John Fasano’s “Notebooks, Sketches and
Placemats” 18th Street Gallery Through Feb. 28 Zero
Paws Remember the preview for “Darkness
Falls,” the movie about an evil spirit who has returned, in
the guise of the tooth fairy, to the town that lynched her?
Remember how bad that film looked? Would it seem like a good idea
to give the screenwriter responsible for that atrocity enough
gallery space to display doodles he drew on placemats? Though one
would think no, 18th Street Gallery in Santa Monica said yes. An
exhibit titled “Notebooks, Sketches and Placemats” by
writer/producer/artist John Fasano can be found on 18th Street
through Feb. 28. The show is billed as an intimate exchange between
a Hollywood flyweight and his public. Gallery visitors can first
stop at an open journal that tells the sad tale of Fasano’s
childhood ““ a youth in which the sketchable blank pages in
books were “like gifts from heaven” ““ and that
holds his assertion that “people just don’t appreciate
placemats.” From there, one can amble from placemat to
placemat wondering why anyone would draw “Mandy Patinkin as
the Hunchback,” a piece which recalls the mediocrity of the
TV movie “The Hunchback,” which was written by Fasano.
The ultimate low of the show are Fasano’s illustrations of
action heroes, like his trollish and bizarre “Wooden
Siren.” Whether he intended these sketches to be preliminary
ideas for superheros who could be used in a movie or he just raided
his son’s toy cupboard for inspiration is a mystery. Either
way, the sketches look a lot like the doodles that the kid next to
you draws on his hand when class gets boring. For anyone looking
for a lesson of what art is not, “Notebooks, Sketches and
Placemats” is a must see. Everyone else should hope that
Fasano soon realizes that he is not an artist. -Kelsey
McConnell
“My Four Kings: Galka Scheyer and the Blue
Four” Norton Simon Museum Through April 14
Brought together by philosophy and art collector/dealer Galka
Scheyer, the artists of the Blue Four created an abundance of
meaningful and beautiful pieces with abstract lines and precise
color. The exhibition uses art, photos, letters and other artifacts
to chronicle the Blue Four’s evolution during their tenure as
artists and their involvement with Scheyer. The first section of
the show features Alexei Jawlensky, the first of the Blue Four to
have his work championed by Scheyer. Jawlensky’s work moves
from vividly colored faces and landscape paintings which capture
the aura of their setting to a series of abstract heads that he
called “Meditations.” Next comes Paul Klee whose pieces
range from delicate to crude. Lyonel Feininger is the only
American-born artist in the exhibition and was a successful
political cartoonist before his work took a turn toward the
avant-garde. The best-known artist featured in “My Four
Kings” is Vasily Kandinsky. On display is Kandinsky’s
series “Small Worlds,” a group of paintings united by
their compact and deliberate style. The most striking of his works
shown is the 1927 piece “Heavy Circles” which manages
to be simultaneously simple and otherworldly. “My Four
Kings” includes many of the artists’ lesser-known, less
sophisticated works, highlighting the artists’ evolution.
Though the sometimes-less-mature nature of the pieces detracts from
the excitement and skill of the exhibition as a whole, the pieces
give a fascinating look into the life and work of the Blue Four.
-Kelsey McConnell