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Art of the possible: a reappraisal of the Eugenia Butler Gallery
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Content
ART OF THE POSSIBLE:
A REAPPRAISAL OF THE EUGENIA BUTLER GALLERY
by
Matthew Stromberg
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
December 2014
Copyright 2014 Matthew Stromberg
ii
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Sasha Anawalt for her unflagging support, boundless enthusiasm, and
belief in me even when I had my doubts. I would also like to thank Tim Page for his
sustained thoughtfulness when reading my work, and for not letting me off the hook
when he knew I could do better. Thanks as well to John Tain for his encyclopedic
knowledge of and passionate engagement with 20
th
century art history. Finally, my
deepest gratitude goes to Corazon del Sol for sharing her research and archives, and
above all, for trusting me with her grandmother’s story.
iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iv
Art of the Possible: A Reappraisal of the Eugenia Butler Gallery 1
Beginnings: Galleria del Deposito, Riko Mizuno and Gallery 669 4
The Eugenia Butler Gallery 7
Eugenia Butler as Art Dealer and Count Giuseppe Panza 13
Art, Life and Performance 15
After the Gallery 17
Reframing Everything: The Legacy of the Eugenia Butler Gallery 19
References 21
iv
Abstract
Between 1969 -1971, the Eugenia Butler Gallery in Los Angeles was one of the only
venues in the city to show newly emerging forms of non-retinal and conceptual art.
Butler gave a number of then-unknown artists, including Allen Ruppersberg and John
Baldessari, their first or second solo shows, and offered important artists like Dieter Roth
his first exhibition on the West Coast. Despite her seminal role as a cutting-edge gallerist,
she has been all but omitted from the art historical record of the period. This article aims
to re-examine the history and significance of her gallery in order to illuminate her legacy
and contributions to the L.A. art world and beyond.
1
Art of the Possible:
A Reappraisal of the Eugenia Butler Gallery
For a few years at the end of the 1960’s, Eugenia Butler exhibited some of the most
exciting and important artists of the period. Between 1969-1971 her eponymous gallery
on N. La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles was a cradle of non-object oriented and
conceptual art, showing pioneers like John Baldessari, Joseph Kosuth, Allen
Ruppersberg, and Richard Jackson among others. Despite her brief but cutting-edge
career, her name is seldom mentioned when discussing this period. If it is, it is often with
a mythical reverence based more on her larger than life persona than on real knowledge
of her actual contributions. Through interviews with artists and others who knew her, as
well as archival research, this article aims to re-evaluate her influence and continuing
legacy on the L.A. and international art scene.
Born in Bakersfield, CA in1922, Eugenia Louise Jefferson grew up in Los Angeles.
During WWII she became a nurse sergeant in the Marines, where she met her future
husband James G. Butler who was a fighter pilot. After the war, James went to law
school on the GI Bill and became a prominent lawyer, handling many high profile class
action suits, including cases involving thalidomide and airline crashes. The two were
committed to civil rights (“They were considered extremely left wing at the time,”
remembers their daughter Cecilia Dan), and Jim helped found an NAACP chapter in
Compton where they lived when they were first married (Dan 2014). As Jim became
more successful, they moved into a stately house on South Rimpau and had eight
2
children. Although they appeared on the surface to be the picture of the post-war
American Dream, the Butlers were interested in pushing boundaries – social, cultural,
and artistic – and shared a passion for challenging art. Eugenia Butler’s future partner
Riko Mizuno recalled the important role that art played for the couple when they were
courting, before Jim became successful. “She told me they used to date, but didn’t have
much money, so they’re going to museums, galleries,” Mizuno said. “That’s how she
loved art, so that’s kind of beautiful” (Mizuno 2014).
The L.A. art scene of the 1960’s was much smaller and more intimate than it is today.
