Palm Springs: Eye-Opening Contemporary Art

Endless fascination with Anthony James' art

After visiting Mt San Jacinto via the Palm Springs Aerial Tramways, we headed down for some lunch then went to the city's art museum for a look.

It focuses on contemporary art, and has an impressive small collection of Henry Moore statues outside the Palm Springs Art Museum. Inside the staff at the entrance suggested we look at the two current exhibitions on show featuring local artists, but we did manage to cover pretty much everything else as it's not a big place.

Smith examines how light is affected by shapes

The first one we checked out was Phillip K. Smith III: Light + Change. He's originally from Los Angeles but grew up in the Coachella Valley and now works in Palm Desert, very close to Palm Springs. His work revolves around his study of light and colour, and how we as viewers interact with them.

He creates various colour choreography as the museum describes it, either concentric circles that are hypnotic, or blocks of intense colour that change every few seconds. Smith also creates cylinders that have various shapes jutting out like cutting snowflakes out of paper so they are even in shape and size, and then seeing how light is affected by them.

The other artist is Petra Cortright, who was born in Santa Barbara and lives in Los Angeles. In her earlier works she cut out images from magazines, like a flower arrangement and then rearranges the florals into another shape. She later graduated to photographic images that she manipulates using Photoshop, sometimes adds motifs like a collage and then "paints" strokes on top of that so there are literally several layers to her work.

Cortright manipulates images and "paints" them

She mostly chooses images of nature and landscape, as well as still life and works with canvas, anodized aluminium, Belgian linen and various types of paper.

Her canvases are very large and in a way pioneers a new way to create art, integrating both the digital and real world together. It's her colour palette that we appreciate, the shades of green, mauve, pink, grey, and beige.

We were completely mesmerised by Anthony James' 80" Great Rhombicosidodecahedron, 2020. It's a kind of ball shape, and within it are endless numbers of geometric circles and squares thanks to the use of stainless steel, specialised glass and LED lights. You wonder how he came up with this idea and actually executed it so well. In the end it might be a simple setup, but made complex by the placement of mirrors. Who knows!

Hyperrealistic couple that look like visitors

The rest of the museum has an eclectic collection of glass and sculptures, including Louise Bourgeois' Spider II which is perched way up high on the ceiling, a large Alexander Calder mobile, a Picasso bronze of Angry Owl, and the nocturnal bird really does not look happy.

There's a couple sitting on a bench, but then you do a double take and realise -- they're art! It's a lifelike sculpture of Old Couple on a Bench by Duane Hanson. Even though it was completed in 1995, the clothes they are wearing are not considered out of fashion!

American artist Angela Ellsworth created what looks at first like a stunning piece, a bonnet made of pearls. But when you look closer, you realise it's also full of pins poking inside where the wearer's head should be, making it a delicate but also vicious headdress.

Art made from aluminium cans on satellite dish

Nearby is Gerald Clarke's Continuum Basket: Pivat (Tobacco). From a distance it appears to be a folk art design with a green star in the centre. As you walk closer to it, you see it's actually made up of squashed aluminium cans that are carefully arranged on a satellite dish -- all, 1,884 of them. Clarke has created the symbols for tobacco flowers and bats inspired by traditional motifs from his Indian band called Cahuilla.

Nice to see the museum has a small collection of African artists too.

Outside across the street from the museum is a car lifted vertically and looks like it's about to dive into a pool of water. It leaves a fantastic reflection in the pond. It's called History of Suspended Time (A monument for the impossible) by Gonzalo Lebrija. 

The Mexican artist originally did a performance art of dropping a car into the water and then filmed it at the moment just before it hit the lake's surface. He then recreated it, using a 1968 Chevy Malibu that weighs 2,500 pounds.

Palm Springs Art Museum

101 Museum Drive

Palm Springs

(760) 322 4800