Film and video artist Christopher Richmond has been interested in science fiction for as long as he can remember. When he was a kid, he rented videos based solely on the cover art; his favorites were sci-fi. “Any sort of surrealist landscape, I was sold,” he tells me...
Power to the Hashtag
While there’s nothing new about teenagers making parody videos—which have been a part of popular viral culture since the existence of strap on-webcams, :NSYNC and the boredom of teen years—a recent parody clip has transcended the form. What began as a typical pop...
Akio Hizume: Renewable Futures
The structure is made out of bamboo poles and stakes, secured with palm rope. It stretches from the side door leading out of the museum, crosses the small courtyard, and extends towards the street. The soft beige color of the Moso bamboo underscores the apparent...
Reine Paradis: Surreal Chic
The photographic tableaux of Los Angeles–based Parisian transplant Reine Paradis evoke an ambiguity of place. The central focal point of each is a solo figure, played by Paradis, typically costumed in an A-line mini or similarly chic garment fashioned from...
Hammer’s Made in L.A. Comes of Age
“Made in L.A.” has finally hits its stride—this fourth edition feels fresh with discoveries, both of artists you may know and many you may not. It features 32 artists, from emerging ones with promising talent to the exciting re-emergence of an artist who fell from the...
CODE ORANGE: SEPT/OCT 2018
Congratulations to our winner Cole Case and our finalists. Cole Case's photo is seen above and first in ourphoto gallery. His image is also printed in our September/October issue of Artillery). The following photographs are the finalists from our September/October...
SHOPTALK
JUDY CHICAGO IN PASADENA “If men had babies, there would be thousands of images of the crowning,” Judy Chicago said in the early 1980s. The crowning is the moment the baby’s head begins to emerge from the birth canal. During a packed talk at the Women’s City Club of...
DECODER
Regular readers might remember a column from a few months ago where I got loud about how publicists are just one more way the art world has found to reward privilege by granting it more privilege so then started a search for the most obscure artist in LA so I could...
Gretchen Andrew: Searching for Different Truths
How to describe Gretchen Andrew’s practice? Her website proclaims her a “search engine artist and internet imperialist who programs her paintings to manipulate and dominate search results.” Piggy-backing on the Google phenomenon, Andrew has slyly infiltrated the World...
“Experience 35: Grounded”
John Divola is fascinated with the ruins we leave behind. He’s a trespasser by trade, wandering into suburban homes that have been abandoned or condemned, using his camera to document forgotten living rooms that have been stripped of human comforts and left to random...
ART BRIEF
President Donald Trump is no fan of the arts. His first budget proposed entirely eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Congress saved both agencies by funding them in the current budget, but their...
UNDER THE RADAR
I first realized I was an “anarchist”—somebody who doesn’t believe in government—when I first heard the word, probably when I was 11, right around the same time I figured out I was an “artist.” (I didn’t have to look that one up, though I probably should’ve.) I didn’t...
SIGHTS UNSCENE
CURFEW
LACMA’s “In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art,” (through Sept. 9) starts with a gallery devoted to Siamak Filizadeh’s digital print series "Underground." This modern-day retelling of the reign of Naser al-Din Shah (r....
RETROSPECT
Most people just call it Heaven but actually the name of the painting is The Garden of Earthly Delights. In these three panels Bosch depicted the earth, as we know it. The first panel has a wise figure (possibly religious) introducing Earth to a calm, reasonable...
BUNKER VISION
Commerce imitates art. If you recently spent a small fortune to attend a cultural event in a desert locale, it probably contains DNA from a series of conceptual concerts that were staged in the Los Angeles area between 1983 and 1985. The organizer of these events was...
Dave & Jeff’s Wonderful Column Area
RECONNOITER
Anuradha Vikram is the artistic director of 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, which is currently celebrating its 30th year. Vikram is also a senior lecturer in the MFA Social Pratice Area Emphasis at Otis College. One Googles your name, and the term...