Contemporary Artist

Mike Kelley, an influential Los Angeles artist whose physically messy and psychologically complex projects laid the groundwork for present-day installation art, has died. He was 57. He was found dead Tuesday evening at his home in South Pasadena in what several friends described as a suicide following a serious depression. "We can't confirm a suicide pending an autopsy or coroner's report," said one of the estate's trustees, art historian John Welchman. Paul Schimmel, the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, called Kelley a "great advocate for artists as well as a great artist," noting his role teaching at the Art Center College of Design.

Artist Kathy Butterly, whose abstract ceramic sculptures are noted for their colorful and playful aspects, has won the Smithsonian's Contemporary Arts Award for 2012. The biennial honor comes with a $25,000 prize and is intended to recognize artists younger than 50 who have produced a significant body of work. Butterly typically creates small-scale ceramic sculptures that are brightly colored and abstract in shape. Her work is often compared to the sculptures of Ron Nagle and Ken Price. The five-member jury that chose this year's winner wrote that Butterly's "small, nuanced, labor-intensive sculptures are richly communicative and wildly imaginative.

John McCracken, an artist whose fusion of painting with geometric sculpture in the mid-1960s came to embody an aesthetic distinctive to postwar Los Angeles, died Friday in New York. He was 76. McCracken had lived in Santa Fe, N.M., since 1994 and, according to a spokesman for his Manhattan gallery, had been in ill health. One among a group of artists whose work was variously described as representing the L.A. Cool School, thanks to its rejection of emotionally expressive gestures; Finish Fetish, in recognition of its pristine color and high-tech surfaces; and Minimalism, because of its reliance on simple geometric forms, McCracken in fact made singular painted sculptures that value a clarity of perception infused with spiritual connotations.

Joni Gordon, an art world novice who bought a failing Melrose Avenue gallery, Newspace, 37 years ago and turned it into an incubator for Los Angeles' contemporary art scene, has died. She was 75. Gordon died Sept. 11 in Bend, Ore., 10 days after a massive brain hemorrhage at her central Oregon vacation home, said her son, John. Under Gordon, Newspace, which she ran from 1975 to 2006, became known for nurturing emerging local talent, including early shows for photographer Judy Fiskin, conceptual artist Robert Cumming, and painters Martha Alf, Jeff Price , John Sonsini, Lisa Adams and Dan McCleary.

Otis/Parsons Center Opens: Ground-breaking ceremonies will be held today for a $13-million complex at Otis/Parsons Art Institute. The five-story complex will contain studio spaces for senior students, faculty offices, a 450-seat auditorium, a two-story library and media center. The 60,000-square-foot project, scheduled for completion in September, 1991, is the first new construction at the downtown Wilshire Boulevard campus in 30 years.

ART The Museum of Contemporary Art will present "A Tribute to Mike Kelley," an exhibition dedicated to the work and legacy of the contemporary artist who died earlier this month. The show, on display through April 2, will include 23 of Kelley's works, plus others by John Altoon, Cody Choi, Douglas Huebler, William Leavitt, Marnie Weber and Johanna Went, donated to MOCA by Kelley. MOCA, 250 S. Grand Ave. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. $10. Moca.org.

An art project by the late Mike Kelley will be completed later this year and is expected to open in 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit announced this week. Kelley, who died unexpectedly in January in the Los Angeles area at the age of 57, had been working on the project for a number of years with the intention of unveiling it in Detroit, his hometown. "Mobile Homestead" will be a full-size replica of the artist's childhood home from the suburban town of Westland, Mich.

For Cai Guo-Qiang, every time feels like the first time. His nerves still tingle, his mind still races -- during that climactic, split-second moment before he lights the fuse and the gunpowder goes boom. It's an intensity that time hasn't dimmed, not even after 30 years. That's how long Cai's been making art with explosions. "The anxiety is part of my motivation to make artwork," Cai says. "It's the allure that draws me back time and again. " Not to mention the high demand.

The University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara plans to continue "Margins," a program showcasing new directions in art, presenting a total of four shows each year, said curator Phyllis Plous. The "Margins" program, which began with the museum's current show, "Fred Fehlau: A Pictorial Installation" (through Feb. 25), was financed this year by a $7,500 grant from the South Pasadena-based Flintridge Foundation.

Your column about auto insurance, prompts this letter. May I tell you my personal solution to this problem? First, my background. I am a 79-year-old grandmother, driving for more than 60 years without any major problems. In 1985, I was involved with an accident that was settled in my favor. My premium was raised from $800 a year to $3,700. I shopped for cheaper insurance and found one--$2,000 a year for minimum coverage. My car is my lifeline to the world.

