Los Angeles Times - 06.08.2019

LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019E3

and roadway divider-lines

their reflected shine.

The all-white painting’s

composition is organized

through brushstrokes laid

down in a variety of direc-

tions. A center square is

framed by rectangles of hori-

zontal strokes at each side,

rectangles of vertical strokes

at the top and bottom and,

finally, squares of diagonal

strokes at each of the four

corners.

Without the micro-

spheres, the flat, white

brushstrokes would be im-

perceptible.

Shimmery, reflected light

from the glass beads is pow-

ered by strong exhibition

spotlights in the ceiling over-

head. The luminescence re-

veals the otherwise hidden

marks of Corse’s paint-

brush. Brushstrokes go in

and out of view, depending

on your angle of vision.

The composition’s geo-

metric pattern is resolutely

flat, but it recalls a diagram

of a shadow box. In a way,

that’s what the painting is: A

viewer standing in front of it

casts multiple shadows

across the canvas, since your

body comes between the

spotlights’ rays and the illu-

minated surface.

Your silhouette appears

on the painting, sometimes

surrounded by a glowing

aura. Elsewhere, the aque-

ous shimmer evaporates.

Flat canvas emerges into

view.

At places where light rays

from the external spotlights

cross each other, your bodily

shadow warps and darkens

to create a faint illusion of

deep space. Like a spectral

ghost, your moving shadow

seems locked within the

painting.

Corse’s painting is a

souped-up version of Robert

Rauschenberg’s “White

Paintings” from 1951, which

are still controversial. His

modular panels are painted

smooth white to function as

receptive screens. Com-

poser John Cage famously

described them as “airports

for lights, shadows and

[dust] particles,” open to

the random passage of

whatever passed in front of

them.

Reproductions are often

iffy as indicators of art’s key

qualities, and little of what is

integral to Corse’s paintings

is seen in photographs. You

really do have to be there.

And the sensation, much

more dramatic than with

Rauschenberg, is certainly

peculiar. The effects happen

only as you move around in

front of the painting. Even if

you remain still, the motion

of your eyes does the trick.

Yet the reward is finally

modest. Art’s metaphor of il-

lumination, secular or spir-

itual, is invoked. But the per-

ceptual payoff doesn’t go far.

The exhibition’s 13 earlier

works record Corse’s experi-

mental path on the way to

“Untitled (First White Light

Series).” The 1968 painting’s

rectilinear pattern is traced

to small, double-sided 1965

screenprints, drawn with

Minimalist lines that frame

an empty central square.

One canvas shaped as an oc-

tagon is painted sky blue,

framed in bands of white and

speckled with almost invisi-

ble metal flakes, as if an ab-

stract version of a Tiepolo

ceiling mural.

Two 1965 sculptures are

anomalies. Pairs of triangu-

lar columns, 8 feet tall and

painted white, stand side by

side. The space between and

below them — they’re raised

slightly off the floor on a hid-

den base — mingles with the

shadows they cast on one

another, juxtaposing solid

with void and something in-

effable in between.

The most complex piece

exudes a bit of science-lab

sparkle. A shallow, sus-

pended, plexiglass box holds

rods filled with argon gas. A

Tesla coil hidden inside the

wall behind it creates a high-

frequency electromagnetic

field, which causes the gas to

glow. Look, Ma, no electrical

cord!

Seeing the buzzing, flick-

ering light floating in space

without a visible energy

source, you can’t help won-

dering: So what? Corse

abandoned the clumsy de-

vice for other experiments,

once she settled on the glass

microspheres, but few take

the 1968 breakthrough in

captivating directions.

One that made me wince

replaces the beads with a

thick, glittery layer of square

black sequins. Flashes of

light are juxtaposed with a

field of jet-black darkness,

like a starry, starry night.

But sequins are hardly a

neutral material. The paint-

ing can’t shake unwelcome

associations with floorshow

razzle-dazzle.

The exhibition was or-

ganized by New York’s Whit-

ney Museum of American

Art, and its catalog is a dis-

appointment. Corse is a

Light and Space artist, the

first distinctive avant-garde

movement to emerge from

Southern California. But

she’s cast as an anomaly —

not only as a woman working

in a genre commonly associ-

ated with such better-known

male artists as Robert Irwin,

Doug Wheeler and James

Turrell, but as a painter

amid sculptors and installa-

tion artists who left painting

behind.

In reality, Light and

Space art emerged in the

wake of the radical, Hard-

Edge geometry of abstract

paintings begun around 1950

by John McLaughlin. Paint-

ing is at its perceptual core,

but he is mentioned no-

where in the book.

While Corse, born in

Berkeley, was a painting stu-

dent in L.A. between 1964

and 1967, numerous South-

ern California painters were

building on McLaughlin’s

precedent, including such

noteworthy women as Flor-

ence Arnold, June Harwood,

Helen Lundeberg and Doro-

thy Waldman. The profound

relationship between two-

dimensional Hard Edge

painting and three-dimen-

sional Light and Space art —

which all might better be

simply named as Perceptu-

alism — could have been illu-

minated in “A Survey in

Light.”

Unfortunately, it remains

in the shade.

