James Hueter, ‘Explorations’

hueter

James Hueter, one of the Claremont artists from the GI Bill era, has a one-man show, “Explorations,” that opened Saturday and continues through June 1 at the Bunny Gunner gallery, 230 W. Bonita Ave. It’s got a couple of dozen works in various media: paintings, drawings, sculptures and assemblages.

Hueter, seen at right above, turns 91 on May 15 “and continues to make new work in his studio in Claremont,” daughter Barbara Schenck told me. I attended the opening, as did many others, including a lot of local artists there to pay obeisance.

Hueter is the last survivor of the “Four Friends” group of Sam Maloof, Rupert Deese and Harrison McIntosh. One of his pieces was acquired recently by the Huntington Library for its permanent collection.

His most recent solo show was at the Claremont Museum of Art in 2009. “It was a 60-year retrospective — and that was seven years ago,” Schenck noted.

 

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Favorite films of 2015

I’m not an avid moviegoer, but I like movies. Last year I saw 23 new releases, from superhero punch-’em-ups to art films. In an annual tradition (here’s my 2014 list), I rank them. One note: Four of the movies were released at the very end of 2014 and were on the lists that year of professional critics; like most people, I saw them in 2015, and they’re on my list.

In roughly descending order, my Top 10 goes like this: Spotlight, Selma, Brooklyn, Room, Mr. Holmes, The Theory of Everything, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, The Imitation Game, Amy, Grandma. (Does having a one-word title give a film a leg up in my eyes, or do most films have one-word titles? Discuss.)

Numbers 11 to 20: Sicario, The Martian, Hitchcock/Truffaut, All Things Must Pass: The Story of Tower Records, Ant-Man, Love and Mercy, Heart of a Dog, Spectre, Ex-Machina, Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.

Bottom of the heap: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, While We’re Young, Goodbye to Language.

If you didn’t see it listed, that means I didn’t see it.

What were your most and least favorites?

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Column: David Sedaris can be offensive, but gleefully so

sedaris

Sunday’s column reports on humorist David Sedaris’ Thursday night reading in Claremont, which I attended. I had expected only to write an item on it, but he ended up being the whole column. He’s pretty funny, so that’s right in my wheelhouse. Above, a photo of the video feed in the overflow room, where some 60 of us watched. It didn’t feel like a situation where one needed to applaud, since Sedaris wasn’t there to hear it, but people clapped at times anyway in appreciation.

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Column: Patti Smith talks books in LA with Claremont writer

I attended a cultural event in LA on Monday, a public talk by Patti Smith, the rocker, interviewed onstage by Jonathan Lethem. I don’t know if he and I were the only two people from Claremont there, but we may have been. That leads off my Friday column. After that: three Valley Vignette items and two Culture Corner items — one of them about Shakespeare, two of whose plays are being performed locally this weekend.

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