Vija Celmins

An early still life by Vija Celmins that has been hanging in its owners' kitchen for almost 50 years will go up for auction in May at Los Angeles Modern Auctions. "Untitled (Knife and Dish)," an oil on canvas from 1964, is a plain-looking painting of a knife balanced on a small white plate against a large brown background, rendered in a simple palette from a rather head-on perspective. Other deadpan works made by Celmins that year, during her time in Venice Beach, now belong to museums, including “Heater” (at the Whitney)

An early still life by Vija Celmins that has been hanging in its owners' kitchen for almost 50 years will go up for auction in May at Los Angeles Modern Auctions. "Untitled (Knife and Dish)," an oil on canvas from 1964, is a plain-looking painting of a knife balanced on a small white plate against a large brown background, rendered in a simple palette from a rather head-on perspective. Other deadpan works made by Celmins that year, during her time in Venice Beach, now belong to museums, including “Heater” (at the Whitney)

"Everything else is moving--I think art ought to be still," says Vija Celmins, whose work seems frozen in a state of suspended animation. Precise renderings of the ocean, the desert floor and the heavens, her work feels keyed up with compression and tension. Mostly, however, it feels exquisitely sad. One senses the isolation and intense concentration that goes into these drawings, and one also feels the violence that threatens to disrupt the rigid control central to Celmins' style.

Mysticism isn't new to art, having prompted (among other things) the emergence of pure abstraction into the Modernist lexicon more than a century ago. At Michael Kohn Gallery, a group exhibition of about 30 paintings, sculptures, video, prints and mixed media works from the past 50 years by 14 artists shows that it's alive and well today - albeit with a suitably altered consciousness. “Into the Mystic” takes its subject loosely, proposing that ultimate insight consists of contemplative, intuitive knowledge, not merely facts.

The 1960s was a noisy decade. The volume got turned way up, requiring earplugs for the head and for the heart. Bombs fell, bullets flew. Social unrest blared. So did music. Postwar babies boomed into a raucous youth movement. Culture popped. Amid this loud and blustering torrent, Vija Celmins fell silent. Deeply, profoundly, gorgeously silent.

"MY work is very hard to take apart," says Vija Celmins, gazing around the exhibition of her drawings at the Hammer Museum. "That's why I am always talking about it." Always? Her conversations with artists Chuck Close and Robert Gober are available in books, and she recently talked to Hammer chief curator Gary Garrels in a public program that filled the museum's Billy Wilder Theater. But the works in her show still raise questions.

"I used to miss Los Angeles a lot," says artist Vija Celmins. It's been 12 years since she left her studio on the southern edge of Venice Beach for a loft in downtown Manhattan. Celmins returns to L.A. this week for next Sunday's opening of a survey of nearly 30 years of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

A former guard at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has been charged with vandalizing a million-dollar painting he apparently didn't like, damaging it beyond repair. A museum surveillance camera caught the vandalism May 16, police said Thursday. Timur Serebrykov, 27, of Pittsburgh is accused of defacing "Night Sky nldr 12" by Latvian-born Vija Celmins. The 31-by-37 1/2 -inch oil-on-canvas painting of a black, starlit night had a large vertical gouge in the middle and was damaged beyond repair, according to a police affidavit.

Mysticism isn't new to art, having prompted (among other things) the emergence of pure abstraction into the Modernist lexicon more than a century ago. At Michael Kohn Gallery, a group exhibition of about 30 paintings, sculptures, video, prints and mixed media works from the past 50 years by 14 artists shows that it's alive and well today - albeit with a suitably altered consciousness. “Into the Mystic” takes its subject loosely, proposing that ultimate insight consists of contemplative, intuitive knowledge, not merely facts.

If you think that the American political system is churning out presidential candidates whose policies are remarkably alike, then you won't be surprised to learn that something similar is taking place in the art world. At prestigious American museums and university-affiliated galleries, curators of contemporary art have been organizing increasingly homogenous exhibitions.

A former guard at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has been charged with vandalizing a million-dollar painting he apparently didn't like, damaging it beyond repair. A museum surveillance camera caught the vandalism May 16, police said Thursday. Timur Serebrykov, 27, of Pittsburgh is accused of defacing "Night Sky nldr 12" by Latvian-born Vija Celmins. The 31-by-37 1/2 -inch oil-on-canvas painting of a black, starlit night had a large vertical gouge in the middle and was damaged beyond repair, according to a police affidavit.

The first image encountered in the soul-stirring Vija Celmins drawings retrospective at the Hammer Museum serves as a potent epigraph to the tale that unfolds beyond. The show is installed chronologically except for this image, which dates from 1983, around the midpoint of the exhibition's 40-year span. A 21-inch square, the sheet is dense with the darkness of a night sky flecked with small, brilliant spots of light. Near the center hovers a diffused luminous patch suggesting a galaxy.

"MY work is very hard to take apart," says Vija Celmins, gazing around the exhibition of her drawings at the Hammer Museum. "That's why I am always talking about it." Always? Her conversations with artists Chuck Close and Robert Gober are available in books, and she recently talked to Hammer chief curator Gary Garrels in a public program that filled the museum's Billy Wilder Theater. But the works in her show still raise questions.

If you think that the American political system is churning out presidential candidates whose policies are remarkably alike, then you won't be surprised to learn that something similar is taking place in the art world. At prestigious American museums and university-affiliated galleries, curators of contemporary art have been organizing increasingly homogenous exhibitions.

If there was a landmark art event for 1993, the disastrous installment last March of New York's Whitney Biennial was it. The show rivaled the train wreck sequence in "The Fugitive." Hating the Whitney Biennial is, of course, a countrywide biennial sport. The show always begs for critical slams, since virtually any "national survey of recent artistic trends" inevitably fails to celebrate the virtues of this, that or the other pet artist, idea or peeve cherished by the viewer.

The 1960s was a noisy decade. The volume got turned way up, requiring earplugs for the head and for the heart. Bombs fell, bullets flew. Social unrest blared. So did music. Postwar babies boomed into a raucous youth movement. Culture popped. Amid this loud and blustering torrent, Vija Celmins fell silent. Deeply, profoundly, gorgeously silent.

The first image encountered in the soul-stirring Vija Celmins drawings retrospective at the Hammer Museum serves as a potent epigraph to the tale that unfolds beyond. The show is installed chronologically except for this image, which dates from 1983, around the midpoint of the exhibition's 40-year span. A 21-inch square, the sheet is dense with the darkness of a night sky flecked with small, brilliant spots of light. Near the center hovers a diffused luminous patch suggesting a galaxy.

If there was a landmark art event for 1993, the disastrous installment last March of New York's Whitney Biennial was it. The show rivaled the train wreck sequence in "The Fugitive." Hating the Whitney Biennial is, of course, a countrywide biennial sport. The show always begs for critical slams, since virtually any "national survey of recent artistic trends" inevitably fails to celebrate the virtues of this, that or the other pet artist, idea or peeve cherished by the viewer.

"I used to miss Los Angeles a lot," says artist Vija Celmins. It's been 12 years since she left her studio on the southern edge of Venice Beach for a loft in downtown Manhattan. Celmins returns to L.A. this week for next Sunday's opening of a survey of nearly 30 years of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

"Everything else is moving--I think art ought to be still," says Vija Celmins, whose work seems frozen in a state of suspended animation. Precise renderings of the ocean, the desert floor and the heavens, her work feels keyed up with compression and tension. Mostly, however, it feels exquisitely sad. One senses the isolation and intense concentration that goes into these drawings, and one also feels the violence that threatens to disrupt the rigid control central to Celmins' style.