Robert Irwin was an original member of the “Light and Space” movement that began back in 1960s California,  and the 87-year-old artist is still exploring optics and interpreting space at a prolific pace. Over the summer he opened a new installation using scrims and natural light at Dia:Beacon. Next year, a new installation will be a highlight of “Robert Irwin: All the Rules Will Change,” a retrospective of his work that runs April 7 through September 5, 2016, at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC.  

In between, Irwin makes a stop at UNLV to talk about his Central Garden at the Getty Center. That will be this Thursday, December 10, at 6 p.m.  (The talk was scheduled for earlier in the Arts Lecture Series but delayed). 

More on Irwin from the Wall Street Journal. April 10, 2015.

Robert Irwin
Thursday
November 5, 2015
​6 p.m.  
Admission to the lecture series is free.
Donations are appreciated
The Barrick Museum / UNLV

The Artist Lecture Series has a site ready for next year's programming I UNLVArtistLectureSeries

​LET'S GET READY TO GRUMBLE: An open forum on public art can be stimulating civic discourse or the season finale for a reality T.V. show.  The project is the $246,000 Main Street Signature Sculpture commission slated for Garces Avenue, at the crossroad of Main and Commerce. The contestants making presentations to the public are four finalists: Wayne Littlejohn; Luis Varela-Rico; Mendre Sculptures’ Randy Mendre; and artists Zak Ostrowski, Clemente Cicoria and Drew Gregory teamed up through Zodiabula. They will present their proposals on November 17 at the Historic Fifth Street School Auditorium (401 S. Fourth Street).  Attendees will have the chance to submit written responses and the selection panel will consider them before the final decision is made. The winning sculpture is expected to be completed by December 2016. 

Some desert cities in California attract tourism by painting their history on walls. It's a form of public art that has less to do with the mural traditions of urban Los Angeles. It comes from across the northern border.

Twentynine Palms' public art program that at first glance I thought had a direct pedigree to the murals in Central California. I would have to also give a nod to the Chemainus Mural Project in Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada. By painting well-crafted monumental works that focus on local history, the Canadian mural program is credited a factor in its economic recovery of Chemainus.

Karl Schutz authored the Chemainus movement, and has gone global with his teachings on how to seek walls, local stories, and funding for "first-class" artists to create a "Wow factor." When his Chemainus Mural Project was featured in a 1994 Smithsonian exhibition, the article was brought to the meeting of Twentynine Palms merchants, who were looking for ways to restore their own town.

"Twentynine Palms' [program] really had no shortcomings," said Schutz. "They did it by the book and, in some cases -- unveiling ceremonies [for example] -- better than Chemainus."

Murals number over 20, and the governing non-profit, The Action Council for 29 Palms, plan to mark the 20th Anniversary of their first mural, which was unceremoniously lost by development for a project that didn't get off the ground.

Unveiled on November 19, 1994, that first mural, "In Memorium," told the story of early homesteader Bill Keys, and its loss taught the town to make sure that anyone promising to open up a store, and need to demolish a building, are aware of importance of these murals to locals.

Over a cup of morning coffee, one Twentynine Palms mural program founder, Larry Briggs, quietly shook his head thinking of that lost piece, but perked up when he was asked if there were ideas in place for new works. Ray Kinsman, who helped pioneer the program, said they "learned a lot about east and west facing walls." Next to him was Wayne Winiecki, an artist who has helped keep the murals maintained with an energetic non-stop desert spirit.

Of course, sometimes it seems getting a mural up is the easy part. Now funding has to be sought to keep the current portfolio vivid, and to restore lighting on the walls so they work as nighttime markers for those traveling through town.

The town's murals, which include paintings by veterans Richard Wyatt, Art Mortimer, and John Pugh, are strong in craft, and conservative, as can be expected for a military town. Many of the early pieces were ritualistic on history of civic leaders. That may be of interest to travelers who explore region's history, but followers of murals in its contemporary form of street art may leave disappointed.

Meetings were being planned to discuss if new styles of murals should be sought after, according to Cynthia Truitt, Executive Director of Twentynine Palms Chamber of Commerce. As she said that, tourists from Vancouver Island, near Chemainus, walked in the chamber lobby looking for information on the murals.

What did they expect to be about, I asked. "Well, I think the [purpose of the] murals, that is to tell the story, the history of the town," said Eleanor Zimmerschied, in a playfully terse German accent.

Those visitors will enjoy Tim O'Connor's 1997 mural about Johnnie Hastie, the town's first source of public transportation, with his first bus made from a used 1928 Chevrolet truck. Or Richard Wyatt's 1996 piece on Bill and Elizabeth Crozier Campbell, who became homesteaders, and found artifacts that made their way to the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles.

How does she feel about contemporary street art? "Those modern ones? I'm not really for that," she said. "It just doesn't fit in."