In a historic section of Glendale called Adams Hill, art, transportation and parks converge.
Artworks by Los Angeles multi-disciplinary contemporary artist Raphaele Cohen-Bacry fill up a gas station, which is part of the Adams Square Mini Park on the corner of South Adams Street and East Palmer Avenue.
Well, the gas station is no longer operating. In fact it’s a 1936 Richfield Oil filling station, whose Streamline Moderne architecture was preserved by the city and the Adams Hill neighborhood years ago, along with the station, complete with the drive area and overhang — absent the gas pumps.
The park and the antique gas station have become a center of Adams Hill, with coffee shops and kabob delicatessens encircling what has become a community focal point. It’s where folks sip coffee and read a book on park benches or just sit and take in the quiet.
And they look at the public art.
Exhibits rotate every few weeks. This exhibition, “Gentle Giants,” installed July 13 will be there through Oct. 2. It features suspended collage creatures made of torn pieces of magazines, wallpaper and a unique process where paint is applied to water and the scrap paper is immersed to create colors and texture.
This is the second installation for Cohen-Bacry at the gas station. Born in Paris, she started as a painter but in the past eight years began doing 3-D collages mostly made out of recycled materials.
Cohen-Bacry, 58, who was called by the New York Times one of five rising contemporary artists to watch, has had showings in galleries in Las Vegas, plus many in Southern California, including in Torrance, Chatsworth, Pomona, Cerritos College, Coastline College in Newport Beach, Irvine, Malibu and Santa Monica.
Why show her work at an old gas station when the gallery invites are plentiful?
“It is interesting being in a space that wasn’t meant for art. It wasn’t built for that. And you have to make it work,” she said during an interview on Friday, July 17 from her Los Angeles studio.
The art is inside the station, where perhaps the cashier sat amidst the shelf of snacks and smokes. This time, it’s where the artist’s large figures hang, some propped up tall on stands, but all visible only behind the glass. Yet, these giant, colorful collages can be seen from all angles, by all people for free, even those who didn’t come there to see art.
“People don’t have to make a conscious decision and say ‘I will see art today.’ They are saying: ‘Oh, what is this?,” she said.
During the installation, some parents with kids wandered by. She waved them into the gas station, inviting surprised faces. “It was great to see their reaction right away. There was this little girl, she was like mesmerized,” she said. “I love the dynamics here of kids with their parents.”
Zach Kash, sitting on a bench sipping a coffee, his dog beside him, said he enjoys the park and the art displays. He’s on vacation from teaching high school government and economics.
“The fact we had this old gas station and they turned it into a park is lovely,” he said.
He was still getting used to the big, somewhat scary figures hanging, looking out at him. Some surrounded by smaller birds to give scale.
“It’s not bad at all,” he began. “The thing is, I just don’t get the theme of it.” After a long sip of his coffee, he turned to look closer at one of the larger, colorful “giants” and added: “It might make a great album cover.”
Cohen-Bacry likens the collage giants to something in a fairy tale. Her exhibit is meant to show that people who look different than you can be scary at first, but they’re really friendly.
“The giants also look at you,” she said. “I hope people see them as caretakers. They might look scary but they are paper tigers.”
She said her giants are interesting, like the ones encountered by Lemuel Gulliver in the 1726 satirical novel “Gulliver’s Travels.”
“Just like fairy tales you heard when you were a kid, they can be scary. And life can be scary but we can overcome and find beauty in people who don’t look like you. I hope it helps people discern what is really scary and what might not be scary.”
One woman sat looking at the exhibit, sometimes turning away. “I wish the art would be a little bit more positive. I am an artist. I wrote a children’s book. But I would never want a child to see this,” she said, declining to give her name.
“You cannot please everybody,” said Cohen-Bacry. “Otherwise you are not authentic.”