Arriving at the 2016 edition of Gagosian's pre-Oscar show felt like arriving at LA’s hottest nightclub with an eclectic line that stretched down the block and around the corner complete with hungry paparazzi waiting at the entrance. Inside the gallery was an...
Cy Twombly’s suite of stunningly chaotic and gorgeously rendered free-form drawings at c.nichols project would stop any viewer dead in their tracks. These are ferociously contemporary works that are mandatory viewing for anyone interested in modern art in any...
Bubblegum colors and an interest in the mundane are threads that unite the seemingly unrelated pieces in “Pizza, Bagpipe, Carburetor” by Meg Cranston. The show’s conceptual gambit—subject matter selected by Cranston using an internet-hosted random noun generator, an I...
Erwin Wurm’s "One Minute Sculptures" at The MAK Center is crammed with critically disruptive content, though at first glance there’s not much to look at. In a literalized enactment of the Duchampian observation that “the viewer completes the art,” visitors to Wurm’s...
Dear Readers You’ve heard the one about how sculpture is something you bump into when backing up to look at a painting. An old boyfriend who was a sculptor told me that joke.He also told me the story about how Louise Bourgeois was at a high power dinner with an...
The “death of painting” is frequently traced to the work and writing of Donald Judd. In 1965's “Specific Objects,” the same essay in which Judd outlined painting’s limitations—above all, its inherent illusionism—he even more forcefully predicted the death of...
Land Art, also known as Earth Art, emerged in the period that was, with hindsight, clearly one of the most radical, innovative, experimental and groundbreaking periods in the history of art. The genre is part of a much wider trend that falls under the umbrella of...
Ceramics is again making a major splash in the world of fine arts. Way back in the 1950s Peter Voulkos pushed ceramics into that realm, with his Abstract Expressionist pieces of cut and contorted clay slabs, followed by the works of his students (among them, John...
The sculptures of Sergio Garcia contain an otherworldly essence. Like relics from an alternate dimension created by Salvador Dali, Henry Darger and Kaz Oshiro, Garcia’s surreal concoctions teeter on the brink of absurdity and play with the experience of living and...
As a student, seeking respite from the relatively hidebound painting department, I often retreated to the sculpture studios. There, the critical gaze of teachers seemed less intense; sculpture students did as they pleased. Around that time about a decade ago, I took...
Stefan Simchowitz is a controversial figure in the art world. He doesn’t own an art gallery yet maintains a large network of art collectors. He eloquently expounds upon art theory but is not associated with an art institution. He provides advice and monetary support...
We are in the midst of the information age, with archives and libraries overflowing, and records piling up like plastic in the ocean. How does personal value translate to cultural value, or is it the same thing? Who decides what is worth preserving? How should...
So I was at this opening—or maybe it was an event. In a project space. Or maybe it was a party. There were paintings. It was definitely not an installation. Or, okay: there were things installed in it and the whole space had been taken over and changed but it was not...
Where cities are being built up and money spent, local legislation has often passed a percent-for-art program; alternately, cities look to create stable partnerships between the public and private sectors, so some of that money is made available for public art, too....
Kenny Price’s objects are modest in size and endless in meaning, which is another way of saying they make you think and feel instead of just impressing you. At a recent career survey at Parrasch Heijnen Gallery’s inaugural LA show, the first piece you are confronted...
Urban art is the great equalizer. With the rise of spray-painting and wheatpostering, the public is no longer forced to visit museums and see what rich white males call art. But one of the few mediums urban art cannot annex is sculpture; like museums, the field is...
During my last visit to my old drinking hole in San Francisco, the Gangway—right before I moved back to LA—I was having a few beers with one of the bar’s many characters I had befriended: Guy was his name. He had told me a few times about how he was a metal sculptor...
Jack Brogan is a fabricator. He makes things. Challenged with the whim, fancy and far-reaching concepts of the artist, Brogan, 86, will produce a dimensional object. His influence will never be truly known nor appreciated. ARTILLERY: Your proficiency in new materials...
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