Portraiture has been a constant in art-making since the waning Middle Ages, and really since art first appeared (though they wouldn’t have called it that), which may extend back into prehistory. I would further conjecture that such early art itself encompassed a kind...
“Pictures Girls Make”: Portraitures — curated by Alison M. Gingeras — Blum & Poe
Pick of the Week: Theodora Allen Blum & Poe
We are supposed to wish upon them when we see them fall. But however sentimentalized shooting stars may be, they are merely rocky debris skimming the atmosphere — all their mythology is manufactured by those of us watching in awe from our Earthly confines. In the five...
Ten More to Remember — or simply bring to Los Angeles Postscript to the 2021 Artillery Top Ten
As I wrote to preface ARTILLERY’s 2021 “Top Ten” compilation, there could have easily been a parallel list of 10 or more shows and exhibitions approaching the level of the ten I selected. At one time, the magazine designated a few “honorable mentions,” usually, as I...
Pick of the Week: Anna Weyant, Alexander Tovborg, & Asuka Anastacia Ogawa Blum & Poe
Belief – whether you call it religion, spirituality, or anything else – is as vital to our lives as shelter or sustenance. Myth-making is how lessons are passed down, how mysteries are explored, and how home is remembered. These...
Henry Taylor
We have abandonment issues lately/forever – desolate, disconsolate and a bit fragile. In Henry Taylor’s painting, that fragility coexists with an incongruous durability – a hard thing that cracks against identity or classification or simply swallows it up. Taylor’s...
No More Parties In L.A. – Kanye West Crashes Into the Art World
I have a confession. At some point between Graduation and 2010 or 2011 (whenever he last recorded with Katy Perry), I lost track of Kanye West. Yes, of course I was peripherally aware of what he might be doing, whether in terms of his own planned record releases or...
The Center of the World is Where Your Work Happens –
The L.A. art industry never rests (as if awol ever needed proof of that!); but tradition dies hard, and art galleries and museums break out the new season alongside other arts and cultural venues. Matthew Barney had already screened his not-so-new (2014 – and six...