Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz Goldner.
Hi Liz, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up on the East Coast with parents who loved the arts and often took me to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. At MOMA, we spent hours perusing the Monets, Picassos, and Dalis. Over the years, I often returned to MOMA, heading straight for the paintings that had become like old friends.
I became an editor for a variety of publications on the East and West Coast, as well as a freelance writer, reporting on a variety of topics. After moving to Orange County, CA in 1988, I wrote for several local publications.
With my love of art, I often visited museums and galleries throughout SoCal. In 1999, I enrolled in a nine-month-long docent training program at the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in The OC.
In that program, we studied the history of modern and contemporary art and learned about color, light and shadow, shape and form, composition, materials and subject matter. We viewed images of great art from all over the world. After a lecture on French Impressionism, I drove onto the Pacific Coast Highway, looked toward the Newport Bluffs, and envisioned the landscape as a Cezanne painting.
We also learned about California impressionism and understood how the earlier French Impressionist works have more dissolving forms and urban scenes. We studied the L.A. based Light and Space art school, founded in the 1960’s by Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Ed Kienholz and other contemporary artists. The docent teachers explained how these cool young artists used high-tech materials and methods to create sculptures that echoed California’s color and light. We discussed Richard Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” paintings, immersing ourselves in his broad-brush strokes.
In 2,000, I pitched an article to the local OC Metro lifestyle magazine on OCMA’s exhibition, “Circles of Influence.” That show explored SoCal’s early 20th-century artistic growth as influenced by East Coast artists and avant-garde Modernists in Europe. The magazine accepted my article, in which I explained that art movements are more circular than linear, that artists learn from one another, and expand their knowledge of art forms and techniques by engaging with art and artists from beyond their individual spheres.
Soon after, OC Metro’s editors asked me to be the publication’s art columnist. I immediately said “Yes.” I plunged into that assignment joyfully. And that opportunity became the genesis of my art journalism career.
For six years, I wrote two art reviews a month about art exhibitions, artists and curators from all over Orange County for OC Metro. I also continued to educate myself about traditional and modern art through reading Time/Life art history books, other art books, articles on the Internet and by dialoguing with art people who I interviewed and met at art events.
In the early 2000s, OCMA mounted the modern art exhibition, “Picasso to Pollack.” I read voraciously about the modern artists in the show, including Picasso, Matisse and Rivera, before it opened. When I gave my docent tours of the show, I began by envisioning holding my mother’s hand. Then I proceeded to tell stories about the various artists’ lives and loves as we passed by their individual pieces. My tours often swelled to 50 or more people, with many art lovers just listening to my stories as other attendees were blocking their views.
More than 20 years later, my career as an art writer is flourishing. I have visited numerous galleries and museums throughout SoCal, and recently in the Bay Area and San Diego, and written reviews on art in these areas. I have looked at countless artworks in many styles and genres and read extensively about art in books, newspapers, magazines and catalogs. I continually dialogue with art patrons, museum curators and directors while supporting and encouraging artists through my articles.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a person who began writing about art a bit later in life, I’ve sometimes felt as though I’ve had a lot of catching up to do. This reality has spurred me to work harder than others, to perhaps be more attentive to details, to strive for accuracy and reliability.
However, as I’ve proceeded along my path as an art journalist, I’ve discovered that my writing abilities and understanding of art are as good as some of the best art writers in SoCal.
I also reflect on my lifelong quest to learn about world affairs, including current events, history and biographies of significant people, enabling me to weave into my articles interesting facts from the world beyond art.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I write about a broad range of art-related subjects in my articles, profiles and reviews while elucidating art styles, movements and genres, including abstract, assemblage, Chicano art, California Impressionism, California Scene Painting, conceptual, figurative, graffiti, performance art, photographic art and pop art. My articles cover socially conscious art, environmental art, the merging of art with science, among other art-related themes.
