Illustration by RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin
By Barbara McGuire
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In 1903, Henry Ford revolutionized the automotive industry by
adapting the assembly line to build cars quicker and cheaper than
before. The assembly line has once again been reinvented, this time
with art.
Stephen Keene, a New York based artist, creates his works with a
painting assembly line much similar to Ford’s. His assembly
line products are currently on display at the Santa Monica Museum
of Art in an exhibit titled, “The Miracle Half-Mile: Ten
Thousand Paintings by Stephen Keene,” and will remain there
until Jan. 28.
Paintings, however, aren’t the only part of the exhibit.
Also on display is Keene himself, as he demonstrates to viewers
exactly how his assembly line works. Barricaded off on one end of
the exhibit is a workspace in which Keene finishes approximately a
hundred paintings each day.
 Photos by COURTNEY STEWART Visitors Steven
Ross (left) and Daniel Sussman view one
of artist Stephen Keene‘s paintings at the Santa
Monica Museum of Art. Keene uses an assembly-line
technique to create his works. “All the paintings are
finished at the same time,” said Keene of his assembly line.
“I don’t do one complete and then start another;
they’re all kind of worked on at the same time. I’ll
start off with one color, I’ll do all the blues and then
I’ll go in and do all the greens.”
“The Miracle Half-Mile” proves to be more than just
an exhibit, as it is possible for a visitor to buy any painting off
the wall, transforming the museum into a gallery. The prices are
more than reasonable, ranging from $3 for an extra-small to $25 for
an extra-large.
“If people go into an art gallery and they know that the
paintings are $10,000 a piece, they look at it, but they
don’t look at it as closely as if it’s cheap enough for
them to actually buy,” Keene said. “Because, if
you’re buying something then you look at it very
carefully.”
Though Keene creates the subject matter of his paintings from
whatever he feels like, whether inspired by a postcard or catalogue
photo, the exhibit’s subject matter is intended to focus on
the collections of art that can be found in museums throughout Los
Angeles. More so, the paintings simply appear to be inspired by the
Los Angeles area.
 Photos by COURTNEY STEWART Stephen Keene
works on one of his paintings in the exhibit “The Miracle
Half-Mile,” currently on display at the Santa Monica Museum
of Art.
Many of them, for instance, are scenic renditions, some obvious,
some not so obvious, the locations of which Keene labels on the
actual painting. An example of a more well-known location is the
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its namesake chandeliers, while a
not-so-well-known Los Angeles location would be the Falls of St.
Anthony.
Other than identification labels, other tidbits can also be
found on various pieces, such as quotes and words of wisdom, some
very familiar, such as a line from the Limp Bizkit song
“Rearrange.”
“I just get stuff off the radio, just sort of silly lines
from songs and things like that,” Keene said.
“It’s almost like you’re suppose to decipher (the
quotes), like they’re hieroglyphics or something ““ try
to figure out where my mind is at a certain time.”
When visitors enter the exhibition room, one of the first things
they may notice is the fact that the walls appear to be overflowing
with paintings, covered from ceiling to floor with various works.
According to Keene, the placement of his paintings are just as
important as what they contain.
“When you go to a place like Europe and you go to a
castle, every inch of the space is filled with paintings, and so
this is my way of recreating that experience, of walking into a
space,” Keene said. “If you go to a castle in France or
Italy, you just see so much art, every square inch of the room, and
this is my attempt to mimic that.”
In addition to covering the walls, Keene scatters the floor with
various projects. There are numerous benches and boxes located
throughout the exhibit that Keene has covered with various designs
on all sides. Keene boasted that these were great utilitarian
items, as they could actually be used to sit on.
Keene further said that the point of attempting to cover every
white space with art was to also transform the entire exhibit into
one great piece of art, as opposed to having 10,000 individual
pieces.
Though Keene claims he doesn’t invent anything new in his
art, “The Miracle Half-Mile” is unique with its
assembly line production, which creates hundreds of paintings at
once, and his wall-to-wall display.
“I don’t invent anything new,” Keene said.
“I’m a different kind of artist than somebody that will
go and try to paint a still life or something like that.”
“This whole experience, of just seeing my work, is sort of
like you’re in a big painting because everything is
painted,” he continued. “I don’t really think
about what I paint that much, I paint realistically, figuratively,
pictures, but it’s almost like this is an abstract painting
that we’re in.”
ART: “The Miracle Half-Mile: Ten Thousand
Paintings by Stephen Keene” is on display at the SMMoA at
Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building G1 in Santa Monica.
The museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6
p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., there is a suggested
donation of $3.00 to enter. For information call (310) 586-6488 or
visit www.netvip.com/smmoa.