11 Los Angeles Artists

Hayward Gallery, 30 September – 14 November 1971

Newton Harrison, Portable Fish Farm (1971). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Newton HarrisonHayward Gallery

The First European Exhibition of Art from Los
Angeles

11 Los Angeles Artists was curated by Maurice Tuchman and Jane Livingston from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition featured the work of a ‘small diverse group of artists’, many of them only recently out of art school. Some of these younger artists, including Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, John McLaughlin, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha and William Wegman, were little known in the US outside a small number of alternative galleries and art publications. Nicholas Serota, then a young exhibition organiser with the Arts Council, assisted Tuchman and Livingston with the exhibition. 

Press Release for 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery (1971) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Press release for 11 Los Angeles Artists (1971).

Private View Card for 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery (1971) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Statement from Arts Council on 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery (1971-09-24) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

A Rejection of Stereotypes

11 Los Angeles Artists featured painting, drawing and photography, as well as what the Arts Council’s Norbert Lynton referred to as ‘less easily described sculptures and constructions.’ It presented a cross-section of activities that were taking place in what Lynton referred to as a ‘very lively art centre which many Americans have come to see as a salutary answer to New York’s increasingly pompous and tycoon-ridden art scene’. Curators Tuchman and Livingston hoped that their selection would act as ‘a disclaimer to narrow stereotypes’ about LA and its artists.

Bruce Nauman, Green Light Corridor (1970). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Bruce NaumanHayward Gallery

Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Larry Bell, Untitled (1971). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Larry BellHayward Gallery

Larry Bell, Untitled (1971). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Larry BellHayward Gallery

Newton Harrison, Portable Fish Farm (1971). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Newton HarrisonHayward Gallery

Newton Harrison, Portable Fish Farm (1971). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Newton HarrisonHayward Gallery

Newton Harrison, Portable Fish Farm (1971). Installation View: 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971. Photo: John Webb (1971) by Newton HarrisonHayward Gallery

The Catfish Controversy

The artwork that gained the greatest press coverage in 11 Los Angeles Artists was Newton Harrison’s Portable Fish Farm (1971). The discussion around this piece – which included tanks of live catfish which were to be killed and eaten in a shared supper in the gallery –made its way into parliament, where it was debated by Lord Goodman, and prompted comedian and animal rights activist Spike Milligan to attack the front of the Hayward Gallery in protest. Harrison’s work eventually went ahead, with the understanding that the fish would not be killed or consumed in public.

List of Ingredients for Newton Harrison's Catfish Feast, 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery (1971) by Newton HarrisonHayward Gallery

List of ingredients in Newton Harrison's catfish feast.

Press Statement on 11 Los Angeles Artists ‘Catfish Controversy’, Hayward Gallery (1971) by Hayward GalleryHayward Gallery

Press Cuttings for 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971 (1971) by VariousHayward Gallery

Press and Audience Response

11 Los Angeles Artists received 36,538
visitors and mixed reviews from the press. Writing in the Guardian, Caroline Tisdall singled out
Larry Bell’s complex of mirrored glass sheets for comment, describing them as
‘the most completely beautiful works shown in London for a long time.’ In
The Times, Edward Lucie-Smith also
praised Bell’s contribution, arguing that the piece
combined ‘the American feeling for the technological with an equally American
feeling for the immaculate’. For Lucie-Smith, ‘some of the same magic’ was also
present in Bruce Nauman’s Coloured Light
Corridor (1971), ‘where a green fluorescent light, presented in a certain
way, makes the whole surrounding space turn soft pink’. 

Press Cuttings for 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971 (1971) by VariousHayward Gallery

Press Cuttings for 11 Los Angeles Artists, Hayward Gallery, 1971 (1971) by VariousHayward Gallery

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