LITA ALBUQUERQUE
ACHENAR, 2006
Fiberglass and paint
38” diameter

ACHENAR is one of the largest spheres that was placed on the polar ice shelf as part of Stellar Axis: Antarctica, the first and largest site-specific art installation on the Antarctic Continent. Completed in 2006 by artist Lita Albuquerque and a team of scientists and artists, and in conjunction with the National Science foundation, the expedition placed 99 blue spheres on the Ross Ice Shelf in perfect alignment with a constellation of stars above. Albuquerque chose this particular sphere for the FROSTIG AT LARGE exhibition in West Hollywood.

To say that Lita Albuquerque is a well-known, globe-trotting, multi-media artist with a wide-ranging artistic iconography is an understatement. Probably best known for her outdoor site-specific works, like “Stellar Axis: Antarctica,” or the red pyramid dug into the earth to echo the shadow of the Washington Monument, Albuquerque also makes eerily beautiful works on paper and canvas, as well as sculptures in a variety of nontraditional materials. Artist website: http://litaalbuquerque.com

CHARLES ARNOLDI
MILESTONE, 2001
Cast bronze
67½” x 34” x 22”

Charles Arnoldi is a Southern California artist with an international reputation, who paints, sculpts and creates works on paper. Intrigued by the shape of small potatoes, Arnoldi sculpted a fantastical version of potatoes on steroids that he then cast in bronze and stacked in precarious positions. The result is a playful exercise in defying gravity. For the first Frostig Collection (2005), Arnoldi created a small bronze cast from real potatoes.

Charles Arnoldi attended Chouinard Art Institute in 1968 and received the Young Talent Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art the following year. He has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts grants, as well as a John Simon Guggenheim grant. He has exhibited his work all over the world and is in many major museum collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum. Arnoldi is represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Santa Monica, Imago Galleries in Palm Desert, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe and Modernism in San Francisco. Artist website: www.charlesarnoldistudio.com

DAVID BUCKINGHAM
PRETTY BOY, 2012
Cut and welded found metal

Pretty Boy is the largest sculpture David Buckingham has made to date. Working from found metal, Buckingham cuts and welds his sculptures into total submission. A full-bodied and multi-dimensional version of the smaller masks he created for the Frostig Collection in 2011, this piece evokes both play and a sense of tribal pageantry.

David Buckingham came to make art in a very unconventional way. In the early 90’s, while working as a promising writer and associate creative director in the advertising industry, Buckingham unwittingly began his art education: a five-minute welding lesson from Ray “Cowboy” Kelly, one of the founders of The Rivington School, which Buckingham describes as “a bunch of anarchist welders and poets and performance artists” in the East Village of New York. After years of making furniture, Buckingham decided to make his first piece of art in 2002, a crude metal Easter Island-like mask. Three years later, at the age of 46, he had his first solo exhibition in Santa Monica. Buckingham has earned a reputation as a “neo-Pop” artist, fashioning scraps of cut and welded metal he has collected from the Mojave Desert into colorful wall pieces, which speak volumes about American mass culture: recognizable movie lines (“You Can’t Handle the Truth”), popular phrases and song lyrics.
Buckingham lives and works in Los Angeles. He is represented by Peter Mendenhall Gallery in Los Angeles and Cain Schulte Gallery in San Francisco. Artist website: www.buckinghamstudio.com

BRAD HOWE
GIGGLES, 2004
Aluminum and Polyurethane
12 x 6 x 4 feet

Brad Howe is no stranger to large-scale installations with numerous private and public commissions all over the world. The whimsy and humor of his work is appealing to all generations. Totems have always inspired Howe’s work and this version, with its abstracted shapes and monochromatic palette evokes his contemporary sensibility. For the 2009 Frostig Collection, Howe created a mobile of stylized canaries to appeal to “Art for the child in you.”

SWEET MEATS, 2012
Stainless Steel and Polyurethane
11 x 5 x 4 feet

Sweet Meats has a biological reference and is designed to be a playful interaction of organic elements. Included in the shapes are a heart and a hand, two elements reoccurring in a series of sculptures Howe designed for LARC, The Los Angeles Residential Community (originally called The Los Angeles Retarded Citizens Foundation) to convey the love and commitment of the parents who created this facility to secure their developmentally disabled children a place to thrive as adults.

Brad Howe studied at Stanford University and the University of São Paulo in Brazil. His academic focus wasn't originally art, but Brazilian Studies. Once he turned his brilliant mind to making art, he never looked back. Howe is extremely well-known internationally; his work is exhibited and collected all over the world. He is best known for his large installations, such as the 80-foot mobile at the Georgia International Convention Center near Atlanta and the 30 by 50 foot kinetic sculpture for Temple University in Philadelphia. He is represented by Gerald Peters Gallery, Dallas and Galerie Uli Lang, Bilberach, Germany. Artist website: www.bradhowe.com

MICHAEL KALISH
STANDING ROSE, 2010
Tailgates of old trucks and stainless steel
60 x 36 inches

Originally known for his iconic portraiture made from license plates, Michael Kalish began to “work his way up the car” as he puts it, and started using tailgates from vintage trucks to construct his artworks. His first foray with this medium was creating a dozen large roses made to hang on a wall. This free-standing rose was previously exhibited at Kalish’s solo show at the Riverside Museum of Art. For the Frostig Collection 2010, Kalish created 18 unique table top rose sculptures, all made from various colored tailgates.

Michael Kalish attended the University of Rhode Island at Kingson and Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Kalish received rave reviews for his first museum solo show, “Rust and Renaissance” at the Riverside Art Museum (2009-2010). The exhibition features roses made out of tailgates and hoods of salvaged cars. His installation outside of the museum was extraordinary: roses of varying colors and sizes spilled out of a mangled car – both beautiful and thought provoking. Kalish has been featured on CNN as their choice for ‘artist on the way to the top” and on CBS news and in numerous publications. Equally impressive is the list of companies that have commissioned Kalish to make large-scale works based on his love of American icons, such as the automobile (Ford Motors), Mickey Mouse (Disney Inc.), baseball (Atlanta Braves Stadium) and numerous sports icons (Nike). Artist website: http://michaelkalish.com