Gil Kofman's "Passages" Series Featured in UCLA Today

Congratulations to dnj Gallery artist, Gil Kofman, for his recent review in UCLA Today! This is Gil's first solo show with dnj Gallery and we are so excited to have him on our roster. The show opens on March 3, 2012 with an artist reception taking place from 6-8pm. We hope to see you then!


Gil Kofman, Passage 6:43 PM (Dodd Hall), 2009-2010, archival inkjet print, 20.5" x 30"


"Artist Explores UCLA's Many Inside Passages"
By Jessica Nazar

Do you recognize this hallway?

Faculty and students often overlook this corridor as they rush through it to get to a humanities lecture or take a shortcut to LuValle Commons. But Los Angeles artist Gil Kofman entered through the doors of UCLA’s Dodd Hall one day and made an unexpected discovery.

"My customary invasion, I soon realized, was subverted by something more subtle, nuanced, confident and unrepentant," Kofman recalled.

Kofman is sharing his insights on UCLA hallways in a photographic exhibit entitled, “Passages: Case Studies in Euclidean Seduction” at the dnj Gallery in Santa Monica. In his photographs, Kofman attempts to expose the geometric allure of corridors that passersby indifferently traverse daily.

"Studied carefully," he writes, "the enticing repetition of forms — diminishing doorways, garbage cans, exit signs — would soon come undone when itemized and counted in their own right, removed from the contextual harness of perspective and its heralded descent."

Seeing beyond the perception of campus buildings as structures housing classrooms and offices, Kofman focused his lens on UCLA's hallways to reveal passages — a metaphor for the university itself as a pathway to another destination, he said. "Passages are usually places of transit, connecting two disparate places, and often overlooked in passing," he explained. Instead, with his camera, Kofman captures each passage to celebrate the journey.

The show opens March 3 at the dnj Gallery in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station through April 14. Go here to see more of UCLA's passages.

David Trautrimas News

Congratulations to dnj Gallery artist, David Trautrimas, for his upcoming solo exhibition titled "By Facet & Scale" talking place at The Al Green Gallery in Toronto Canada! If you are in the area David's work is a must see for anyone who loves photography and architecture.

You can also see several of David's images at dnj Gallery located at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.

"Backyard Oasis" Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times

The backyard swimming pool can be an object of desire or a sign of suburban sterility, an icon of the good life or a symbol of its demise. The Palm Springs Art Museum’s new show, “Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography,” looks at these contradictions and provides a revealing peek at this fixture of Southern California life, one that dots the landscape but nonetheless often remains hidden from view.

The photographs, taken from 1945 to 1982, are just plain fun to look at — the exquisite skill of the photographers, pretty bodies in pretty settings, recognizable pieces of recent cultural history. But a closer look uncovers a much more thought-provoking exhibition.

“I had been wanting for a really long time to do a show that looked at cultural geography,” the idea that place is not just its physical coordinates but also “the ideology that makes up people’s imagination of a place,” said Daniell Cornell, senior curator.

Life seems perfect in the 1970 photograph “Poolside Gossip” taken by Slim Aarons — from the pose of a lounging woman and her flip hairdo, to the glassy blue of the generous-sized pool, to the purples and blues of the mountain view.

The group of partygoers in “We Don’t Have to Conform,” a 1971 photograph shown at top by Bill Owens, practically screams Southern California stereotypes. Seven people, drinks in hand, sit in a hot tub with their feet raised at the center, touching, forming a leg tepee.

But “Abandoned Pool,” taken in Perris Valley by Loretta Ayeroff just three years later, turns the symbolism on its head, making the “pool a symbol of everything that that was wrong,” a despairing, empty place, plagued by water shortages. Joe Deal’s “Backyard Diamond Bar” is a 1980 photograph of a lawn planted in a kidney pool shape, surrounded by crowded, haphazardly cared-for lots.

“The pool is such a defining element,” Cornell said, and as the suburbs became a symbol of failure, an isolating trap particularly for women, the swimming pool takes on a different role.

But there is a resilient twist in the story as a group of boys finds those empty pools. Craig Stecyk’s work shows the boys skateboarding in them.

The exhibition also traces “a great period of experimenting in photography,” how the medium moved from an architect’s working tool to fine art, such as the 1947 Julius Shulman photo of Raymond Loewy’s Palm Springs home, Cornell said. There are other, often intersecting, streams too: celebrities, including Esther Williams, Rock Hudson and Marilyn Monroe; the notion of physical desire; and architecture and landscape.

Included among the 140 images — some on display for the first time — are photographs by Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, David Hockney and Diane Arbus.

The exhibition ends with Hockney’s gorgeously painted pool. His Polaroids, on display for the first time since 1982, delineate the transition to Postmodernism and, Cornell said, suggest life in a fragmented world.

“Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography” runs through May 27 at the Palm Springs Art Museum, 101 Museum Drive, Palm Springs; (760) 322-4800. It is part of Pacific Standard Time, the arts initiative that also includes “Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles,” running until June 3 at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles; and the ceramics show “Clay’s Tectonic Shift: John Mason, Ken Price and Peter Voulkos,” running until April 8 at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery of Scripps College in Claremont.

NoirFest Santa Monica 2012

If you are following NoirFest Santa Monica 2012, the next event is a Thursday night double feature at the Aero Theatre with introduction by Alan K. Rode and Judith Freeman. Hope you can make it!

dnj Gallery artist, Helen K. Garber has an Encaustic Noir show currently running now through February 25, 2012, and it ties into NoirFest Santa Monica. We hope to see you before the show closes next week.



Helen K. Garber, Getty Steps, 2011, archival vintage inkjet print,
beeswax and twine on antique wood panel, unique piece, 5 x 7 x 1 inches

The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer

Pamela and Randol Schoenberg, owners of dnj Gallery, present:

The spellbinding story, part fairy tale, part suspense, of Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, one of the most emblematic portraits of its time: of the beautiful, seductive Viennese Jewish salon hostess who sat for it: the notorious artist who painted it; the now vanished turn-of-the-century Vienna that shaped it; and the strange twisted fate that befell it. The Lady in Gold is considered an unforgettable masterpiece, made headlines all over the world when Ronald Lauder bought it for $135 million a century after Klimt completed the society portrait.

Anne-Marie O'Connor, writer for The Washington Post, tells the galvanizing story of the Lady in Gold, Adele Bloch-Bauer, a dazzling Viennese Jewish society figure; daughter of the head of one of the largest banks in the Hapsburg Empire, head of the Oriental Railway, whose Orient Express went from Berlin to Constantinople; wife of Ferdinand Bauer, sugar-beet baron. O'Connor was a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and has written extensively on the Klimt painting and the Bloch-Bauer family's efforts to recover its art collection Her articles have appeared in Esquire, The Nation, and The Christian Science Monitor.

Talk and book signing by the author at LACMA on Sunday February 19, at 2PM. Tickets are free but an RSVP is required for this event.

To read the L.A. Times review click here.

Helen K. Garber Featured in 1:1 Photo Magazine

Congratulations to dnj Gallery artist, Helen K. Garber, for her recent feature in Spain's 1:1 Photo Magazine. Helen's Encaustic Noir show is running now through February 25, 2012 at dnj Gallery.

Helen K. Garber Featured on The Palette

dnj Gallery artist, Helen K. Garber, was featured on The Palette today in conjunction with her artist talk talking place at dnj Gallery on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 4:30 pm. We hope to see you then!