Margaret Honda

After 10 years of sculptures using barbed wire, razor ribbon and poison, Margaret Honda's latest in stallation appears tame indeed. In the gallery beneath the pyramidal skylight at the Museum of Contemporary Art, she has stretched a zigzagging aluminum bracket so it appears to hover just a few inches above the floor.

After 10 years of sculptures using barbed wire, razor ribbon and poison, Margaret Honda's latest in stallation appears tame indeed. In the gallery beneath the pyramidal skylight at the Museum of Contemporary Art, she has stretched a zigzagging aluminum bracket so it appears to hover just a few inches above the floor.

Margaret Honda, a young San Diego artist, is intrigued with "found" structures. Her "Traps" are precisely that: mechanical devices used by fishermen and trappers. These are modest objects made with the honest materials (wood and metal, mostly) and austere, clean-lined silhouettes that get good marks in contemporary art. They are also, of course, instruments of killing.

Conceptual artist Margaret Honda's favorite adage might be You Can't Always Trust What You See. With some of her work, it's safest to heed that warning. Her installation "Gift," shown at Santa Monica's Shoshana Wayne Gallery late last year for instance, consists of identical, unlabeled brown glass bottles, each filled with a white powdery substance and displayed so that viewers could sample them.

The works by Margaret Honda at the Anuska Galerie (2400 Kettner Blvd.) are presented in one of the most sophisticated and strangely beautiful installations that I have seen in San Diego. The artist's sculptural forms are referentially utilitarian but used for their abstract beauty and metaphorical suggestiveness. Both the material and forms Honda uses are threatening: Barbed-wire is shaped to simulate parts of armor such as the shields and thigh and shin guards you might see in a Kurosawa epic.

It was a "hot" event the night of April 3, despite the intermittent downpours that sent groups of festively dressed celebrants scurrying about the streets of the downtown art quarter. There were several important gallery openings that night, but the pre-eminent one was at Installation, which was inaugurating its large new space at 930 E St. with an exhibition of works by artists who live in San Diego. The nonprofit organization's move from the modest storefront it had occupied at 447 5th Ave.

UCSD's Mandeville Gallery, under the general title "Sculpture Arenas," is presenting the works of six artists based in Southern California. Three of them live in San Diego-- Kenneth Capps, Mathieu Gregoire and Margaret Honda--and three in Los Angeles--Chris Burden, Jill Giegerich and Mark Lere. The most famous with an international reputation is Burden, whose works have often involved elements of personal risk.

Conceptual artist Margaret Honda's favorite adage might be You Can't Always Trust What You See. With some of her work, it's safest to heed that warning. Her installation "Gift," shown at Santa Monica's Shoshana Wayne Gallery late last year for instance, consists of identical, unlabeled brown glass bottles, each filled with a white powdery substance and displayed so that viewers could sample them.

It probably would have been more accurate to call it "The Men's Art Issue" as only two women artists were included in your Art Issue (June 11). When you think of artists, both emerging and established, who make L.A. sing, why not Meg Cranston, Alexis Smith, Lita Albuquerque, Margaret Honda, Erika Rothenberg, Liz Young, Rachel Rosenthal, Ruth Weisberg or Takako Yamaguchi? Kudos on writing so well about artists, their homes and lives, but your short list of women artists who seem to be of interest because they are either married to the son of a famous male artist or married to another artist makes me think you are still in the early 20th century, where marriage was a woman's real "job."

Citing a lack of sales, Anuska Galerie will close Dec. 24, the final day of its current exhibit of cubist relief paintings by Marjorie Nodelman, gallery owner Anuska Smith said Friday. Anuska is the fourth contemporary art gallery to fold this year in San Diego. "I don't have the financial support any more," Smith said. "I have to pay my rent. I don't have the money, and I can not put myself deeper in debt."

Margaret Honda, a young San Diego artist, is intrigued with "found" structures. Her "Traps" are precisely that: mechanical devices used by fishermen and trappers. These are modest objects made with the honest materials (wood and metal, mostly) and austere, clean-lined silhouettes that get good marks in contemporary art. They are also, of course, instruments of killing.

UCSD's Mandeville Gallery, under the general title "Sculpture Arenas," is presenting the works of six artists based in Southern California. Three of them live in San Diego-- Kenneth Capps, Mathieu Gregoire and Margaret Honda--and three in Los Angeles--Chris Burden, Jill Giegerich and Mark Lere. The most famous with an international reputation is Burden, whose works have often involved elements of personal risk.

It was a "hot" event the night of April 3, despite the intermittent downpours that sent groups of festively dressed celebrants scurrying about the streets of the downtown art quarter. There were several important gallery openings that night, but the pre-eminent one was at Installation, which was inaugurating its large new space at 930 E St. with an exhibition of works by artists who live in San Diego. The nonprofit organization's move from the modest storefront it had occupied at 447 5th Ave.

The works by Margaret Honda at the Anuska Galerie (2400 Kettner Blvd.) are presented in one of the most sophisticated and strangely beautiful installations that I have seen in San Diego. The artist's sculptural forms are referentially utilitarian but used for their abstract beauty and metaphorical suggestiveness. Both the material and forms Honda uses are threatening: Barbed-wire is shaped to simulate parts of armor such as the shields and thigh and shin guards you might see in a Kurosawa epic.