Bettina Hubby in Wallpaper* 2.24.15
Art patriarchs John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha pick out Los Angeles’ brightest creative talent
Art / 20 Feb 2015 / By Tibby Rothman
For our recent March issue, we invited art heavyweights John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha (pictured at Ruscha’s studio in Culver City) to pick out their home city’s truest voices. Meet more of their creative crowd here…
Diagnosed with cancer and preparing to undergo a double mastectomy, artist Bettina Hubby felt the need to issue an ultimatum to her circle: ‘Send boobs, not sadness’ it went.
Three months post-op and hundreds of breast-likenesses later, Hubby curated a show comprised from responses. Though the Facebook page and exhibition (installation view pictured) ‘Thanks for the Mammaries’ are perhaps the most intimate examples, Hubby’s inclination as both artist and curator, is to reveal, collect, collaborate, conjoin.
Pictured: Installation view of ‘Thanks for the Mammaries’ at ForYourArt, featuring work by Terri Phillips, Dani Tull, Omar Lopex, Suzanne Adelman and Keith Walsh
‘I often throw out a net and pull in other people’s involvement in order to make my projects more rich,’ she says. She describes a traditional studio practice alongside more difficult-to-categorise projects, that chip away at Los Angelenos’ reluctance to engage with their city.
Pictured: ‘Sex without the people (stockings showing, pants down)’, by Bettina Hubby, 2012
Hubby, who conducted a highly choreographed art walk down the Los Angeles River in a piece that explored notions of ‘being present’ has become an aficionado of the construction zone. She has installed photographs of in-process construction on the chain link fences that cordon sites off, curated photographs of construction workers, and produced parties on site to create connections between blue collar worker and Los Angelenos who often look at them only through the windshield, cursing the disruption to their commute.
Pictured: installation view of ‘Dig the Dig’, 2013
‘If it’s not in the white box, you’re deemed not-a-serious-artist. I just think that’s so limiting in this day and age,’ says Hubby. ‘We’re not reaching enough people.’
Pictured: Installation view of ‘Pretty Limber’, at Klowden Mann, 2013
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