I address the synergy between artists, artwork and the creative process, and the connections of previous art styles and movements to current trends. I dialogue with artists, art lovers and arts administrators in interviews, on studio visits and at exhibitions. I listen to artists talk about their passions and frustrations about their work and lives. I have reviewed several exhibitions on noteworthy Chicano artists, For a review of a Gilbert Luján exhibition at UC Irvine, I wrote, “Along with the artist’s Chicano-based subject matter, joy, energy and extensive use of primary colors emanate from his works. With this outlook, Luján helped alter the formerly disparaging perception of Chicano into one that is cultural, socially progressive and inclusive.”
For a review on the exhibition, “Alice Neel: People Come First,” at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, I wrote, “Neel’s expressive, stylized paintings of the many people she interacted with reveal a passion and dignity that speaks with a consistent frankness through most of her career. Her brand of realism anticipated the emergence of modern feminism and social practice, thus conveying the zeitgeist of the eras they inhabited.”
For a review on the exhibition, “Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s” at San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I wrote, “The paintings, sculpture, and assemblage from the 1960s, on which the exhibition focuses, conjoin joy with rage, artistic expertise with primitive energy, all of it infused with vitality and sensuality.”
What do you specialize in?
My articles on artists and art venues provide exposure and critical dialogue. My articles let makers and presenters know that they have an impact on the art world and beyond and how that impact may be interpreted. My reviews thread a narrative between the artist, the artwork, and the connecting creative process. My knowledge of art history and how these movements relate to current trends create educational awareness for the public.
I often compare current artistic trends to historic ones. In an International Association of Art Critics (AICA) newsletter article, comparing our pandemic to the dark mood in mid-20th century Europe and to surrealism, I wrote, “When this pandemic is over, we will discover that people in the art world have created work that not only expresses the challenging era we are living in but—as with the surrealist movement—have produced outstanding art pieces.”
I am privileged to enter a world that resonates with color, light, form, texture and the often-intense emotions of the artists as translated onto canvas, photo paper, wood, clay or virtually any material. I converse with artists who draw inspiration from sources as diverse as Renaissance paintings and modern conceptual pieces and then pay homage to these works in their own pieces, filtering these influences through the prisms of their inner muses.
What are you most proud of?
Earning the trust and admiration through my writing of artists, curators, gallery and museum directors and art patrons who live and work in Southern California!
I have written nearly 1,000 art reviews and articles for dozens of print and online publications including Artillery, HuffPost, KCET Artbound, L.A. Weekly, L.A. Review of Books, L.A. Times, Orange Coast, O.C. Register, San Diego Union-Tribune, Visual Art Source and Women in the Arts.
I have won 15 arts journalism awards from the Orange County Press Club, including seven First Place awards. I was nominated for a National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award from the Los Angeles Press Club. I have contributed to and edited five art-related books.
I address human rights in my reviews. About Laguna Beach artist Jorg Dubin, I wrote: “His final submission to the Arts Commission was ‘Black Lives Matter,’ a black sculptural work depicting a raised arm and fist symbolic of the BLM movement. It is a timely testament to the horrors occurring in our nation and to the healing powers of people uniting behind a common humanitarian cause.”
I have published dozens of articles referencing UC Irvine’s art department and exhibitions. One article reads: “UCI in its early days was a haven of forward-thinking creativity where instructors transcended the limits of formal art styles while employing tolerance, dialogue, diversity and experimentation in their teaching methods.”
Every assignment presents an opportunity to learn about art movements and styles, to meet with people in the arts, and to develop my skills as an art writer.
What sets you apart from others?
When I write art reviews, I dialogue with artists, living and deceased, finding out about their lives, understanding why and how they created their work. I do extensive research for every piece I write. I take the time to really understand the work artists create and why they do so.
As a practicing Buddhist, I feel that my mission is to express my highest nature to readers through my writings. Words are mysterious. They have tremendous power. Using words as my tools, I write about artists who use artmaking to reveal their own enlightened natures.
Any big plans?
My long-term aspirations are to continue to write proactive and socially conscious art reviews and books and to explore how artists and supporters improve our world through their work as they express their authentic selves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lizgoldner.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liz.goldner.14
Image Credit:
Image 1: Photo by Eric Stoner
Image 2: Photo by Mark Chamberlain
Image 3: Photo by Mark Chamberlain
Image 4: Portrait by Bradford Salamon
