"Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981": THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY AT MOCA, LOS ANGELES

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IN CONTRAST TO THE SPIRIT of celebratory commemoration and even boosterism that underlies so many "Pacific Standard Time" exhibitions thus far, Paul Schimmel's latest curatorial effort, "Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974--1 981," has a critical and historical argument to make. His premise is that a "plethora of individual art practices"--what he dubs "California pluralism"-- "flourished within (the era's] dystopian atmosphere." To put it more bluntly: "Bad times" make for 'good art," or at least the kind of art Schimmel favors, which tends toward a negativity bordering on the apocalyptic.

"Under the Big Black Sun" is named after an album by the Los Angeles punk band X that was released in 1982 with a very noir cover by Alfred Harris. "Heiter Skelter," Schimmel's groundbreaking 1992 survey of contemporary LA art (at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), likewise took its title …