Here’s what has the public art specialist buzzing about this year’s exhibition.
When Venice Family Clinic needed an infusion of fundraising to keep its doors open in 1979, local Venice artists answered the call. They opened their studios to visitors and donated works of art for the first ever “Venice Art Walk,” which raised enough money to keep caring for people in need, including artists.
“Volunteering the resources that you have – whether that’s the art you create, the time you put into organizing, or the funds for patronage – is a foundational part of our story,” said Max Rippon, Venice Family Clinic Art Exhibition + Auction curator.
For Rippon, art and community go hand in hand. Both a curator and an artist, he has created public art pieces and has studied curation of public art at the University of Gothenburg. He came to Venice Family Clinic through the Charlie James Gallery, which has a long history of working with the nonprofit community health center.
“I have always been strongly drawn to art that has a community impact,” Rippon says. “An act of community solidarity saved the Clinic, and created an intrinsic link between the LA art world and the Clinic. That’s something incredibly special — and worth carrying forward to connect with new generations of artists and collectors who want to support both the creative community and our neighbors’ access to healthcare.”
That’s one of the reasons Rippon is excited about the artists and galleries he’s been connecting with for this year’s exhibition. It will feature artists who have been with the Venice Art Walk from the very beginning, such as contemporary art pioneers Ed Ruscha, Laddie John Dill, Larry Bell, and Lita Albuquerque. And it will bring artists like Frances Stark, Max Hooper Schneider, Nancy Baker Cahill and more into the show for the first time, bringing the connection between art and health into the future.
“When you visit the exhibition in person or the auction online – you have the chance to see, and possibly own, art from decades of this city’s art history, including some of the city’s newest talents who will be carrying us forward,” Rippon said.
Rippon is particularly proud to be showing works from historic figures including the Estates of Luchita Hurtado and Leonora Carrington, as well as the Signature Artist, Alison Saar, and numerous prints from Cirrus Gallery & Cirrus Editions, this year’s Honored Gallery Patron. There will also be a variety of mirrors from different artists in the show, which reflects the exhibition’s inclusion of design as well as art, and questions the often arbitrary delineation between the two worlds. There will even be a mirror from Peter Rippon, an artist and cabinet maker, and Rippon’s father, whose diverse practices helped inspire Rippon’s curation of connected but diverse types of work side by side.
“‘Family’ is in the name here,” Rippon said. “Multiple generations coming together as a community to support artists and local healthcare is still what it’s all about.”