Curator Hal Glicksman remembers that “there was so little audience, outside of the artists
and a few collectors, and so little money and so little support, that the artists formed a
self-supporting community…it wasn't all done with an eye on the market, or on the critics
either for that matter…things here were just what artists and their friends wanted to do,
support each other” (Glicksman 2011). New York City was the center of the art world
then, which gave artists in L.A. a certain amount of freedom. “One of the nice things
about that period was that L.A. was so intimate. The lines between dealers and collectors
and artists were permeable because everyone was making it up as they went along and
they didn't have a bunch of established predecessors…like in NY,” notes writer Hunter
Drohojowska-Philp (Drohojowska-Philp 2014). The community of serious collectors was
just beginning to be formed, so sales were not expected. “It was fun in the sense that
money was not an issue, and the joke used to be that if anybody sold anything you must
be doing something wrong,” remembers artist John Baldessari (Baldessari 2011).
3
There were only a handful of galleries of L.A. at the time, but the one that is perhaps best
known is the Ferus Gallery, which was active from 1957 – 1966 on N. La Cienega Blvd.
Founded by Walter Hopps and artist Ed Kienholz (who would soon be replaced by the
suave salesman Irving Blum), Ferus brought to L.A. the kind of serious art that was being
shown in New York and Europe, including Warhol, Stella, and Johns, as well as kick-
starting the careers of a number of L.A. artists. These ranged from assemblage artists like
Kienholz and Wallace Berman, to So Cal light and space artists like Robert Irwin and
Larry Bell. The Ferus scene was glamorous, cool, and macho. They expanded the
boundaries of what was being shown in L.A. at the time. But in a lot of ways, they were
still adhering to a conventional model of showing and selling painting and sculpture. By
the mid-1960’s, a few forward thinking artists and dealers were showing work that was
not confined to physical objects. One of these was Eugenia Butler.
4
Beginnings: Galleria del Deposito, Riko Mizuno and Gallery 669
Although her gallery was only active for a brief period, Butler had been involved with
contemporary art for a number of years. In the mid-1960’s, she served on LACMA’s
Contemporary Art Council and New Talent Award Committee, through which she met
many young artists, and began collecting art. Her interest in the cutting edge drove her to
look beyond the confines of the small L.A. art scene at the time. “The special thing about
Eugenia and he husband Jim is that they were avid collectors, but both extremely
intelligent, extremely articulate, and they wanted more from art than what was being
given to them here in L.A. at that time,” recalls gallerist Rosamund Felsen. “So they went
to Europe a lot and intellectually and conceptually the Europeans were further ahead that
what was going on in L.A.” (Felsen 2014).
On her European trips, she was introduced to the Genoa-based artist collective Galleria
del Deposito (1963-1968) whose members included Lucio Fontana, Victor Vasarely, and
Eugenio Carmi among others. In their opening newsletter, they proclaimed their
intentions: “These people have got together in a kind of co-operative society; by forming
an association of this type they mean to stress the fact that the gallery is not to be run on a
profit-making basis. The common purpose…is to bring the public’s attitude to the
modern visual arts up to date” (Galleria del Deposito 1963). According to LAND director
Shamim Momin, this sort of un-orthodox model proved attractive to Butler. “Deposito is
interesting because it was kind of like an artists-run collaborative so to speak, making art
more accessible to the public, and they were in an old ice factory or warehouse of some
5
kind, and really predicated a lot of artist practices, and she of course with similar kind of
prescience, just kind of understood that this was a great vein in which to move” (Momin
2014). In 1966, she became an L.A. representative of sorts for Deposito. Later that year,
she briefly worked for trailblazing gallerist Virginia Dwan.
Butler then partnered with gallerist Riko Mizuno, who had been running Gallery 669,
located at 669 N. La Cienega Blvd., for about a year. As Mizuno recalls, it was people
associated with LACMA, specifically then-curator Maurice Tuchman, who suggested the
two would make a good team. Both women were interested in work that wasn’t then
being shown in Los Angeles. Butler’s boundless energy would prove to be a foil for
Mizuno’s reserved nature. “Riko Mizuno was an unusual dealer,” said the late artist Jack
Goldstein. “She never did anything; she sat in the back and drank coffee. She had an
interesting persona, somewhat inscrutable with her broken English, and was very laid
back” (Goldstein 2003, 27-28).
