If there’s one thing people know about Superchief it’s that they know how to throw a party. The opening on Saturday for "Boiled Angel" is exactly what you would expect (free beer, DJ) and what you wouldn’t (piñatas of Pikachu and Donald Trump filled with money and...
Sharon Engelstein – Ever to Find
It is for some of us (the more fortunate among us) the first fear or horror we know – our first encounter with something at first glimpse familiar that upon extended gaze or lingering examination reveals itself as utterly transmogrified, and suddenly, quite...
Chimento Contemporary: Cole Case
Cole Case is a man obsessed with: airplanes, the night sky, palm trees, runways, depopulated public spaces and his own private plethora of nostalgic memorabilia. Armed with these iconographic signifiers, Case, in his second solo exhibition with Chimento Contemporary,...
EDITOR’S LETTER
Dear Readers In our last issue, which came out in January, I wrote about Trump becoming our president and the effect this potentially disastrous turn of events might have upon the art world... or not. In any case, in my last sentence I said that we would not be...
The Many Shades of Kerry James Marshall
It’s cold. He looks even larger in his winter coat. He is a large man. Tall and broad-shouldered. In football, he might be a tight end; I’ve stood next to several players for the Bears. He would not seem out of place among such large men except that the hair on his...
We Don’t Need No Stinking Wall
If there is anybody more unpopular in Mexico at the moment than President Enrique Peña Nieto, it is, of course, Donald J. Trump. After a long list of aggressions, rudeness and even “jokes” by Trump, and in the middle of a big domestic crisis—both political and...
Ana Teresa Fernandez Paints it Away
Five years ago, San Francisco–based painter, sculptor and performance artist Ana Teresa Fernández woke from a long night’s sleep with a sudden inspiration: She would erase the border fence that divides the United States and Mexico. It was June, 2011. That October,...
Women on the Verge of a Cultural Breakthrough
Kim Abeles’ studio doesn’t have enough chairs, so we have to sit in the adjacent gallery space at the front entrance of the building. Even though it’s glaringly sunny outside, it’s freezing inside the space as attendees spill into the room and sit down on rolling...
Nan Goldin: Diving for Pearls
Nan Goldin, to borrow a phrase from her friend and fellow-artist David Wojnarowicz, has always lived and worked “close to the knives.” Her most recent published collection, Diving for Pearls, can only intensify our appreciation for her images of that pain and that...
The Water Bar is Open
A lot has changed over the last two years in the world of water. The high level of lead found in children living in Flint, Michigan—exposed by consuming and bathing in Flint River tap water—was brought to the nation’s attention. And last fall, over 10,000 Keystone...
GUEST LECTURE
LOOK FOR SPECIAL EDITION POSTCARDS BY SUSAN SILTON INSIDE OUR MARCH/APRIL 2017 ISSUE Susan Silton, Delivery Systems, 2017 A special edition for Artillery consisting of eight inserted postcards addressed to current U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Los Angeles–based...
DECODER
If you ever said fine art was a political act, you were wrong. Consciousness-raising—as art’s broad project, as an abstraction somehow implied in the diversions and ironies of what is done in galleries—did not work. Or, as a press release might put it: received...
CURFEW
Melbourne street artist Ms Saffaa painted and wheat-postered a wall with a Muslim feminist protest mural. The collage of Saudi artists and activists shared the space with pink Arabic reading: “radical Muslim.” It took over 80 hours to complete—and one night for...
RETROSPECT
When I first saw a reproduction of The Bedroom I thought, Oh my God, this guy has so few clothes. Later I altered my assessment of the painting and thought how cool to cut out all the crap in your life and just have a few necessities so you could concentrate on what’s...
BUNKER VISION
Trying to actually define The Situationists is a slippery business. The more people who weigh in on what they were about, the more confusing it becomes. As an official art movement, Situationism existed from 1957 to 1972. They are considered a missing link between...
ASK BABS
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO Dear Babs, I’m thinking about leaving the U.S. and moving to Berlin because this country is about to explode and also because everyone says Berlin is better for artists. Is this true? How would I go about making this move? —Thomas Newton,...
SHOPTALK
Revolution in the Making “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity ...” Charles Dickens was writing about London and Paris before and...
OP-ED
A friend of mine spent election night serving drinks at a bar in Highland Park. During the day she worked in her studio—she was preparing for an upcoming gallery exhibition. In the evenings she makes a living bartending. Before the election results poured in, she...