By Garrison Frost

It wasn't just to check out the ongoing "On Site at the Gate 2004" exhibit at the Angels Gate Cultural Center. I hadn't been there in a while, and was anxious to see how things were going at the venue under new leadership.

Of course the place looks very much the same – the new leadership hasn't had the time or the budget to do anything too crazy, but a new philosophy is visible in the exhibition space. The downstairs section of Gallery A isn't really in operation, and the upstairs space has substantially less wall space available for art. We understand that the new layout will greatly help the center focus the themes of its exhibitions, but we have to admit that one of the things we always liked about exhibitions was their sprawling, inconsistent nature.

Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately, for some – that nature is still very much on display in "On Site at the Gate 2004." This annual exhibit displaying the works of artists associated with the Center, even at a smaller size, still is all over the map. Which isn't a bad thing for my taste. I come to the Gate to see a wide array of Los Angeles artists doing their thing, for better or worse. Angels Gate has always been the kind of place to look under rocks for new and upcoming talent, and because of this they're bound to make some mistakes. We forgive the few mistakes they make for the many surprises they reveal.

Among the high points of the exhibit were a series of small graphite and hurcullene drawings by Denice Bartells. Mining the same territory made famous by Vija Celmins, Bartells gives us black and white representations of ripples on water. These are so finely done that they remind us of old photographs. It's entirely possible that the curator of this exhibit was particularly fond of Sandi Miet's "Matrix," a collection of small paintings gathered into a square grid. Rendered in oil and gold leaf, this is a solid work that really stands out from the rest of art in the room.

As we mentioned, I've always admired the Gate's willingness to take chances with artists and even nurture them. This is evident in the three pieces by Hadya Finley, whose installation pieces involving sound and light really don't accomplish much besides cluttering the floor, but whose "Along in the Birdhouse" is one of the most pleasantly whimsical pieces in the entire show. A resin house hung from the ceiling with a small bird-human sitting behind a four-pane window, the piece gets one thinking about a lot of aspects of both the animal and human conditions. Suzi Trubitz also has mixed success with her stainless steel "The Letter" coming off as much more coherent than her "That Old Black Magic."

I went through the upstairs gallery counterclockwise, so I encountered Kerri Sabine's two large charcoal drawings fairly late in my visit. And the more I looked at them, the more I realized that they were among the best there. Her "Hero" looks like a shadowy depiction of a cowboy doll at rest folded over itself. The shadings and pose imply a sort of irony, perhaps even sympathy, with the entire concept of manly heroism. Her "Sheep" also seems to depict a child's toy, this time a wooden sheep. Again, particularly because of the medium, we're forced to look at the subject matter in a completely different way. In Sabine's hands, these toys take on a completely different connotation, a completely different intellectual and emotional response.

Two other pieces that stood out were Kris Oruosh's "Relation #1" and Mary Ann Riper's "Wickersham Brothers Give Their Advice."

As this year's version of "On Site at the Gate" shows, the Angels Gate Cultural Center continues to lead the way in nurturing area artists and taking the chance of giving their work an audience. Truly, this is one of our area's greatest cultural assets, because it's willing to take chances that few others would risk.

"On Site at the Gate 2004" runs through June 11 at the Angels Gate Cultural Center's Gallery A.

(May 24, 2004)

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