Sculpture

Billy Collins, among the most accessible of contemporary poets and an eloquent advocate of poetry's place in public life, spoke recently about why people tend to resist the genre. Too much emphasis, he feels, is put on interpretation, to the detriment of poetry's "less teachable, more bodily pleasures. " Collins' words came to mind when hearing Enrique Martínez Celaya talk about his new paintings and sculpture at L.A. Louver and how efforts to decipher the meaning of a work of art too often hijacks the experience of it. In the case of visual art, and especially art like his that makes use of familiar, recognizable imagery, "we're so attached to what's given," he said, "rather than what's underneath what's given.

Abraham Cruzvillegas's first exhibition with Regen Projects builds on the story of a Mexican jazz musician - apparently based on the artist's great-uncle - who travels the world playing the trumpet in the height of the swing era. A pachuco who dresses in flamboyant suits with broad lapels and baggy pants, he lands in L.A. in time for the Zoot Suit Riots, drifts through Cab Calloway's New York and the heated clubs of Nazi-occupied Paris. He  gradually crumbles into alcoholism and returns to his native Michoacán.

Even people who know nothing about art know the works of Auguste Rodin. The French sculptor who created "The Thinker" and "The Kiss" was born on this day in 1840. Google has created a blue-tinted homage to the sculpture on the occasion of the artist's birthday. "The Thinker" (Le Penseur) was first created in 1902, though there are many other casts of the famous sculpture. Rodin's sculpture of Honore de Balzac also exists in many versions, including casts at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena.

When the sculpture outside the Salinas rodeo arena was unveiled in 1982, bands played, Boy Scouts led a salute to the flag and the mayor presented sculptor Claes Oldenburg with a commemorative salad bowl. "Hat in Three Stages of Landing" was more than a monumental work by the world-renowned Oldenburg and his wife Coosje van Bruggen. It was a point of civic pride, a way to let the world know that Salinas was a place where art and culture thrived along with endless acres of lettuce and broccoli.

When Walter De Maria considers how large a sculpture should be, a frequent answer is: 1 kilometer long. That's a dimension of "The Lightning Field" (1977), a grid of 400 stainless steel posts 1-mile wide and 1-kilometer long, arranged in the New Mexico desert. It's the length of " Vertical Earth Kilometer" (1977) and " The Broken Kilometer" (1979), two sculptures formed from long brass rods -- one sunken into the ground, the other broken up into pieces and laid out in rows.

In "Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites" (1991-99), an exceptional installation sculpture made from untidy clusters of plush toys suspended from the ceiling and sleekly lacquered reliefs attached to surrounding walls, the only element that stands on the floor is the viewer. Los Angeles artist Mike Kelley (1954-2012) had a way with upending expectations, and manipulating audiences into his artistic projects was a common gambit. The sculpture, shown in earlier and slightly different iterations in several European venues, is having its West Coast debut at Perry Rubenstein Gallery.

WASHINGTON - From his gray-brick walled compound in northeast Beijing, Ai Weiwei barely felt the tremors from the Sichuan earthquake on May 12, 2008. But within days, as the death toll mounted into the tens of thousands, many of them children buried under the rubble of shabbily built schools, he found himself standing in the ruins of a town destroyed by the 7.9-magnitude quake. For Ai, it was both heartbreaking and an existential moment that would find expression in his iconoclastic works, leading to clashes with Chinese authorities and catapulting him to status as one of the world's most celebrated artists.

"Chain Reaction," a sculpture by the late Paul Conrad, has been an object of contention among officials in Santa Monica for months. The city's arts commission has recommended the removal of the 26-foot-tall sculpture, citing safety concerns. The artwork is located outdoors near the Civic Center. To raise money to save the sculpture, Santa Monica Auctions said it will be auctioning off two other Paul Conrad pieces. Organizers said they will donate 100% of the hammer price to the Santa Monica Arts Foundation for the restoration of "Chain Reaction.

Kathy Butterly does for sculpture what digital technology does for information: pack so much into such small spaces that it's impossible to reconcile an object's literal dimensions with the kicks it delivers. Size matters, but not like it used to. Think of what Butterly does as the microscopic sublime. Intimately and gently, she blows your mind, time after time, and never the same way.  At Shoshana Wayne Gallery, “Lots of Little Love Affairs” consists of 15 tabletop sculptures the New York artist has made over the last 18 months.

SAN DIEGO - Do Ho Suh's "Fallen Star" is the newest sculpture commissioned by UC San Diego's Stuart Collection, now numbering 18 permanent works, and it makes me physically ill. During a recent encounter my head was spinning, my stomach felt queasy, my focus blurred. The experience wasn't stark or dramatic but instead came in gentle waves. "Fallen Star" is frankly nauseating. I hasten to add that the nausea is a good thing - an unexpected disorientation that is indicative of the way art can move the body as a way to move the heart and mind.