A Bigger Splash

"L.A.’s antimodernist tide finally began to turn in the late ’50s and ’60s, largely due to the efforts of artist Ed Kienholz and curator Walter Hopps. The organizing energy behind several small galleries, they made their biggest splash with the Ferus Gallery, which opened in 1957 and flourished until 1966. It was there that the first generation of unmistakably Southern California artists came together. They even came up with a few entirely new styles—finish fetish; light and space—that gave the city national credibility."

In the LA Weekly, Kristine McKenna reviews Sarah Schrank's Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles.