Michael Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles) presents a selection of iconic Verifax collages and black and white photos by one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century, Wallace Berman. Berman was a prominent Beat artist of 1950’s and 60’s California counter-culture, whose assemblage and collage work can be found in most major museum collections including SFMOMA, MOCA, LACMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, MOMA and more. In addition to holdings in museum permanent collections, Berman was recently highlighted as a key contributor to California’s unique art history in Pacific Standard Time, a statewide set of exhibitions mounted and organized by The Getty Foundation.
The charismatic nucleus of a tightly-knit creative community, Berman photographed a circle of friends that would eventually become instrumental art world figures themselves, such as Charles Brittin, Jay DeFeo, Bruce Conner, Lyn Foulkes, Dennis Hopper, Alan Ginsberg and many others that are now household names. Images of Berman and his circle by photographer Charles Brittin will help to evoke the fascinating historical milieu surrounding these artists in a turbulent era of racial tension, antiwar protest and the women’s liberation movement.
