Aroused Animals by Francisco Toledo;

Aroused Animals by Francisco Toledo

California Hard Edge Painting at Otis

Can you name any famous city whose name is on everyone's lips, but at the same time it's the place where you cannot buy a book, because there are no bookstores? So you can imagine the satisfaction I had after reading that, at last, Beverly Hills got its first book store. I wonder how many more years it will take for the City of the Rich and Famous to come up with its first museum? At least the city has the Gagosian Gallery, with its first rate contemporary art exhibition. There is only one other gallery in Beverly Hills worthy of attention; the gallery of Latin American Masters on Beverly Drive.

Francisco Toledo, one of Latin America's most acclaimed artists. This show gives a rare chance to become familiar with the body of work he created here in Los Angeles in 2001, during an extended stay in the city. Those familiar with Mexican art will recognize and respond to the phantasmagorical themes and subjects in Toledo's paintings. How about such titles as "Death and Alligators", or my favorite, "Rabbit Beheading Bean"? And what would your reaction be upon seeing highly animated, angry and often sexually aroused skeletons and rabbits and monkeys and bats?

Dave Hickey, this year a guest professor at the college, this exhibition brings together works by six painters who collectively, in the late 50's and early 60's, created a new and very specific look to their abstract geometric compositions. It has become known as "California Hard Edge Painting". There are only a few paintings by each of the artists on display, but it's a virtual mini retrospective for each of them: Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, June Harwood, Helen Lundeberg and John McLaughlin.

Latin American Masters

264 North Beverly Drive

Beverly Hills

Ends December 11

310 -271-4847

Ben Maltz Gallery

OTIS College of Art & Design

9045 Lincoln Boulevard

Los Angeles

Ends January 22, 2005

310-665-6905