Mizuno remembers Butler’s enthusiasm: “She’s very active, alive. I used to tease her,
‘you look like vitamin’… I never met a person like that, so much energy. I’m sleeping
behind the gallery, I have a kind of apartment, so she knocked on door from early in the
morning ‘Get up, get up!’” (Mizuno 2014). John Baldessari summed up a sentiment
repeated in a number of interviews: “Incredible energy, incredible enthusiasm, I can't
remember her ever sitting still” (Baldessari 2011).
6
The pair presented a number of important exhibitions, showing L.A. mainstay Ed
Kienholz, as well as then unknown painter Richard Jackson (who would later become
Butler’s first gallery assistant). The gallery was best known for Joseph Kosuth’s
groundbreaking 1968 exhibition Nothing, the pioneering conceptual artist’s first solo
show in the US. Before the year was out however, tensions between the two women led
to the dissolution of the gallery. “I think if you knew the two of them, you would know it
would not work. They're just too independent,” recalls Felsen (Felsen 2014). Mizuno
even broke out with a bad case of hives that she attributes to their conflict. Mizuno kept
the space, renamed the Riko Mizuno Gallery, and Butler opened her own gallery just up
the street at 615 N. La Cienega. According to Mizuno, the two never entered each other’s
galleries after that.
7
The Eugenia Butler Gallery
Right from the start, Butler was dedicated to showing work that explored new directions,
that was in opposition to trends of the time, work that she felt passionately about
regardless of its financial viability. “She was brilliant, she had energy, she was fearless,”
said Felsen, “and this is what she thought should be done, and she went ahead and did it
and it was challenging, and it was challenging for her, challenging for the viewer”
(Felsen 2014). Butler was not interested in the more established painters and sculptors of
the Ferus scene. Instead, she was attracted to a number of artists whose work would come
to be labeled conceptual art. Curator Anne Ayres offers an excellent description of
conceptual art in a catalogue essay about the work of Butler’s daughter, also named
Eugenia Butler, who often worked in this vein: “In fact, pioneering conceptual art was the
very definition of exhilaration – passionately argued, greatly contested, and thus never
monolithic, as the following partial list indicates: language propositions; detailed record
keeping of personal activities; serial and other pedestrian formats; all sorts of
documentation, graphs, and photographs; erasure of individual touch, the pretense of
artist anonymity, and the elevation of the viewer as part of an expanding environment;
social and political deconstructions; concern with space, time, duration, absence,
removal, and invisibility; a search for new materials (words, electricity, gasses, steam,
light, odors, mental operations, and so forth) – while erasing (dematerializing) the
(visual) art object (perhaps better to say the devisualization of the art object) as a locus of
aesthetic delectation” (Ayres 2003, 9-10). Butler was not limited to exclusively showing
8
conceptual art, but her focus on dematerialized and non-object oriented work prefigured
much of what was to come, both in L.A. and worldwide.
“When you look at work that comes out of L.A. in the early 70's…it’s intellectually
oriented, it’s conceptually oriented, it’s photographs, it’s text, it’s the antithesis of what
happened in the 60’s,” remarks Drohojowska-Philp. “It’s all about non-retinal art, art
that’s about ideas, art that’s about experiences” (Drohojowska-Philp 2014).
Absence, the void, performance, interaction, the invisible, the temporary—often with a
dash of irreverent humor: these were the hallmarks of the Eugenia Butler Gallery. She
opened the gallery by giving Allen Rupperberg his first solo show for which he presented
Location Piece (1969). “There was nothing in the gallery except the address of an old
office building on Sunset Boulevard where I'd installed a big theatrical sculpture," said
the artist (McKenna 1993).
Later that year James Lee Byars—an enigmatic artist who was a favorite of Butler’s—
built a wall around her office, separating it from the rest of the gallery. The work was
called Shutting up Genie. According to the press release: “Her name comes down from
the front of the building, and ‘Shutting up Genie’ is lettered in red on the wall directly
behind the Gallery window, visible from the street. Eugenia Butler is forbidden by the
artist to enter the Gallery exhibition space during this five-day period.” For his piece Wall
Shadow, Eric Orr built a cinder block wall in front of the gallery, painted its shadow on
the ground and removed the wall, leaving only a trace of the light it blocked. For a 1970
9
exhibition Robert Barry simply locked the gallery doors and put a sign up that read
“From March 10 through 21, the Gallery will be Closed.”