One day about 15 years ago, Channa Horwitz was at work in her studio atop a knoll in Hidden Hills. Something transpired on her drafting table that got her excited, and she wanted to share it and get feedback. In her 60s at the time, she had been working in semi-obscurity for decades. "I was totally alone," she recalls. "I was isolated. The mail lady came up the drive, and I said, 'Can I show you what I just did?'" The incident is emblematic of a career spent largely in solitary pursuit of answers to self-generated "what if?"

An art project by the late Mike Kelley will be completed later this year and is expected to open in 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit announced this week. Kelley, who died unexpectedly in January in the Los Angeles area at the age of 57, had been working on the project for a number of years with the intention of unveiling it in Detroit, his hometown. "Mobile Homestead" will be a full-size replica of the artist's childhood home from the suburban town of Westland, Mich.

For Cai Guo-Qiang, every time feels like the first time. His nerves still tingle, his mind still races -- during that climactic, split-second moment before he lights the fuse and the gunpowder goes boom. It's an intensity that time hasn't dimmed, not even after 30 years. That's how long Cai's been making art with explosions. "The anxiety is part of my motivation to make artwork," Cai says. "It's the allure that draws me back time and again. " Not to mention the high demand.

ART The Museum of Contemporary Art will present "A Tribute to Mike Kelley," an exhibition dedicated to the work and legacy of the contemporary artist who died earlier this month. The show, on display through April 2, will include 23 of Kelley's works, plus others by John Altoon, Cody Choi, Douglas Huebler, William Leavitt, Marnie Weber and Johanna Went, donated to MOCA by Kelley. MOCA, 250 S. Grand Ave. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. $10. Moca.org.

Mike Kelley, an influential Los Angeles artist whose physically messy and psychologically complex projects laid the groundwork for present-day installation art, has died. He was 57. He was found dead Tuesday evening at his home in South Pasadena in what several friends described as a suicide following a serious depression. "We can't confirm a suicide pending an autopsy or coroner's report," said one of the estate's trustees, art historian John Welchman. Paul Schimmel, the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, called Kelley a "great advocate for artists as well as a great artist," noting his role teaching at the Art Center College of Design.

Forty years ago, art and politics intersected importantly. The avant-garde flourished. And the academy disapproved. Protest songs may have been the soundtrack for ending the Vietnam War, but on days when stinging tear gas from demonstrations seeped into its building, the music department at UC Berkeley, to choose one example, insisted that politics sullied art. Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein and John Cage were to be despised for the political content of...

Artist Kathy Butterly, whose abstract ceramic sculptures are noted for their colorful and playful aspects, has won the Smithsonian's Contemporary Arts Award for 2012. The biennial honor comes with a $25,000 prize and is intended to recognize artists younger than 50 who have produced a significant body of work. Butterly typically creates small-scale ceramic sculptures that are brightly colored and abstract in shape. Her work is often compared to the sculptures of Ron Nagle and Ken Price. The five-member jury that chose this year's winner wrote that Butterly's "small, nuanced, labor-intensive sculptures are richly communicative and wildly imaginative.

As a leading contemporary ceramic artist, Elsa Rady created elegantly simple porcelain vessels and often controlled how they were presented by bolting the refined pieces into place. "She really forged her own path and became a force," said Jo Lauria, an independent curator who included Rady's work in "Craft in America," a national touring show that debuted in 2007. "Calculating the experience of the viewer ? I don't know of any other artist who is her equal in that," Lauria said.

John McCracken, an artist whose fusion of painting with geometric sculpture in the mid-1960s came to embody an aesthetic distinctive to postwar Los Angeles, died Friday in New York. He was 76. McCracken had lived in Santa Fe, N.M., since 1994 and, according to a spokesman for his Manhattan gallery, had been in ill health. One among a group of artists whose work was variously described as representing the L.A. Cool School, thanks to its rejection of emotionally expressive gestures; Finish Fetish, in recognition of its pristine color and high-tech surfaces; and Minimalism, because of its reliance on simple geometric forms, McCracken in fact made singular painted sculptures that value a clarity of perception infused with spiritual connotations.

As a leading contemporary ceramic artist, Elsa Rady created elegantly simple porcelain vessels and often controlled how they were presented by bolting the refined pieces into place. "She really forged her own path and became a force," said Jo Lauria, an independent curator who included Rady's work in "Craft in America," a national touring show that debuted in 2007. "Calculating the experience of the viewer ? I don't know of any other artist who is her equal in that," Lauria said.