Golden Hollywood 12
2009
Joe Goode
Acrylic on archival digital print
73" x 25"
Photo: Courtesy Greenfield Sacks Gallery

The fire that ravaged Joe Goode's studio almost five years ago is the benchmark in most descriptions of his recent work. Inspired by a digital camera that he salvaged from the wreckage, the first body of work he created after the fire was called "Ashes" and featured images of his destroyed studio. Ashes showed at DNJ Gallery in the spring of 2008. His current series, "Golden Dreams," on view through March 6 at Greenfield Sacks Gallery at Bergamot Station, perpetuates the destroyed aesthetic established by Ashes in large-scale photo-mosaics obscured with clear acrylic gel and gold pigment. Commissioned by the new W Hotel to create an image of the surrounding neighborhood at Hollywood and Vine, Goode photographed the historic area on a series of Sunday mornings all before 7 a.m. Devoid of the bustle that characterizes the district, Goode witnessed the ruin of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Across a mosaic of 8 by 10 inch black and white archival prints, Goode smeared large swaths of acrylic gel and gold pigment. As the gel dried, it rendered the surface of the prints indistinct. Symbolically, this secondary layer of gold may approach but can never fully revive the former glamour of Hollywood.

The ambiguous light of early morning is best captured by Goode's seven smaller prints on PET film, each measuring approximately 11 by 17 inches. Green Light (2009) balances the rising sun in a strikingly dark sky against a glowing green traffic light suspended over the empty street. In Hollywood Tower (2009), the neon still glows ironically in competition with the approaching light of dawn. On Sunday morning Hollywood seems tragic, the brilliant lights lose their luster and the veneer of success seems to dissolve in the light of day.