Cross Posted at COAGULA DOT COM
Artist Robert Graham in March, 2008 at Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills for the opening reception of some of his recent work. The artist died Saturday.
What I always appreciated about Robert Graham was his precision without caring about perfection. Working with the human form is working with an imperfect form and he knew it, but he endeavored to precisely render what was there and only to idealize it as it could possibly be – he took realism to the cliff of perfection but did not throw it off, he left it right there on the edge, as glorious and precarious as real life itself.
Graham’s statue of an indigenous Latina representing the Virgin Mary at the entrance to the Queen of Angels Cathedral is perhaps the most politically radical sculpture on permanent display anywhere in Los Angeles. After the rich white bread conservatives built that palace, Graham installed the future of everything their institution is headed toward with a symbol of everything about their faith that they try to ignore, marginalize or gentrify.
May he Rest in Peace unless Bernini needs a studio assistant.
–Mat Gleason