Butler was also one of the first gallerists to show the work of then-unknown conceptual
art godfather John Baldessari. She held his second gallery exhibition ever in 1970 after he
left his previous dealer Molly Barnes. Their relationship was also significant for the fact
that Butler was the first person to sell one of Baldessari’s photographs. It is typical of her
vision that she ignored the traditional distinction between high art and photography, then
considered a lesser artform.
“At that moment, photography and art were pretty much ghettoized. I mean photographs
were shown in photography galleries but not shown in art galleries. They were literally
two different worlds, and very distinct art histories for both,” recalls Baldessari. “So I had
some documentation of a work, called the Ghetto Boundary Project. I remember her
calling me, she said, ‘You won't believe what I'm going to tell you, I sold the
photographs.’ You don't get it now, but you didn't sell photographs at art galleries. That
was my first breaching of boundaries I guess” (Baldessari 2011).
One of the most notorious exhibitions at the gallery was Ed Kienholz’ 1969 Watercolors
show, commonly referred to as The Barter Show. Each hand-printed work stated on the
face what Kienholz wanted in exchange for it. These ranged from various monetary
amounts, to a Rudi Gernreich dress, a Timex watch, an artwork by Baldessari, and so on.
They were otherwise identical, the same size, each framed the same, and authorized with
10
Keinholz’ thumbprint. It was “an early acknowledgement on the cult of celebrity and the
commodification of art” (LAND 2012). The work directly addressed the very notion of
art as investment - and confronted collectors with this idea - in a way that meshed with
Butler’s love of controversy.
“She wanted art that would make people mad, and it was a perfect fit with the Kienholz
watercolors. He knew that they would make everybody angry… yeah they should have,
that's what they were for,” recalls Glicksman. “They weren't for Dwan or for Ferus or for
any other regular gallery, that he had to have someone who was really up for strange
ideas…well because it’s under this heading of institutional critique. People weren't used
to that, of having their face rubbed in the idea that they were collecting art because it
would become worth money” (Glicksman 2011). According to rumor, the city tried to
shut the show down, arguing that the barter system evaded sales tax (LAND 2012).
Even more groundbreaking than Kienholz’ barter show was Swiss/Icelandic artist Dieter
Roth’s 1970 exhibition Staple Cheese (A Race). Although Roth had been exhibiting in
Europe since the early 1950’s, this was his first U.S. gallery exhibition. Roth filled the
gallery with 37 suitcases full of cheese, leaving them to rot in the L.A. summer heat. As
the show progressed, the smell filled the gallery, wafting out into the street. Maggots and
flies filled the gallery.
“Everyone talked about it, it was probably one of the more talked about exhibitions in
town. People were a combination of outraged and intrigued by it. My reaction to it was
11
wow,” recalled artist Ed Moses. “It was very powerful and as I said as you walked along
this alley into the gallery, you could smell it from La Cienega and it was a good hundred
yards back to the gallery” (Moses 2011).
The health department tried to shut the show down, but Butler’s husband, the class action
litigator, successfully argued to keep the gallery open on the grounds of the work’s
artistic merit. Although the L.A. art community was small at the time, it would prove to
be an influential show to all who saw it.
“The Dieter Roth show was just important to see, period, and to see one of the European
artists that you admired, to see a work here, and have it be such a memorable and
important work,” remembers Ruppersberg. “I think it’s one of the main works that was
ever shown here in L.A., period, and certainly is in all the memories of the artists who
were there at the time” (Ruppersberg 2011).
