Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle

by Michael Duncan

The quintessential visual artist of the Beat era, Wallace Berman (1926-1976) remains one of the best kept secrets of the late 20th century. A crucial figure in California's postwar underground, Berman was a catalyst who traveled through many different worlds, transferring ideas and dreams from one circle to the next. His larger community is the subject of Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle, a catalogue to the exhibition organized by the Santa Monica Muesum of Art including previously unexhibited works by 52 artists. Anchoring this publication is Semina, a free-form art and poetry journal that Berman published in nine issues between 1955 and 1964. Although privately made and distributed to a mere handful of friends and sympathizers, Semina is a brilliant compendium of the most interesting artists and poets of its time. Showcasing the individuals who came to define a still potent strand of post-war beat counter-culture, Semina Culture subtly outlines the energies, values, and foibles of this fascinating circle. Also reprduced here are works by various artists and writers who appear in Berman's own photographs-approximately 100 of which were recently developed from vintage negatives, and will be seen here for the first time. Includes paintings and drawings by Cameron, John Altoon, Jay DeFeo, Bruce Conner and Joan Brown; collages and assemblages by Robert Alexander, Stuart Perkoff, John Reed, George Herms and Jess; poetry by Robert Duncan, David Meltzer, Philip Lamantia and John Wieners; and photographs by Charles Brittin, Walter Hopps and Patricia Jordan. Edited by Michael Duncan and Kristine McKenna. Essays by Michael Duncan and Kristine McKenna and Stephen Fredman. Hardcover, 9 x 11 in./384 pgs / 242 color and 250 b&w.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Visual Art

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2005

About the author

Michael Duncan, a critic and independent curator, is a Corresponding Editor for Art in America. His writings have focused on maverick artists of the twentieth century, West Coast modernism, twentieth century figuration, and contemporary California art. His curatorial projects include surveys and recontextualizations of works by Pavel Tchelitchew, Sister Corita Kent, Kim MacConnel, Lorser Feitelson, Eugene Berman, Richard Pettibone, Alberto Burri, and Wallace Berman. He was the curator of the 2009 Texas Biennial and is curator of the forthcoming exhibitions LA RAW: Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles 1945-1980: From Rico Lebrun to Paul McCarthy and An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, & Their Circle.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book on my life. And please take my word for it, you are not going to find another book this good on the American Post-War years with respect to the 'Underground" Beat and pre-hippie scene.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my review of the exhibition, see http://www.mapmagazine.co.uk/index.cfm?page=984F1E34-BDF5-2379-71075D0184E53D92&articleid=211

[Stephen Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good history of Wallace Berman and his crowd and the philosophy behind Semina. The personal histories are mostly anecdotal vignettes, but fascinating in tracing the spirit of a particular time and place.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, but it feels like an appendix to the complete reprint of Semina more than an independent work.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art, movies, drugs, and the triphammer heart of the 20th Century. For years I've been intrigued by glimpses of a loose grouping of California artists, actors, and characters that show up in all kinds of unexplained places, a tangle of fascinating threads that point to the birth of rock as serious music, the transformation of beat culture into psychedelia, politics into art, and even unlikely survivals of arcane occultism -- a crazy knot that always suggests more than it reveals. This splendid volume, a narrative catalog of an exhibit I wish I'd seen, is the best map to that maze I've seen yet. Organized around the work of Wallace Berman, photographer, collage artist, and publisher of a brief-lived literary journal, influential almost beyond comprehension, and a cast of characters that includes names both famous and forgotten, the exhibit and the book tie together the lives and works of poets, artists, occultists, and actors into a picture of the mid-century at its most poignant. Much of the art and verse seems naive now but the lives are still vital and as a cross-section of history that points to the lost daily lives of remarkable people, it's a superb story.

[Seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING. No normal person can afford this book (just look it up on Abebooks) but everyone NEEDS to get it from the library. Gorgeous, huge, packed with incredible art, a testament to the unbounded creativity of Berman and his peers.

[Brent Legault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artfelt. Shivery. Wonderment.