Beshty’s biennial contributions include selections from the photographic series entitled Terra Incognita (2005), with individual titles such as Island Flora #3 (Rte. 5 South Bound, Los Feliz Interchange. Whether showcasing abandoned shopping malls as in an earlier series or unlikely verdant islands trapped amongst Southern Californian freeways as in Terra Incognita, Beshty’s diverse and fascinating investigation of forgotten places that exist right under people’s noses strikes a perfect balance between whimsy and reverence. The large format of the six photographs that cover about two-thirds of a large wall creates an immersive, lush environment. The "magic gardens" of Romo, Pocrass, and Beshty remind me of my own habit of taking delight in the many hawks on freeway streetlights, acting, in my mind as both talismans and sentinels for noticing or unnoticing commuters below.

The 'trickster’ or cozen aspect of the artistic projects (and personas) of a number of biennial artists (Goody B. Wiseman, My Barbarian, Romo, etc.) is certainly an identifiable trait within current Californian practice and one that has deep roots on the West Coast in the work of artists like Chris Burden and Mike Kelly. My Barbarian’s performance/video Pagan Rites (2005) will either engender repulsion or groupie-status with its vaudevillian penchant for costume-laden politics. Shannon Ebner’s photograph entitled USA (2003) "the word 'NAUSEA’ spelled out Hollywood sign-style on a bluff with the Pacific Ocean behind it - falls flat in its anger and empty humor; here the seascape seems abused by the artist’s heavy-handedness.

In the video "not a matter of if but when" (2006), Syrian performer Rami Farah is enlisted to restate and improvise the attitudes of young Syrians whom Speculative Archive partners Julia Meltzer and David Thorne befriended during time spent in that country.(7) Its paranoia and anger is balanced by a seeking of peace with oneself, with others, and with God. A coexistent yearning to be left alone and a desire to communicate is identified within life in Syria by Meltzer and Thorne but it is also readily understood as universal, that is, at least, if one reads the translation provided. Language, facial expression, and voice modulation and volume, are barriers as wells as translators here, in effect the materials of the artists.

There was a noticeable lack of figurative painting with the exception of Martin McMurray, and the outstanding sculpture coming out of Los Angeles presently is not well-represented, with another exception being Joel Morrison’s work, including such sculptures as Odium, Black (2004), which defies its solidity, appearing instead to move and struggle to find itself, a sleek changeling of a mineral mass.

Much of the work chosen for the 2006 biennial has at its heart an ascertainable humaneness, a pathos that sometimes coexists with resonant humor and a keen sensitivity to and respect for place and political realities. While not the exclusive purview of California artists, it may nevertheless be what distinguishes the current artistic landscape of California. At its best, the work in the 2006 biennial is serious without being pedantic or preachy, humorous without being vaudevillian, beautiful and charming without being flimsy, optimistic without being saccharine, Californian without being 'Californian.’ The experience of the biennial might be equated with the projects of Beshty, Pocrass, and Romo (and many others in less obvious ways): if you are looking for magic, you might just find it, but it does indeed take some looking.

-Jennifer Wulffson
Senior editor with the Bibliography of the History of Art at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California.

(1) Elizabeth Armstrong, Rita Gonzalez, and Karen Moss, California Biennial 2006, exhibition catalogue. Newport Beach, Orange County Museum of Art, 2006, p. 36.
(2) Quotation from Lutker’s dream journal, part of Excerpts (May have), 2006.
(3) "Botanica Poder del Mestizo presents: Collected Writings and Manifestos of the Earth and Plants," flyer by Arturo Ernesto Romo, 2006.
(4) Interview of Arturo Romo by Pilar Tompkins, 22 May 2006, transcript at: http://www.latinart.com/faview.cfm?id=931
(5) "Botanica Poder del Mestizo presents: Collected Writings and Manifestos of the Earth and Plants," flyer by Arturo Ernesto Romo, 2006.
(6) Poster for Kate Pocrass’ Mundane Journeys (Orange County), 2006. It is noteworthy that three projects in the biennial involve printed material to be taken away by the visitor, in the generous vein of Felix Gonzalez Torres, although here the 'take-aways’ are primarily but not necessarily solely textual.
(7) The full title of the piece continues: brief records of a time in which expectations were repeatedly raised and lowered and people grew exhausted from never knowing if the moment was at hand or was still to come.