Picasso knew what he was up against – literally. He pasted it into his art, more or less inventing collage in the process. He (along with a few of his other Cubist colleagues) also played with trompe l’oeil, but he understood this wasn’t the same thing – a device...
Emily Counts
Emily Counts' sculptures appear suspended at an intriguing juncture of covetable fashion and female shamanism. Of motley materials and contrasting forms, Counts' esoteric abstract shapes evoke mystical amulets or dreamcatchers; while their candy-hued glossy surfaces...
Walton Ford’s Natural History for California Dreamers
I’ve always thought the human preoccupation with borders and perimeters had more to do with its relationship with animal wildlife (not that humans have ever exactly been ‘tame’). I realize I’m speaking a bit off the top of my head – I’ve never done any serious...
Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles: : Ellen Gallagher
There’s a lot to learn from Ellen Gallagher’s new exhibition. For example, it turns out Herman Melville was an Afrofuturist. And that the Atlantic Ocean is the original abstract expressionist. Also, that it is possible to make a map of something you can never see. On...
Season of the Witch (1) – Hecate
I’m thinking about family albums right now – not something that comes to mind very often (and now I’m wondering if this is the first time I’ve ever considered this). I suppose this could also be something captured and stored digitally – but for some reason, it doesn’t...
Chinatown Hopscotch
After a momentary pause it feels good to come back and blog for Last Night. With the rolling sexual allegations at the forefront of the media, the opening of SELFHOOD: The Space Between, a collaboration with the artist collective, Honey Power and Nous Tous Gallery by...
SUGAR PLUM FAIRY at South Coast Repertory
If you’re all Nutcrackered out even before Christmas arrives, Sugar Plum Fairy may be the perfect tonic. Sandra Tsing Loh, as actor, writer and comedienne, mines her pre-teen years growing up in the San Fernando Valley. She relates the story of being the younger,...
Sarah McEneaney & Ann Toebbe
Each painting currently displayed at Zevitas Marcus evokes the satisfyingly voyeuristic sensation of Sarah McEneaney or Ann Toebbe allowing you to peer through a window or skylight into her studio or home. This show's compendious title, "Home Work," bespeaks...
Engender (group show curated by Joshua Friedman) – Kohn Gallery
What are the contours of gender? Is there a range of conditions that determine gender along a curve or spectrum we can visualize or somehow represent, measure or analyze? Is there a focal point we can identify that will turn it in one direction or another? Most of us...
CAAM: : Black Radical Women
Rallying against overwhelmingly white, male perspectives in art history, “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85” at the California African American Museum (CAAM) is not to be missed. The exhibition highlights the stylistically varied work of over 30...
Empathy Through Technology: Re-examining Vulnerability
The provocation of vulnerability has long been a mainstay of impactful art. Video and film media, given their reliance on the staging of exposure and emotional confrontation, are no exception. An exhibition...
FILM: The Square; Lady Bird
In the new Swedish film The Square directed by Ruben Ostlund, Christian (Claes Bang ) is the hip and handsome chief curator of X-Royal, a major contemporary art museum so-named because it is set in a former royal palace. After being pickpocketed on the street, he does...
The Option of Comorbidity: Andi Magenheimer
In Andi Magenheimer’s “HpPy BRdDY,” a smiling and limbless dinosaur’s engorged human breasts graze the reflecting water below, imperturbably still while a rhododendron sheds its petals endlessly from the shore, the sunset curving into and around the creature’s...
Walton Ford
It's unique to see a distant artist delving deeply into our obscure local lore. In his current show at Gagosian, New York-based painter Walton Ford travels far back in time to the land of the Natural History Museum and La Brea Tar Pits. The exhibition's title,...
Chimento Contemporary: : Phyllis Green
Spiritual aspirations present this fundamental dilemma: we exist as physical beings in a material world of far more palpable empirical reality than anything incorporeal, with pragmatic demands inevitably more urgent than intangibles. Without surplus resources, how...
THE MIAMI REPORT: Day 1
“What’s Art Basel like?” It’s a question I get asked a lot. Mainly because within my friend groups I’m either the only artist, or I’m the only artist who makes it her business to visit the fairs in Miami. My first time making this trip was two years ago. I didn’t...