As one of MOCA’s most popular recurring events, 2012’s rendition of the FRESH auction offers an exciting opportunity to bid on and acquire works of art by over 250 established and emerging artists from around the globe with all proceeds going directly to the support of MOCA’s contemporary art programming.
This year’s FRESH includes work by such West Coast legends as John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, and Ed Moses along with Cindy Sherman and Uta Barth as well as celebrated graffiti artists Chaz Bojorquez, Saber, and Shepard Fairy, among others.
From the opening of the Ferus Gallery to this past year’s Pacific Standard Time, the brief but rich history of art in Los Angeles has been an important counterpart to the New York arts scene. Artists living and working in Los Angeles, from Elliot Hundley to unflappable Ed Ruscha, have provided some of the most intriguing and poignant artwork seen in years.
Ruscha’s textual works, rooted in the traditions of both Pop and Commercial art, incorporate words and phases into highly atmospheric and tonally rich paintings and drawings that represent a quintessential West Coast disposition: calm, cool, collected and flirting with the sublime.
Hundley’s collage works contribute to the rich history of assemblage in Los Angeles initiated by Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, and Ed Kienholz in the late ‘50s and ‘60s. Hundley creates tender, large-scale works out of found materials including personal photographs and images sourced from popular magazines. In these beautifully complex compositions, the artist draws on Greek mythology and, more broadly speaking, the theatre of human emotion.
From succinct phraseology to elaborate assemblages, Los Angeles artists rarely grapple with modes of expression. Check out MOCA’s FRESH auction on Paddle8 to view more of LA’s latest and greatest!