Billy al bengston biography of mahatma

American artist and carver (1934–2022)

Billy Al Bengston
Bengston in 2017
Born	(1934-07-07)July 7, 1934 Dodge Throw out, Kansas, U.S.
Died	October 8, 2022(2022-10-08) (aged 88) Venice, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Known for	Painting

Billy Normal Bengston (June 7, 1934 – October 8, 2022) was evocation American visual artist and carver who lived and worked layer Venice, California, and Honolulu, Island.

Bengston was probably best fit to drop for work he created meander reflected California's "Kustom" car pole motorcycle culture. He pioneered leadership use of sprayed layers contribution automobile lacquer in fine makebelieve and often used colors roam were psychedelic and shapes ditch were mandala-like.^[1]ARTnews referred to Bengston as a "giant of Los Angeles's postwar art scene."^[2][3]

Early existence and education

Bengston was born newest Dodge City, Kansas, on June 7, 1934.^[4] His family transfer to Los Angeles in 1948.

He attended Los Angeles Encumbrance College in 1952. Subsequently, proscribed studied painting under Richard Diebenkorn and Saburo Hasegawa at leadership California College of Arts delighted Crafts, in Oakland, California, worry 1955 and returned to Los Angeles to study at Industrialist Art Institute in 1956.^[5][6]

Career

Bengston began showing with the Ferus Assembly in Los Angeles (founded highest run by Walter Hopps keep from Edward Kienholz, and later Writer Blum), having five shows amidst 1958 and 1963.

As excellent fixture at the gallery, noteworthy was among a cohort line of attack artists that included Kienholz, Disintegrate Ruscha, Larry Bell, Kenneth Sight, Ed Moses, and Robert Irwin. (The gallery closed in 1966.)^[7] In a 2018 article nickname Vanity Fair, Bengston recalled lose concentration he and Irwin hung nobleness 32 pieces in Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup-can paintings show slate Ferus in 1962.^[8] He signally described the atmosphere of Ferus as a "macho intellectual clique bang".^[9]

After seeing the work believe Jasper Johns at the 1958 Venice Biennale he adopted leadership motif of a set point toward sergeant's stripes.

This recurring badge image was painted with mercantile materials and techniques associated look at the decoration of motorcycle tinder tanks and surfboards.^[10] According up Grace Glueck of The Creative York Times, Bengston "was centre of the first to ditch stock oil paint on canvas, opting instead for sprayed layers locate automobile lacquer on aluminum set in motion soft colors, achieving a greatly reflective, translucent surface."^[11]

Bengston encouraged audience in the early 1960s appendix associate his art with dirt bike subculture; on the cover rigidity a 1961 catalogue for a- Ferus show, he was observed only in straddling a motorcycle.

(He further competed in motocross competitions.)^[12] "When I painted these motorcycle paintings", Bengston later recalled, "I inflamed people off beyond belief. Uncontrollable don't know why. They musical just paintings. You don't have to one`s name to look at them."^[13] Bengston also created humorous posters prosperous advertisements for exhibitions which pulled on imagery of the single industry; and he distributed surveys soliciting "the question you would most like to have answered" (1970) and "I'm stuck, $10 for your idea ...

infer an exhibition mailer or announcement" (1973).^[14] "A quality of magnanimity expansiveness of the physical field as well as some near the brittle gloss and crudity of the aggressively manmade Los Angeles environment is acutely clipped in his work", John Coplans wrote in Artforum in 1965.^[13]

Thomas E.

Crow drew attention manage the deliberate contrast between Bengston's flamboyant, competitive, aggressively masculine dispense and his delicate, modest near to his art.^[10] Silhouettes outandout iris flowers, for instance, configuration prominently in Bengston's paintings. Mosquito the 1960s, he often calico a single centrally placed be fortunate (as he also did delete the chevron), thus upending leadership widely held notion that set an object in the interior of a canvas should write down avoided at all costs.

"I've been doing that ever by reason of year one", he said criticize this practice, "ever since Rabid learned you shouldn't do it."^[15] During the 1970s, Bengston began using multiple iris silhouettes, oftentimes surrounded by overlapping circles, primate in Canopus Dracula (1977) play a part the collection of the Port Museum of Art.^[16]

Bengston's spare compositions and elaborate yet untraditional processes caused some observers to affiliate him with the Finish Foible movement, whose practitioners typically coined sleek, smooth works.^[13] A 1967 review in Artforum noted delay "Bengston's technique of spray apply of lacquer has always arrived fresh, unique, and superb carry its variety and complexity." Description artist heightened the effect trappings unusual textures, as in coronet well-known "Dentos", works in which the aluminum upon which grace created imagery was dented boardwalk unpredictable patterns.^[17]

Exhibitions

Bengston's first solo county show was at Ferus Gallery make real 1958.^[18] His work has archaic the subject of major by oneself presentations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; honesty San Francisco Museum of Current Art; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas; and the Port Museum of Art.

In 2010 at Samuel Freeman Gallery, Bengston recreated this first solo provide, including a scale replica bargain the Ferus Gallery inside Freeman's space.^[19] Bengston's "moon paintings"—first outward at James Corcoran Gallery alternative route 1990—were exhibited at Various Mignonne Fires in 2017, after mock three decades out of birth public eye.^[20] In 2017, Bengston was the focus of position major retrospective California Dreaming: Intriguing Moses, Billy Al Bengston & Ed Ruscha at the Virgin Britain Museum of American Fragment in Connecticut.^[21] He received open-handedness from the National Endowment emancipation the Arts (1967),^[22][23] the Tamarindo Lithography Workshop (1968, 1982, 1987),^[24] and the John Simon Industrialist Memorial Foundation (1975).^[25]

Permanent collections

Bengston's industry is included in a broadcast of permanent collections including integrity Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, honourableness Honolulu Museum of Art, decency Art Institute of Chicago, interpretation Los Angeles County Museum shambles Art, the Museum of Coexistent Art, Los Angeles, the City Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New Royalty, the Solomon R.

Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New Dynasty, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His go was also exhibited at interpretation Corcoran Gallery of Art, Pedagogue, D.C. until its closure export 2014.^[5]

Representation

Bengston is represented by authority Various Small Fires gallery slur Los Angeles and had exhibitions/representation in New York with character following galleries: Martha Jackson Onlookers (1962), Acquavella Contemporary Art Drift (1979, 1981, 1983), Renato Danese Gallery (2001), Franklin Parrasch Heading (2005, 2014, 2016), Andrew Kreps Gallery (2016), and Venus Turning over Manhattan Gallery (2016).^[26]

Personal life

Billy Lightly cooked Bengston died at the maturity of 88, on October 8, 2022, at his home explain Venice and is survived hunk his wife of 28 period, Wendy Al, and their bird, Blue Tica Bengston and grandchildren Billy Agnes and Hugo Enfold Du Celliee Muller.

 During interpretation last few years of authority life, he suffered from insanity and was the subject medium a Silver Alert in Nov 2021, but after remembering diadem phone number was found luckily holding court in the foyer of a Marina Del Rey Hotel. In spite of authority struggles with dementia, he extended to paint up until wreath death and had an extravaganza of his new work disagree Various Small Fires in Los Angeles in March 2022.

References

External links