place at the same gallery. The architecture of the exhibition space has so far only been an issue as it is a condition for the works to appear and determines the atmosphere and the choreography of their perception. Not more and certainly not less than that.

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YHBHS Interview:

Eva Berendes
Pt 2. "material presence"

(read Pt 1 here)

YHBHS Interview
with
Eva Berendes, Pt 1.

"folding screens & paravents"

Paravents: noun,

A wind-screen; a shelter from wind.

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"Questions of construction and design collapse into one which is also mirrored by the fact that the back side of the works is usually exposed.


In fact, that is probably the reason for some works having turned into sculpture,
I simply did not want to neglect their back side."




- Eva Berendes


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YHBHS: Eva, thank you for taking the time to answer some questions regarding your work. I’m transfixed by your “screens.” The manner in which the colors and the forms interact. Can you tell me more about how & why they originated?

Eva Berendes: There are various works that you could call screens but I suppose you are addressing the folding screens or "paravents“, 4- or 5- part hinged wooden frames filled with compositions of color fields made from suspended, kind of "woven“ cotton thread. Those fields change a lot in transparency/opacity when you move around them (beside the strong moiree effect) and that makes them very elusive, a quality that made the actual making of them in the studio rather tedious.










I found it hard to find a technique that would render a similar kind of effect to help deciding about the colours by means of a model or a sketch. But to come back to your question, the screens are connected to a number of earlier works of mine, the earliest of them perhaps being a large tie-dye curtain that I did for my MA show in London in 2002.

I had made a couple of paintings with tie-dyed fabric on a strecther and had collaged other, more geometric elements onto them. All of it was part of my experiments with various ways of referencing historical work, back then it was the Russian avant-garde. I was aiming at a peaceful reconciliation of contradictory visual elements and eventually I decided to treat the elements more like two different individuals when I brought them together in one space rather than on a stretcher. Which means that in one way you can relate most of my works back to the matrix of stretcher and canvas. In the screens I am dealing with both these components, a wooden frame and cotton, but have lead them into a more symbiotic relationship.

Questions of construction and design collapse into one which is also mirrored by the fact that the back side of the works is usually exposed. In fact, that is probably the reason for some works having turned into sculpture, I simply did not want to neglect their back side. And then all this is met by strong interest in material culture, craft, the Applied Arts and the beginning of abstract Art.



Or else, perhaps this is just another angle of looking at the same thing.






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YHBHS Interview with
Eva Berendes, Pt 1


.
"folding screens, paravents"





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YHBHS Interview

Daniel Emma
Design Studio
"when shapes
save the day."

the pencil box

History of Daniel Emma Design Studio?
We met whilst studying Industrial Design at the University of South Australia. After both graduating in 2007, we spent almost 2 years gaining experience with various design studios in London, such as Marc Newson, Thorsten Van Elten and Committee. From here we established Daniel Emma and exhibited our first collection ‘shapes’ in London and Tokyo. After moving back home (Adelaide), we then returned to London to exhibit our second collection ‘solids’ last year. We have just launched our new collection for 2010 'basics'.

During this time we have been listed by Wallpaper* magazine in 2009 as one of the recent design graduates to watch as well as coming runners up in last years Bombay Sapphire Australian Design Discovery award, the most prestigious design award in Australia.

the light....

In your solids collection, I am particularly enamored of the light! Can you talk about how and why this light came to be? The materials you used? Do they come in different colors?
With the solids collection each object is based around two basic forms, for the light it is a cylindrical extrusion with a cone on top. We aren't exactly sure how it came into being we just played around with shapes and forms until we reached something we were happy with.

PAST LIVES:
Daniel, a KFC chef, and Emma, a unicorn.

a rubber band ball

Rubberband ball? Wow! How did this come about? I almost see this as a sculpture first. Do you ever view any of your objects as more sculpture, and less utilitarian?

Rubberband ball came about in much the same way as the light. We wanted to design something a bit different, but still simple and appealing. Sometimes (actually most of the time) our ideas just hit us in the face! They don't come from anywhere in particular they are just hiding somewhere in our brains! It would be nice to have a more sophisticated approach then this but that's the reality .

the torch.....

Your new "basic" line is well, just perfect. the paperweight reminds me of arik levy's forms, but i love the scale of your works. Any particular artists that you are currently obssesed with? iI the future, do you see your work ever getting larger in scale?
We are a bit overwhelmed by anything big! So for the time being we will stick to what we know best. There aren't any artists we are inspired by as such. We are obsessed with Wes Anderson films and anything from Studio Ghibli.

I'm not sure if "Silly Putty" was universal, but as a kid I was a obsessed with Silly Putty. The texture, the cold feel, the ability to pull ink off of a newspaper, and how it bounced. Anything as a kid you were obssesed with that you still remember?

We were obsessed by:,Daniel - Chicago Bulls, and Emma- tuna and lettuce sandwiches and collecting fossils and Jurassic Park.

YHBHS Inteview:
Daniel Emma
Design Studio

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mary
heilmann

deep space.

the bourgeoisie are falling in love with them (her paintings)
and that's very troubling actually..

mary heilmann

Interview with Ross Bleckner and Mary Heilmann, taken from here.

Ross:Does it strike you as peculiar that you get up for 35 years, and all you think about is you, your work, the perpetuation of your work, its safe keeping, its dissemination into the world, its reception…

Mary:And who doesn’t like it. (laughter)

Ross: And who likes it. Does the self-centeredness of that sometimes bother you?

Mary: It never bothered me, that’s why I’ve been so happy to be on my own all this time; I didn’t want to move to the suburbs and have a family and take care of the children, the husband, and all that. I know that it was an extreme case of selfishness, and I don’t know where I ever got the idea that it was okay, but I never had any question about that. It probably comes from my Catholic upbringing. As a little kid I was extremely interested in the spiritual life and in the lives of the saints. I wanted to be a saint. There was nobody in their story except them and God and that was a model for me.

Ross: That’s a very good answer.

Mary: And it hasn’t changed much, you know.

Ross: Some things don’t, especially those early models. You were saying when the tape was off that you wished there was another way of describing that work process for artists, because although it is a self-absorption, it’s not for selfish reasons. In fact, you see it as essentially bringing joy to other people.

Mary: Right—Like the Bruce Nauman piece The Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths. Oh, and the other very big part of my work life is teaching at SVA. I see that as helping young people.

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