Hammer Museum's 'Eden's Edge' Surveys LA Art's Assemblage Legacy

Christopher Bedford reviews Gary Garrels' exhibition 'Eden's Edge: Fifteen LA Artists' at the Hammer Museum (2006-07), arguing that the show tacitly declares the 'finish fetish' tradition dead in Los Angeles, replaced by a socially aware, materially heterogeneous aesthetic rooted in the Pop/Assemblage tradition. The exhibition features fourteen younger artists (mostly born after 1960) plus Ken Price (born 1935) as a historical anchor, though Bedford finds Price's inclusion poorly justified. Highlights include Mark Bradford's multi-media paintings (e.g., 'America, 2006'), Matthew Monahan's 'The Seller and the Sold' (2006), and Jason Rhoades's installation 'Twelve-Wheel Waggon Wheel Chandelier' (2004), which Bedford considers the clearest advancement of Assemblage. Weaknesses include Lari Pittman's didactic canvases and Monica Majoli's over-determined portraits. Bedford concludes that the best LA art combines audacious material invention with caustic critical comment, a tradition exemplified by Bradford, Monahan, Hundley, and Rhoades.