Contemporary Artist and Architect United. Palm Springs Life Magazine, 3/2009.

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Artist have always moved to areas with space and low prices. As a child Contemporary Artist Sculptor Christopher Georgesco would accompany his father to Palm Springs where he did architectural work for Howard Lapham. Although Christopher Georgesco grew up on the West Side of Los Angeles and spent most of his summers at the beach he returned to the desert of the Cochealla Valley on the outskirts of Palm Springs. By the year 1995 the city of Los Angeles had reached Grid Lock and Studio Leases and Homes went sky high. The vast open desert landscape also had the same medative effect to the Sculptor as the ocean.

One weekend by chance in 1995 Christopher Georgesco and his Dutch wife Maria took a trip to get away for the weekend to Palm Springs. Being that his wife was Dutch and only knew how to ride a Bicycle, Los Angeles was not the ideal place to commute to work. The space and easy going pace of the desert had a great appeal. They were on there way to San Diego when Maria started reading a pamphlet on Real estate. She could not believe that new homes were in the $45,000 to $70,000 range on large 1/4 acre lots.They turned there car around and went to the first real estate office they saw. They put a down payment down on the first new home they saw in a remote part of town in the outskirts of Palm Springs where Sculptor Christopher Georgesco could grind steel for his work and not bother anyone.

This was a completely spontaneous act. A survival mode built into the Psyche of the Artist. Move where there is spaces and property are cheap. Now in 2009 Galleries are sprouting up everywhere and again the tried and true prevails. The Artist move to where space is ample and cheap and soon the Boutiques, Restaurants and Galleries will follow and cause the one quit villages to turn into Boom Towns.

The Serial Progressions of Modern Contemporary Sculpture

The vast majority of recognized Modern Contemporary Sculptors work in a Serial content for recognition. That is they choose a medium or format which they stick to throughout there carriers. This method may produce a slow growth syndrome, but enables the artist to become recognized by drilling similar sculptures that are identifiable to the artist in the viewers mind. Such Serial Artists that have exceptional strength with this serial approach are Richard Serra and Mark di Surveo. Although these sculptors choose to work with the same problems through out their carriers they make slight adjustments to their formula year by year. If you were to go back to to the beginning of their carriers you would see a drastic change within the same content. This is found in the work of Modern Contemporary Sculptor, Christopher Georgesco. He has worked in Wood, Concrete and Steel, Painted Steel, among a assortment of other materials and has linked his works by not churning out slightly changed replicas of his former self in a Serial Content. He has chosen to use a constant vocabulary which links different phases together by using the same language other than the same formula as such artist as Bernar Venet. Vernet as successful has he might be does not impart the excitement of experimentation. As with Serra, Vernet seems to fall flat with his continuous use of coiled metal year after year. The presence of artistic growth does not seem to follow the commercial success that has apparently followed. Some times Identity from repetition may play into the hands of the mundane. Even when championed with the mirrored moves of tilts and postions of his obvious mentor Richard Serra.
A great example of a Modern Contemporary Sculptor who do not work in serial content is Bruce Nauman. His non-serial approach of changing from neon to rope to drywall to metal to his complete content make him in fact a serial Modern Contemporary sculptor in that he has chosen to become recognized as a serial artist by using a conceptual link. He is in fact one of the reasons that prove that there are no absolutes in Art and the fact that the rules are in place are a perfect reason to break them. Photo Above: "Concrete Block Series" 1973-1974.

Wood and Canvas Sculpture

The very first Modern Contemporary Sculpture I did that was a break from painting was the "Wood & Canvas" Series. It was constructed from the materials that were used to construct stretcher bars in early paintings I did fresh out of college. The pieces were held together with the tension of the canvas by placing vertical dowels through a jig made of wood and looping the canvas through. These pieces were very meditative and were the first Modern Contemporary Sculptures that were I exhibited in my studio in Venice in 1972, 3 years after moving there in 1968 .One of the first collectors of this series (a Fasion Designer named James Reva) lived in Marina Del Rey a beach community next to Venice Beach. When he hung his Wood and Canvas Sculpture on his wall the neighbors began hanging Beach Chairs on their walls. I am not sure if it was a joke or they simply liked the look and did it. As simple as this series was it was the beginning of my sculpture carrier and a much more concrete way of expression for me compaired to painting. It was something I could control much easier than painting.

Painting can be very ethereal in that you may start painting a tree and it can easily end up being a face. This is because the paint is very fluid. With sculpture one usually begins with a idea that is planed and even drafted as a plan with dimensions and details all specified almost like Architecture. before actually begining construction. I suppose this is true with some painters who work from sketches, but their is still that element of fluidity when executed and often is not exactly what the painter may have had in mind.

With sculpture, what you plan is what you get. Leaving the chance of experimentation to a limited possibility. It is very controlled. Working with Geometry is especially very deliberate. All your tangents and connections are pre decided and the components must merle be assembled. Of course with more organic sculpture this may not be the case, say for example the works of Henry Moore who would carve away at blocks of foam to create a some what accurate resemblance to his models.

However simple the "Wood and Canvas" series was, it changed the way I thought about art. Having moved to Venice in 1968 I began to see that art was a reflection of the times. In college you are taught what was, not what is to be. I had never saw a Studio till I moved to Venice. One night I was walking down the street and there was a warehouse door slightly opened. I peered inside and saw a huge white space with approximately 7" x 12' laminated layers of fiberglass hung on the walls, casting colors on the floor. A short man with his hair pulled up like a Samurai Warrior greeted me. I asked what he was doing and he told me he was a Artist. The man was Ron Cooper one of the many sculptors working in polyester Resins at the time in Venice along with Robert Irwin, DeWain Valentine, Vasarely, Fredrick Eversly among others. I asked him what this huge space was and he told me it was a studio. I explained to him that I was a artist too, and was painting luminous paintings of the formation of the Earth on glass. He invited me in curious what this young kid of 18 was up to. I was totally overwhelmed by this studio. I spent the next month searching for a Space of my own. I finally found one on West Washington Blvd, now known as Abbott Kenny. I gutted the building, put in new drywall and about one year latter had my first show there. The show was of my first Modern Contemporary Sculpture, the "Wood and Canvas" series. This was to be the beginning of my art carrier in Venice. The "Wood and Canvas" series was my first body of Modern Contemporary Sculpture.