Preview: Bobby Furst’s Desert Art Raises the Heat at La Luz de Jesus

Joshua Tree-based artist Bobby Furst  has been creating assemblage since he was little boy growing up in Laurel Canyon. Decades later, after meeting George Herms, Furst brought a portfolio of his own work to Santa Monica College of Design Art and Architecture’s administration on the first day of classes, and was admitted into Herm’s class. He spent the next year and a half, ten hours a day, seven days a week creating art at his studio space at the school.

The time between childhood and his 1998 admission into Herm’s class were taken up with photographing musicians and concerts, street people in Hollywood and Venice Beach, and traveling to Mata Ortiz, Mexico for a month to document the now-famous potter Juan Quezada  (in the late nineties those photographs accompanied a retrospective of  Quezada ‘s work at the Museum of Man in San Diego, California).

Furst moved to Joshua Tree and continued his assemblage work, building artwork that allows us to see the familiar in ways, and carry these new perceptions of social, political and environmental realities into our everyday  lives.

Furst’s show at La Luz de Jesus, “Don’t Push Me,” opening June 7, is curated by La Luz de Jesus founder Billy Shire and features twenty-five pieces.   We’re giving you a taste with a photo tour of his studio. You can view all the works at this link.

Furst with Tone Piece #1

Love Hurts

Motorcycle

Arouse Me Doorbell

SMCDAA

Homage to Picasso

Flower Power Man

Self-Portrait

Prop 187

Mobil Man

Flip Your Wig

Forbidden Utterances Racially Sordid Terminology (Parts of a Whole). This will be available as a print.

View from Furst’s studio.

photos: Lee Joseph