In addition to exhibitions at the gallery, Butler organized important shows off-site, such
as 18’6″ x 6’9″ x 11’2-1/2″ x 47″ x 11-3/16″ x 19’8-1/2″ x 31’9-3/16″ held at the San
Francisco Art Institute in 1969. The group exhibition included many of the seminal
practitioners of conceptual and non-retinal art: Michael Asher, Robert Barry, James Lee
Byars, Eugenia Butler, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, and Lawrence Weiner among
others. The work featured in the exhibition was consistent with Butler’s gallery program
in its radical break with previous forms of art-making. Often this involved gallery staff
creating the works based on instructions from the artists, as described in a printed
12
supplement to the exhibition. Byars played a tape loop on speakers outside the gallery on
a certain day. Stephen Kaltenbach “submitted a series of proposals. The one chosen by
the gallery staff was carrying out of Mr. Kaltenbach’s proposal to paint the south wall of
the gallery gray…The wall was painted gray.” Jim Rudnick blocked out the skylights and
gave out flashlights for visitors to use. Barry Le Va drew a line from the gallery office
door to the SE corner of the space. The area to the west of the line was sprinkled with
flour. Eugenia Butler (the younger) simply “requested that the plate reading ‘Congruent
Reality’ be placed at the entrance to the empty gallery on two alternative Wednesdays.”
13
Eugenia Butler as Art Dealer and Count Giuseppe Panza
More than simply championing and exhibiting challenging, conceptual art, as a dealer
Butler created a market for artwork that was often represented in the physical world by
nothing more than a certificate. The idea that you could sell air, or an experience, or an
energy field was radical. She counted among her clients the L.A. haberdasher and
collector Monte Factor, and influential Italian collector Count Giuseppe Panza, one of the
first Europeans to seriously collect postwar American art. Panza’s impressive collection
covered abstract expressionism, pop, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was an early
supporter of art in L.A., visiting the city twice a year to find new artists and new work.
He remarked in 1985 that “history will regard Los Angeles as a great center of the art of
this century” (Wilson 1985).
A letter dated January 22, 1970 reveals that Butler sent Panza information, prices and
visuals of work by a number of artists she showed including Douglas Huebler, Baldessari,
Stephen Kaltenbach, Kosuth, Robert Barry, Paul Cotton, Eugenia Butler, and James Lee
Byars. From this selection, Panza ended up purchasing four works of Huebler’s
composed of photographic documentation of actions and signed descriptions of the works.
The description of Duration Piece #12 (1969) reads:
In March, 1969 a small quantity of sand was removed from the ocean
beach at Venice, California and taken to the ocean beach at Plum Island,
Massachusetts.
14
There it was placed where it would be carried into the Atlantic Ocean by
the outgoing tide. A similar quantity of sand was, at that time, removed
from the Plum Island location and taken (May 1969) to Venice where it, in
turn, was carried into the Pacific Ocean.
Another exchange will mark the same sites in 1979 and so on: once every
ten years until a total of eleven markings have been made at which time
(2069) the piece will be complete. (It will be the responsibility of the
owner to arrange for the next ten such exchanges).
One photograph of each site and this statement constitute the form of this
piece.
Huebler’s original action, while certainly poetic, was distinct and finite. By holding the
purchaser responsible for the fulfillment of the work, he stretches this singular act well
beyond the lifetimes of artist and collector, and at the same time calls into question
traditional roles of creator and consumer. This is typical of the kind of challenging work
that Butler promoted. It is significant that she not only exhibited work like this, but was
able to place some of it into one of the most important collections of the 20
th
century.
15
Art, Life and Performance
For Butler, art was not just something to be looked at and collected, but a force that
permeated every aspect of life. To the intimate L.A. art community of the time, the Butler
family house on South Rimpau provided a sense of community and support. It was as
significant a gathering place for artists and art lovers as the gallery itself. It became one
of a handful of important social spaces for artists, along with the homes of Elyse and
Stanley Grinstein (who had founded legendary printmaking workshop Gemini G.E.L.)
and noted collector and dealer Betty Asher. “Eugenia and James’ house, that was a social
hub, that and the Grinstein's house,” remembers Baldessari. “I even think sometimes they
competed with each other [to see] who could throw the biggest party” (Baldessari 2011).
