Like his friend Dennis Hopper, Robert Dean Stockwell started acting at a young age and both have been involved in the L.A Art Scene since the 50s. Among Stockwell’s close friends are the artists Bruce Conner, Lyn Foulkes, George Herms and the late Wallace Berman, who Stockwell bailed out of jail when Berman was infamously arrested on charges of indecent material in his exhibition at Ferus Gallery in 1957. The exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery will feature Stockwell’s recent collages made with vintage source material. While the images are politically and erotically charged, their dreamlike juxtapositions are more closely related to the provocative constructed realities of the Surrealists. Longtime friend, Neil Young said, “Dean’s art has been part of my music in one way or another since I first met him in Topanga in the 60s.” Young concludes that Stockwell retains “the brilliant edge that has characterized all of his work since the beginning.”

Concurrently, the gallery will present an exhibition of photographs by Joe Goode entitled, “Burn Out!” Another legendary figure in the L.A. Art Scene, Goode had the misfortune of losing his studio in a fire this past spring. In typical phoenix-like fashion, the artist made art of the tragedy through a series of black and white photographs of the charred remains. Each image is a seamless pairing of two photos, a deceptively simple technique which not only abstracts the image, but also creates a subtly jarring disquietude.

In the main space, the gallery will present a selection of duotone solarizations by Edmund Teske. A true poet and photographic alchemist, Teske invented the process that Steichen later called “duotone solarization,” a manipulative, yet chance oriented darkroom technique that the artist likened, in a religious and philosophical sense, to the interplay of natural forces. In the catalogue for the Getty Museum’s recent survey of Teske photographs, curator Julian Cox suggested that Teske was able to imbue things with a “kind of sacred meaning.” In fact, the artist referred to his work as his “religion of organic unfoldment.”

Finally, the gallery is pleased to announce that Peter Alexander’s 48 foot painting entitled “Blue” is scheduled to be installed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on August 30th. The subject of this work reflects the artist’s passion for the visual effects of sunlight flickering on the Pacific Ocean. The droplets of bright red on a brilliant blue surface have the optically vibrating effect of the afterimage of a flashbulb. One of the studies for the mural will be on view at the gallery concurrent to the above exhibitions.