Organizers claim the LA Art Show — a massive, mixed-media event that showcases everything from cutting-edge contemporary installations to works by Renoir and Monet — is the main reason the Los Angeles City Council declared January “Los Angeles Art Month.” What their resolution doesn't mention is how Orange County is cutting into the action.
Among the 175 galleries exhibiting are two from Laguna Beach, Redfern Gallery and Sue Greenwood Fine Art, which has shown the artwork depicted here.
Redfern, across from the Surf and Sand, specializes in American Impressionism with an emphasis on paintings by the early California Plein Air Artists (1890-1940)–you know, the outdoor form of painting that made Laguna Beach arty.
Greenwood, which is situated along “North Gallery Row” across the street from Laguna Art Museum, shows paintings, sculptures and mixed media works with contemporary realism and figurative influences. It was a particular favorite of the Weekly's former arts writer, Greg Stacy.
The works of UC Irvine artists will be among the pieces featured in a special exhibition exclusively for LA Art Show created by Supersonic, the ubiquitous association of MFA programs. Works will also be culled by artists from USC, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, the Art Center College of Design, Claremont Graduate University and Otis College of Art and Design.
While hot-as-they-come artist Sandow Birk is most associated with the big smog chamber to the north of OC, he hails from Seal Beach. The mixed-media master, who in recent years has depicted wars both real (the Gulf War) and fictitious (the war between Northern and Southern California), spins his modern re-imagining of Dante's Inferno into a film that screens at 4 p.m. Jan. 25.
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The LA Art Show runs Jan. 21-25 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Besides the OC intruders, highlights include: a star-studded opening
night gala to benefiting the Environmental Media Association, LACMA and Inner City Arts; renowned contemporary artist Leon Ferrari's Los Angeles debut, which previews his April solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art; a documentary film series curated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts N Sciences; lectures on the Latin American scene, critiquing the critic and art in the political landscape, among other topics; and the Young Collectors' “Art of Fashion Party” bringing together supporters from MOCA Contemporaries, LACMA Muse, the Getty and the general public.

OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.