The line between party and performance was often blurred. One such occasion was a
fashion show Butler hosted featuring works by designer Rudi Gernreich, whose clothes
she wore almost exclusively. Gernreich was perhaps most famous for the topless
monokini he designed, often seen on his muse Peggy Moffitt. “I remember one party she
had for a fashion designer, Rudi Gernreich, where these people came down the staircase
nude and that was quite a radical thing in the fashion world,” recalls Moses (Moses 2011).
“She was wearing these Rudi Gernreich clothes that were outrageous,” remembered
Stanley Grinstein. “It’s like good art, sometimes you say, ‘what the hell is that?’ and you
gotta get used to it. She was that far ahead” (Grinstein 2011).
16
The dissolution of the barrier between art and life that Butler’s gallery embodied was also
celebrated in the work of Paul Cotton, who would often dress up in outlandish outfits for
performances, including a bunny costume with the crotch cut out. He was arrested at the
opening of the LACMA’s Art & Technology show in May 1971, at which he arrived with
Butler. He had planned to present museum visitors with marijuana joints on a platter as
part of a performance, but was denied entry. “There were real joints on the tray and I
intended to go into the show and just be there as a sculpture for people to take joints if
they wanted to and experience it as a living sculpture,” he recalls (Cotton 2011). Much of
Cotton’s work dealt with relationships between people, not simply the visual experience
of looking at a static piece of art. “I think that the whole civilization is a dysfunctional
family. Part of my impulses is to heal that dysfunction. One of the dysfunctions I see is
seeing people as objects, and seeing art as objects to be bought and sold. The two things
go hand in hand, is to only see things of value in terms of their commodity” (Cotton
2011). Cotton had one of the last exhibitions at the gallery.
17
After the Gallery
The Eugenia Butler Gallery closed in mid-1971. As artist Barbara T. Smith recalled, the
rent had been raised on the space (Smith 2011). Compounding this, the Butlers’ marriage
was unraveling and James Butler had withdrawn his financial support of the gallery (Dan
2014). Larger economic forces were also at play. Although the avant-garde conceptual art
that Butler exhibited would continue to be a vibrant part of the L.A. art scene for years to
come, there was a growing fiscal conservatism in the city that extended to the art world.
Los Angeles Times critic William Wilson attributed this to national economic woes, and
described a new attitude “not now attuned to the exhilaration of risk” (Newhouse 2011).
Butler continued to be involved with art, however. Instead of promoting the art of others
she passionately believed in, she worked to turn her life into a kind of performance. It
was around this time that she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy.
She staged a “living wake” at her house, and invited all of her friends to participate in a
performative funeral. “We lent her a limo here for her wake-up her funeral, when she got
the cancer originally, so she did a whole thing at her house of a funeral, and she called it
the wake-up,” recalls Grinstein. “We lent her the limo, we had a black caddy limo with
big fins” (Grinstein 2011).
She began an affair with Cotton and moved with him to the Bay Area, leaving her family
behind. In 1972, she arrived at Documenta, the influential art exhibition held every five
years in Kassel, Germany, riding a white horse, in the nude. It was there that she
18
impersonated her daughter Eugenia, and tried to pass the younger Butler’s work off as
her own. Periods of mental instability and familial turmoil would characterize her life for
the next thirty years. Although she never had another gallery, what she accomplished in a
few short years would have an outsized impact on the L.A. art world and beyond. As
Drohojowska-Philp notes, “L.A. really was a hotbed for the development of conceptual
and non-object oriented, dematerialized art throughout the 70's, the validation for that in
part could be said to be in part with Eugenia Butler who endorsed it” (Drohojowska-Philp
2014).
