If there was a central flaw or fracture to Karen Finley’s The Jackie Look, it had mostly to do with a lack of clarity of its dramatic objective and trajectory. Finley seemed to be trying to both deconstruct an icon (or more precisely its refractions and reflections in...
Matt Wedel
Matt Wedel’s is not a “peaceable kingdom” but a kingdom of fruit that happens to be strangely and miraculously at peace, and quite astonishing indeed. Over two dozen wall-mounted and free-standing sculptures comprise this densely imagined tundra, encompassing Wedel’s...
Karen Finley’s “The Jackie Look”
There are probably as many words written about the ‘Jackie look’ by now as there are actual images documenting it. A quick scan of just a few of these images taken over the roughly 40 years of her public life reveals quite a range: the young equestrienne, the...
Junun Premiere at ACE Theatre
Paul Thomas Anderson took the stage at the the Ace Theatre last Sunday before the LA premiere of his new music documentary, Junun, to welcome the audience and apologize in advance for being an “asshole” for not participating in the “mandatory Q&A” that seems to...
Art World War Art
Editor's note:This piece about the current crop of art shows in Paris was submitted to us days before the latest round of carnage in the City of Light. The recent attacks certainly overshadow the offerings at any of these exhibitions, but as you'll see below, some of...
Remains: A Group show
The idea that abstract painting can be a direct conduit to the unknown, or a means by which artists struggle to understand their own mortality and relationship to God, etc., is certainly not a new concept, yet "Remains," a group show at Durden and Ray, attempts to...
Kathy Butterly
To be a truly outstanding ceramicist one must possess a love of nuance and detail. Kathy Butterly’s exhibition titled "The Weight of Color" at Shoshana Wayne Gallery is more than a mere testament to these attributes, but an all-engrossing visual experience not to be...
DECODER
Art does not want us to look at art the way we are asked to look at art. Coming in, worried about making it in time to get to the next gallery and the next, anticipating dinner, standing, not knowing how long the video will go on, not knowing if the next gallery will...
ART BRIEF
In April I received a catalog for Sotheby’s May 2015 contemporary art auction with a cover image of a cardboard Coca-Cola crate embossed in gold leaf, an artwork created by Danish artist Danh Vo. This untitled 2011 work sold at that auction on May 13 for $466,000. I...
RECONNOITER
Joanne Heyler is the founding director of The Broad museum and director and chief curator of The Broad Art Foundation. She has been Eli Broad’s principal art advisor for the past 23 years.Artillery: Have you ever disagreed with a purchasing decision, or the final...
The Idea of North / The Disease of Humanity
The North is very much on our collective minds lately – especially in the wake of recent news that TransCanada has suspended its application procedure to build the 1200-mile Keystone-XL pipeline to transport tar sands-extracted oil across the U.S. Plains states to the...
Maureen Selwood
Filmmaker and installation artist Maureen Selwood has turned her attention to the tactile world of sculpture and drawing in her first solo exhibition "Sounding the Note of A" at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, and are we lucky to witness it. Extrapolating on gestures of...
Making the “Un-Private” Public – and Urban
In many ways, Monday evening’s “Un-Private Collection” panel/conversation at Disney Hall, featuring The Broad Museum’s principal architect, Elizabeth Diller, of the Diller, Scofidio + Renfro firm of architects, and moderated by the distinguished architecture critic,...
Editor’s Letter
Dear Readers, Last month, Artillery held a panel discussion on whether artists need art school. On my way to the panel, I received a phone call from a friend telling me he wouldn’t be able to make it. This friend is known for his cynicism; he added wryly that if he...
Islam Through the Eyes of Sandow Birk
Perhaps the best example of the depth and breadth of Sandow Birk’s artistic oeuvre, along with its powerful social/political implications, is his recently completed “American Qur’an,” nine years in the making. Birk conceived of this series during the Iraq and...
Amelia Jones: The Politics of Identity
Considering the degree to which historians live in the past, Amelia Jones may not be what you’d expect. Confronting cultural biases relating to the politics of identity, she seems as much social activist as art historian.Via art history, Jones speaks out against the...
Humble Materials: NuttapHol Ma
On a hot August night in the Pico-Union neighborhood near Downtown Los Angeles, Nuttaphol (pronounced nut-tah-pun) Ma welcomed me to The China Outpost, the project the 43-year-old artist calls a nomadic, self-imposed sweatshop, which bleeds into his living space at...
Shiri Mordechay Deals with Darkness
During her childhood in provincial Nigeria, Shiri Mordechay recalls traversing roadways littered with human skulls, glimpsing live babies discarded in trash cans and being spellbound by a harrowing band of voodoo practitioners that surrounded her abode and pounded...