“Lyrical Cool: A Tribute to Shirley Berman” at Kohn Gallery
Whereas a scholar at Hollywood Excessive, Shirley Morand was prevented from accepting a scholarship to the San Francisco Faculty of Nice Arts by her father, who felt she didn’t want additional training. Someday later, she would obtain a faucet on the shoulder whereas in line for Cocteau’s 1930 movie, The Blood of a Poet, on the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. The yr was 1951 and he or she was immediately smitten with Wallace Berman, her pursuer and future partner, a younger well-read common on the Central Avenue Jazz circuit who, by 1957, would arrive as a compelling assemblage artist and media synthesizer at his first and solely solo exhibition at Walter Hopps and Ed Kienholz’s burgeoning Ferus Gallery (he was instantly seized by authorities and booked on obscenity fees associated to the work offered). In 1976, Berman was killed by a drunk driver in Topanga Canyon—but his legend and inventive genius stay on.
The Bermans had been an inimitable, fashionable couple with a pure porosity for the marginal and esoteric who personified Californian postwar bohemianism. Their tranquil residence acted as a salon for outliers seeking to collect and join over artwork intellectually, and creatively fueled to drive modernism to implosion. Although Shirley, a transparent proto-feminist, was a beloved magnet inside her beat circles, she was nonetheless a spouse and mom, and infrequently consigned to creating espresso and pouring wine for the “male genius” flourishing round her.
This group exhibition is prompted by Shirley’s passing in early 2022, on the age of eighty-seven. Images by Wallace Berman, Charles Brittin, and Edmund Teske fill the primary gallery. Every of their works casts Shirley, a reluctant participant, in disparate roles: home nucleus, candid or playful mannequin, ethereal simulacrum for immaculate femininity. Complexities floor when the pictures are reread with their topic on the forefront. Take Wallace Berman’s Untitled (Shirley Berman with Wallace’s Reflection), ca. Fifties, which reveals her inside their residence, however largely obscured by his reflection as he shoots her from exterior a window; or Brittin’s Untitled (Shirley Berman at Ocean Park Pier, Santa Monica, CA), ca. 1955, an excellent image that depicts an unidentified man dashing into the body to confuse Shirley’s dominance and attain for a candied apple. Within the second area are works from Shirley’s vibrant non-public assortment that had been personally important to her, akin to Claes Oldenburg’s sculpture Cake Slice, 1965, which is displayed earlier than items by Bruce Conner, George Herms, Jess, Manuel Ocampo, and Lun*na Menoh. All are hung to re-create the orientation during which they had been present in her residence. Shirley Berman’s legend won’t stay on in artwork historical past, however her placing picture and the works she little question created area for will.
— Rebekah Weikel