19
Reframing Everything: The Legacy of the Eugenia Butler Gallery
Despite the seminal role Butler and he gallery played, her influence is under-recognized
today. “Once you start to make the connection you realize ‘all the shows I cared about,
that I learned about, were at her gallery, but I don't know her name.’ Isn’t that so
incredibly strange,” says Momin (Momin 2014). “Looking back, turns out that she was
probably one of the most important galleries, certainly up there with Ferus who we keep
talking about, but it turns out she should have had equal billing,” notes Baldessari
(Baldessari 2011). The conventional narrative of 1960’s art in LA is dominated by the
Ferus Gallery and their roster of hyper-masculine painters and sculptors. One reason for
this is that Irving Blum, the suave NY transplant who ran Ferus with Walter Hopps, was a
consummate salesman and promoter. The glamorous “cool school” image he promoted
for himself and his artists was a tidier, more digestible story than Butler’s complicated
and problematic narrative. “It’s a very complex personality and that doesn't always parse
so well for historical telling,” notes Momin, “especially for women” (Momin 2014).
Writer Catherine Wagley cautions against letting the drama of Butler’s life divert
attention from her contributions to art: “Focusing on the Butler mythos threatens to
pigeonhole her, to turn her legacy into the short-lived, haphazard achievements of an
eccentric” (Wagley 2012). Further complicating her history is the absence of her archives,
which were destroyed by James Butler, and later by herself, after they divorced.
To correct this historical omission, Butler’s granddaughter Corazon del Sol and LAND’s
Momin put together a 2012 exhibition, Perceptual Conceptual, as part of the Getty’s
20
massive Pacific Standard Time initiative. The show began with one box of archival
material that del Sol came across (“It’s just like a cardboard box and it says like ‘archives’
on it. It had two boxes of slides, a few super 8 films, a few small artworks.”), and grew as
they conducted extensive interviews with artists of the period (del Sol 2014). They also
utilized the archives at the Getty Research Institute to piece together the timeline and
events surrounding the gallery. It was an important step in restoring Butler’s legacy. “I
felt so happy that I put my grandmother back in the world because she'd been written out
of history…because she was crazy or she was a woman,” said del Sol, “when in truth her
story kind of reframed everything” (del Sol 2014).
The work that Butler championed was about finding the exceptional in the everyday,
finding meaning in space, in words, in actions. As del Sol notes, “It’s all art of the
possible. It changes you” (Wagley 2012). Counter to the notion of conceptual art as being
heady and opaque, Wagley says, “these projects are really silly and sincere and about
trying to figure out how to communicate things…this was conceptualism that was very
human” (Wagley 2014). Barbara T. Smith recalled a scene from an Easter party at the
Rimpau house after the Butlers had divorced. Eugenia had returned from Documenta and
was planning a performance at the party. “A fat woman with pink teased-back combed
hair wearing a tight baby blue double knit suit complained that her life was utterly empty.
With great focused intensity, Eugenia turned and said, ‘You have to look for it. It’s there
all the time.’ Pink hair then said, ‘I've been searching.’ Then Genie said ‘I don't mean
search, I mean see. You put your own clouds over your eyes’” (Smith 2011).
21
References
Ayres, Anne. Eugenia Butler – Arc of an Idea: Chasing the Invisible. Los Angeles: Otis
College of Art and Design, 2003. Exhibition catalog.
Baldessari, John (artist). Interview with Corazon de Sol, March 25, 2011.
Barry, Robert (artist). Interview with Corazon del Sol, July 27, 2011.
Cotton, Paul (artist). Interview with Corazon del Sol, April 13, 2011.
Dan, Cecilia (daughter of Eugenia Butler / art dealer). Interview with the author, Malibu,
CA, May 29, 2014.
del Sol, Corazon (granddaughter of Eugenia Butler). Interview with the author, Los
Angeles, CA, February 6, 2014.
Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter (writer / art critic). Interview with the author, Los Angeles,
CA, February 22, 2014.
Edge, Doug (artist). Interview with Corazon del Sol, May 18, 2011.
Felsen, Rosamund (gallerist). Interview with the author, Santa Monica, CA, April 19,
2014.
Galleria del Deposito. Mostra N. 1 – Sedici Quadri Blu, November 23, 1963.
Glicksman, Hal (curator / preparator). Interview with Corazon del Sol, September 14,
2011.
Goldstein, Jack. “Chouinard and the Los Angeles Art Scene in the Late Sixties,” in Jack
Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia, by Richard Hertz, 18-28. Ojai, CA: Minneola
Press, 2003.
