Lecture

Kenneth D. Allan’s research focuses on the rise of the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s and has included the work and influence of Wallace Berman. A central figure in development of the postwar Los Angeles art world as the editor of the journal Semina, Berman’s work spanned the media of photography, collage, assemblage sculpture, and film. This talk will consider how his interest in the history of radio technology, Jewish mysticism and ideas of transmission and reception come together in his later work with stones and Hebrew lettering inspired by a prized 1923 book in his library, The Story of Modern Science Vol. IX: Radio-Mastery of the Ether. Kenneth Allan is Assistant Professor of Art History at Seattle University and received his MA and PhD from University of Chicago. His recent publications include essays for the Getty Museum catalog, Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art, 1945-1980.

Claudia Bohn-Spector will discuss the CCP exhibition, Speaking in Tongues: Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, 1961-1976, that she co-curated with Sam Mellon. Claudia Bohn-Spector is an independent scholar and curator in Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Munich, Germany. A specialist in American art and culture, she has curated numerous fine art exhibitions, including a critically acclaimed survey of Los Angeles photography at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA, entitled This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in L.A. Photographs. With Sam Mellon, she is currently working on a book-length study entitled WRONG: Rules and Irreverence in American Art, 1945 to 1975, for publication in 2013.

Luke Batten, Director of the Robert Heinecken Trust, will discuss the editing of a new monograph published by Riding House detailing Heinecken's artistic output from 1957-1997. The monograph, Robert Heinecken, expands our knowledge of his artistic practice by including several unpublished works from the 1950's and reassembled magazines created in the 1990's. The focus of the discussion will concentrate on Heinecken's penchant for experimenting with photographic processes and materials. Batten is Associate Professor of Photography at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois. He received his MFA in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.