Edward Fella

I visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and looked at some prints by graphic designer Edward Fella. Fella was born in Detroit, Michigan and started out studying commercial art and typography before moving on to create his own art. Fella currently teaches at CalArts in Valencia. Many of the works on display at LACMA were flyers and commissioned works by Fella that showcase his innovative approach to design. His work has an emphasis on typography and deconstruction. All of his prints, including the flyer on the left, are offset lithographs, a process in which the artist transfers an image from a metal plate onto a roller, and then to the print media.

The print on the right, entitled Fat Face, is the only print on display that didn't appear to be commissioned. It is evident that even when Fella moved on commercial art, the style and themes he developed carried over to his more personal work. The title of the print is most likely a reference to the typeface used in the piece; typography remained an important element in his non-commercial work. 
I really enjoyed viewing Fella's prints. There are aspects of his design work that have influenced many other graphic designers and artists, so it was great to view the source of that influence. I hope to someday become better acquainted with processes like offset printing that I could possibly use in my own work. 

-Scarlet

The Broad: In Search of Prints

Image courtesy of The Broad Collection

The Broad, a young contemporary art museum in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of DTLA, is an excellent destination for anyone in search of rad artwork and more specifically prints. Making your way directly to the third floor and veering right, a visitor starts a roughly chronological exploration of the various galleries with quintessential Andy Warhol welcoming you at the first stop. One of my favorites, Two Marilyns, 1962, shows Warhol's genius as he embraced the flaws of the printing process, the breakdown of the screen over time in large editions, and instead showcased it in this artwork as a metaphor for what was happening to Marilyn Monroe's image after her untimely death. As newspapers disseminated her likeness feverishly across the front pages, Marilyn's life was obscured and reduced to mere celebrity gossip. The bright color palette draws you in, but the ideas keep you looking.

Continuing on we see more great screenprinting with an untitled work by Robert Rauschenberg that depicts images of JFK, a satellite (Sputnik?), plates and other seemingly dissociated motifs. Even further along we come across the works of Barbara Kruger, whose art implements photographic silkscreen techniques on vinyl as well as one silkscreen on mirror. Untitled (You are a very special person), 1995, is a standout, mostly for the sarcastically aggressive tone of the image. The work is effectively confrontational and wryly humorous at the same time.

Image courtesy of The Broad Collection

Several other prints are on display as well, delivering on all accounts an amazing and well rounded museum visit. Others not to miss; Glenn Ligon's ten lithographs Runaways, 1993, and a Christopher Wool piece in the neighboring gallery. There's really no way you can go wrong with a visit to The Broad. If you haven't already, carve out some time to visit this world class museum!

Molaa visit

For my museum visit i decided to go to molaa and check out what they had on display.

The first work i saw was by an artist named Tatiana Parcero from Argentina. The piece is titled "Re-Invento #25 (torso vendas)" the medium is lambda and acetate print.The piece is a mixture of photography and acetate print. A lambda c-type print is a digital print produced using Durst's Lambda machine – a photographic printing machine that uses three lasers (RGB – red, green and blue) merged into one beam to produce digital c-type prints on light-sensitive silver halide materials. The symbols around the photograph are printed on clear sheets of acetate and give the image a sense of depth and help them stand out from the otherwise dark mood of the print.

The second print is by a cuban artist named Sandra Ramos. The piece is titled "Problems with the Scale". It is a lithograph print which is an illustration printed from a stone block or a smooth metal plate. The piece shows a woman balancing a scale with what appears to be George Washington on one end and a man on another. I assume one represents America the other the cuban people and the woman cuba itself. The figures are highly detailed. Some parts of the piece appear hand drawn like the characters bodies. While the faces of the woman are Washington are clearly images taken from photographs. It seems to be suggesting that Cuba prefers to protect the interests of foreigners more than its own people.

My visit to Molaa was pretty fun. A new exhibit had just opened so the museum was pretty full. Admission is free on sunday so if you have time i would recommend checking it out. The museum is not so big so you can pretty much see everything it has to offer without getting overwhelmed. They change most of the main pieces on display pretty often so there is always something new to see.