Grinstein, Stanley (founder, Gemini G.E.L. Graphic Editions Limited). Interview with
Corazon del Sol, April 5, 2011.
Kavanaugh, Gere (designer). Interview with the author, Los Angeles, CA, March 1, 2014.
Kienholz, Lyn (art organizer / ex-wife of Ed Kienholz). Interview with the author, Los
Angeles, CA, February 17, 2014.
LAND. Perpetual Conceptual: Echoes of Eugenia Butler. Los Angeles: LAND, 2012.
Exhibition text.
22
McKenna, Kristine. “ART : 'Stuff' Is His Middle Name : Conceptual artist Allen
Ruppersberg surrounds himself with odd books, strange posters and other
knickknacks. So how does all this 'stuff' help him make sense of the world around
him and then become art? It just does,” Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1993.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-11-21/entertainment/ca-59231_1_conceptual-art
Mizuno, Riko (gallerist / former partner). Interview with the author, West Hollywood,
CA, April 21, 2014.
Momin, Shamim (curator / LAND director). Interview with the author, Los Angeles, CA,
March 18, 2014.
Moses, Ed (artist). Interview with Corazon del Sol, August 16, 2011.
Newhouse, Kristina. She accepts the proposition: Women Gallerists and the redefinition
of art in Los Angeles, 1967-1978. Los Angeles: Sam Francis Gallery, 2011.
Exhibition text.
Ruppersberg, Allen (artist). Interview with Corazon del Sol, May 19, 2011.
Smith, Barbara T. (artist). Interview with Corazon del Sol, June 1, 2011.
Sommer, Danielle. “Eugenia is Coming: LAND shows off Eugenia Butler in ‘Perpetual
Conceptual,’” Daily Serving, January 31, 2012.
http://dailyserving.com/2012/01/eugenia-is-coming-land-shows-off-eugenia-
butler-in-perceptual-conceptual/
Tran, My-Thuan. “Giuseppe Panza di Biumo dies at 87; art collector legitimized
MOCA.” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2010.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/25/local/la-me-guiseppe-panza-20100425
Wagley, Catherine. “Eugenia Butler: How a Wacky Gallerist Inspires the L.A. Art World
Today.” LA Weekly, February 16, 2012. http://www.laweekly.com/2012-02-
16/art-books/Eugenia-Butler-Perpetual-Conceptual-LAND/
Wagley, Catherine (writer / art critic). Interview with the author, Los Angeles, CA,
February 12, 2014.
Wilson, William. “Is L.a. The Place For More Panza Works?” Los Angeles Times,
February 6, 1985. http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-06/entertainment/ca-
4546_1_giuseppe-panza-di-biumo
Abstract (if available)
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
Asset Metadata
Creator
Stromberg, Matthew David
(author)
Core Title
Art of the possible: a reappraisal of the Eugenia Butler Gallery
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism (The Arts)
Publication Date
09/02/2014
Defense Date
08/30/2014
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
1960s,Allen Ruppersberg,art gallery,conceptual art,Dieter Roth,Douglas Huebler,Ed Kienholz,Eugenia Butler,Ferus Gallery,Giuseppe Panza,James Lee Byars,John Baldessari,Joseph Kosuth,Los Angeles,OAI-PMH Harvest,Paul Cotton,Richard Jackson,Riko Mizuno,Rudi Gernreich
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Anawalt, Sasha (
committee chair
), Page, Tim (
committee member
), Tain, John (
committee member
)
Creator Email
mattstromberg@gmail.com,mstrombe@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-466855
Unique identifier
UC11287872
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etd-StrombergM-2871.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-466855 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
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466855
Document Type
Thesis
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Stromberg, Matthew David
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(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
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Tags
1960s
Allen Ruppersberg
art gallery
conceptual art
Dieter Roth
Douglas Huebler
Ed Kienholz
Eugenia Butler
Ferus Gallery
Giuseppe Panza
James Lee Byars
John Baldessari
Joseph Kosuth
Paul Cotton
Richard Jackson
Riko Mizuno
Rudi Gernreich