For better and worse, the
United States did plenty of
things to prevent another
9/1 1. In addition to the mili-
tary actions, agencies were
established, a commission
was formed, formal inquir-
ies were made by the FBI
and Congress, victim com-
pensation acts were passed,
additional security mea-
sures were taken at govern-
ment buildings and, of
course, airports.
After this weekend’s twin
massacres in El Paso and
Dayton, Ohio, most govern-
ment officials responded
with what many young
people deride as “thoughts
and prayers” tweets or
equally familiar calls for
increased gun control.
My children do not won-
der what meaningful ac-
tions will be taken to ad-
dress our country’s accept-
ance of mass shootings as a
way of life. They wonder
when it will be their turn to
either run, duck or fall.
Not if.
When.
I have spent years giving
them advice about what to
do when a shooter appears
in their classroom/club/
store/church, most of which
involves being aware of, and
never far from, the exits —
and remembering that
while you can get hurt jump-
ing through a window to
safety, it probably won’t kill

you like a bullet will.

Advice that is probably

useless.

I, meanwhile, end virtu-

ally every day with the

prayer that when the shoot-

er comes, it is to the place I

am, rather than where my

children are. Though the

odds of family members

dying in two separate inci-

dents are becoming shorter

every day.

It is to the credit of our

government’s post-9/1 1

response that my children,

who do not remember a

time when you could take a

full-sized tube of toothpaste

on an airplane, are not

afraid of bombs.

Instead, thanks in very

great part to that same

government, they are afraid

of ... I was about to write

guns, but that is not true.

My kids are not afraid of

“guns.” They are afraid of

assault weapons. And be-

fore some of you start send-

ing me comments about

how the media doesn’t know

the difference between

automatic and semiauto-

matic, I am going to go with

the Justice Department’s

definition: “semiautomatic

firearms with a large maga-

zine of ammunition that

were designed and config-

ured for rapid fire and com-

bat use.”

You know, the ones that

were banned until 2004.

This is the part where

lots of people say that mass

shootings have increased

200% since the ban expired,

and lots of people say that

it’s not true. Or that Neil

DeGrasse Tyson points out,

for reasons of his own, that

lots of people die from the

flu too.

This is the part where

people start yelling about

mental health and Mitch

McConnell and the 2nd

Amendment and video

games and everyone gets

real comfortable in their

corners, all decorated with

opposing graphs and anec-

dotal evidence and defini-

tions of what it means to be

American.

And while we’re all doing

that, someone somewhere is

wondering when it would be

a good idea to go to your

local school/grocery store/

library/amusement park

and shoot as many people

as he can before the police

get to him.

Not if.

When.

This is not new and this

is not normal and we have to

stop talking past each other

and do something about it.

We should absolutely be

concerned about mental

health, security and even

violence in popular culture.

But since guns are what

allow a crazy person to

become a mass murderer,

that something will have to

involve the control of guns.

President Trump re-

cently said he supported

legislation that would en-

courage states to imple-

ment “red flag” laws to

make it easier to ensure that

people with certain mental

illnesses cannot purchase

guns, and that’s something.

Former attorney general

Eric Holder and many oth-

ers have called for a federal

ban on assault weapons,

silencers and body armor as

well as universal back-

ground checks.

Many police officers have

called for stricter and more

strictly enforced laws re-

garding illegal gun pos-

session, or, as the failed Gun

Violence Prevention and

Safe Communities Act of

2018 proposed, that certain

weapons and ammunition

be subject to taxation.

A call to make purchas-

ing a gun as difficult as it is

to seek an abortion — “a

mandatory 48-hour waiting

period, written permission

from a parent or a judge, a

note from a doctor proving

that he understands what

he is about to do, time spent

watching a video on individ-

ual and mass murders,

traveling hundreds of miles

at his own expense to the

nearest gun shop” — has

even been making the

rounds.

Is there a perfect solu-

tion that will end all mass

shootings? No, but all or

nothing is not the standard

of law. Some or all of these

suggestions might not solve

the problem, but separately

or together they would

certainly help.

You know what won’t

help? Doing what we’ve

been doing. Which is noth-

ing.

By doing nothing, we not

only accept the increased

regularity of mass shoot-

ings, we condone it. By

doing nothing, we tell the

world that it’s fine for armed

men to kill large numbers of

Americans.

Doing nothing says the

pleasure some people take

in owning a certain type of

weapon is more important

than the fear the rest of us

have for our safety.

Some people take pleas-

ure in driving while intoxi-

cated, but that isn’t legal.

Not all — maybe not even

most — drunk drivers kill

people. But some do, and we

as a society aren’t willing to

take the chance.

Doing something, on the

other hand, lets the world

know, and our kids know,

that the American govern-

ment is actually in the busi-

ness of protecting its citi-

zenry from threats alien and

domestic, that our war on

terrorism is real and uni-

versal.

That at the very least we

believe the threat of death

by mass shooting should be

an “if,” not a “when.”

Kids have come to expect mass shootings

A FAMILYprays together at the Hope Border Insti-

tute interfaith prayer vigil on Sunday in El Paso.

Mark LambieEl Paso Times

[Guns,from E1]

‘Mary Corse:

A Survey

in Light’

Where:LACMA, 5905

Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

When:Through Nov. 11;

closed Wednesdays

Admission:$10-$25; check

website for free times

Info:(323) 857-6000,

lacma.org

“MARY Corse: A Survey in Light,” which covers the painter’s 50-year career in 25 works, is a traveling exhibition organized by the Whitney and on display at LACMA.

Museum Associates LACMA

A not so illuminating experience

[Light paintings,from E1]

TWOcolumns in a Mary Corse sculpture seem to

float just above the floor, thanks to hidden bases.

Whitney Museum