Showing posts with label vasa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vasa. Show all posts

V A S A , studio visit

"the most sensuous and sensational colorist
of the southern California artists working in plastic."













The wonderful world of Vasa! These are some images that
I took the other day at Vasa's Los Angeles studio. Being a huge
fan of light, color, and California 60's work, I was excited to take a tour of his studio, and
discover how these acrylic cubes are constructed.


















the cubes in production,
waiting to be packaged and delivered.






"Vasa began including plastic in his work. A painter interested in placing color in open space, he began to use clear plastic as a structural support for different planes of color. Expecting to explore this medium for a few years, Vasa, to his surprise, continues some thirty years later to discover new possibilities. In 1967 he also returned to teaching, joining the faculty at UCLA where he continues to teach. "
























the cubes waiting to be polished.





























stacks of cubes waiting to be cut, polished, and packaged





"Born in Yugoslavia in 1933, Vasa Mihich, an academically trained painter, became a member of the faculty at the University of Belgrade in 1956. During a visit to Paris that same year, Vasa became aware of the growing importance of American art, and four years later he immigrated to the United States. Influenced by the major changes taking place in art in the United States and especially in Los Angeles, Vasa began working in three-dimensional painted constructions in 1964. This work was first shown in January, 1966 in the Feigen-Palmer Gallery in Los Angeles and that same year was included in the seminal exhibit American Sculptures of the Sixties at the Los Angeles County Art Museum and other museum and university exhibits. 1967 was an important year for Vasa.













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when a table becomes a sculpture, and more.

studio
visit
with
VASA.









coffee table, 1992


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Super excited to be taking a studio visit with VASA this week, at
his Los Angeles studio! I was introduced to his work through a good friend who has an older VASA work at his home here in Silver Lake. Recently at LAMA Auctions, there was an
older VASA triangle sculpture that radiated with warm pinks and blues. As you walked around the work, the colors melted into each other. A beautiful piece, if only I had a bit more money to bid on it, I would have...

I recently met his studio assistant who invited me over to see his new work,
and see some of his paintings he has been working on.

Gaetano Pesce, "Pieces from a Larger Puzzle" tonight and VASA later in the week, as well as John Baldessari: Pure Beauty later this weekend.

Ah, a good week in L.A. for art!





"All of Vasa's sculpture is made out of cast acrylic plastic, commonly known as Plexiglas. Industrially made cast acrylic has high optical qualities and comes in sheets of different thicknesses. The clear material comes in standard sheets that range from one sixteenth of an inch to four inches thick and the transparent colors come in sheets one eighth to a quarter inch thick. Because of the unusual shades Vasa uses in his works, many colors are custom made for him.

To construct the sculptures, the clear and colored materials are cut into different sized pieces and laminated with polymerized glue. By sandwiching colors between clear plastic or enveloping clear plastic with colors, usually one eighth of an inch thick, works often appear to be made of solid transparent colors in spite of being 90% or more clear. After the materials are laminated they are machined and polished to high precision optical surfaces. "










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