Volume CXXXIII, Number 14 February 1, 2002 f

A tale of two cities
MARA WILLIS SPRAFKIN
CONTRIBUTOR

There was some Southern Californian sun shining in Bowdoin's Kresge Auditorium earlier this week in a pair of lectures depicting the contemporary art worlds of Los Angeles and New York. Guest lecturer and visiting artist Tom Krupuk is an abstract painter and professor at California State University, Long Beach. He is also a friend and former colleague of the art department's Professor Mark Wethli. Krupuk spoke at an animated, quick pace, and occasionally used different voices and added poetry. Both of the lengthy lectures were jam-packed with images and were easy to follow. Krumpak showed slides of both locations and works of other artists currently living and exhibiting in New York and Los Angeles.

Krumpak's first lecture, entitled "Cool, Calm and Loco: Los Angeles art in the 21st Century," examined the art in Los Angeles through a series of more than 300 slides of artwork and images of the city itself. He took the audience from Santa Monica to South Central L.A., then over to Chinatown and into West Hollywood, without neglecting popular attractions such as Disneyland, Knox Berry Farm and Las Vegas-places that have a strong influence on Los Angeles even though they are not actually located in the city.

Krupuk took the audience on a tour from gallery to gallery, looking at art and the influences on the artists making the art. Krumpak described L.A. as a combination, or cross, between hell and paradise, and how the city, along with other influences such as drugs, cars and large ethnic populations, impacts the current art scene. Krupuk spoke about all aspects of life in L.A. from food to drinking to scenery and culture, and his slides showed both figurative and abstract works. Each work, in its own way, spoke about life in Los Angeles.

Krumpak's lecture on the following evening, entitled "On street, under bridge, in café: art seen in New York 99-02," addressed the art scene in New York City. Krupuk delivered this lecture with the same level of enthusiasm as the first, and this virtual tour traveled not only to galleries, but also to many restaurants and local hang-outs. He showed slides from the Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea and MoMA' s P.S. 1 Center for Contemporary Art in Long Island City. He began with the galleries on 57th Street, headed downtown to Broadway and Chelsea, and then to the West and East Villages. Finally the tour displayed aspects of both Queens and Brooklyn, two quickly emerging centers for art and artists because, as Krupuk put it, "There is no way any artist would be able to afford to live and work in Manhattan."

In the span of two nights, Tom Krupuk gave Bowdoin two extremes of the American art world. He introduced the art and culture of both coasts, took the audience to two vastly different, highly populated, multi-cultured cities, and showed the art that is being produced, made, marketed and enjoyed in each.