I make no claim as to the comprehensiveness or objectivity of this selection. Nevertheless, to the extent that it reflects personal priorities, I believe most artists, if not the entire art community, both local and international, acknowledge the existential...
TOP 10 PICK OF THE WEEK of 2018
Looking back at 2018, here are 10 exceptionally memorable shows among the 50 I’ve selected for Artillery’s online Pick of the Week throughout the year. Full reviews, and all other Picks, can be found in the column’s ongoing archive: artillerymag.com/pick-of-the-week/...
After The Price of Everything
As we raked through ashes in California, reminded that we had already entered an anthro-obscene geological epoch, the most “important” of the Fall 2018 art auctions were already taking place, with records dropping every step of the way—Hopper, Hockney, Jack Whitten,...
Alexandra Noel; Alan Turner
Up an elegant staircase in the Los Feliz mansion that is Parker Gallery, Alexandra Noel's paintings delineate rural scenes appearing very different than the verdant residential realm visible outside diamond-paned windows in the small chamber they currently occupy....
Wild Ride: Richard Prince
Last year, even as LACMA Director Michael Govan was in the midst of storing the collection off site so that demolition of older buildings could make way for the newly designed museum, he took the time to curate an exhibition featuring Pictures Generation artist...
The View From Jeffrey Deitch’s Hill
“People I have great admiration for, people in my own circle, they just keep coming to Los Angeles. All the key people, and they just keep coming,” says art dealer Jeffrey Deitch at his Los Feliz home. “It never stops. And now we have reached critical mass. It’s no...
It’s all in the paradigm shift, Hamza Walker says
A recent Barbara Kruger text mural adorns LAXART—accompanying the relaunch of their newly renovated space. The site-specific work debuted in June and extends until Spring this year. One might not have paid much attention to the building before, but Kruger’s signature...
Will Blockchain Live Up To Its Promise?
Mention Blockchain and most people immediately think of Bitcoin. No surprise since Blockchain technology was invented to track transactions of the once-esoteric cryptocurrency. But Blockchain is being touted as a technology that will revolutionize our world, in ways...
SHOPTALK
LA ARTS DISTRICT SANS ARTISTS LA, LA, our art scene is changing so rapidly. On a recent visit to the Arts District for a preview at Hauser & Wirth, I was struck by how tidy the neighborhood is looking these days. When that gallery opened two-and-a-half years ago,...
ART BRIEF
The bitter years-long dispute between billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev and Swiss art-freeport mogul Yves Bouvier (reported in this column previously) has spawned a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Sotheby’s and has resulted in possible criminal...
UNDER THE RADAR
It’s been getting harder to tell the difference between weird and normal lately. Case in point: the current flurry of activity documenting the burgeoning interest in an obscure sub-genre of lounge music, known as “Library” or “Production” music. In many ways, the...
DECODER
Q: What are your influences? A: Mediocre things, like this interview. That’s a terrible question. So I think “When I do an interview, I need to remember to ask better questions than that.” Q: But people make their own connections between your work and that of other...
Q&A with Stacen Berg
Stacen Berg, senior director at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, joined the gallery in 2011. Founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, the gallery now boasts branches in multiple cities, including London, Hong Kong and New York. When...
SIGHTS UNSCENE
RECONNOITER
Sarah Williams is co-founder and executive director of the Women’s Center for Creative Work (WCCW). What was your background before WCCW, and how did it influence your approach to the organization? I grew up in Hawthorne, CA, left to go to UC Santa Cruz, and came back...
BUNKER VISION
There is an old saying about documentaries: If you are the subject of one, it probably isn’t for the reasons that you think. Perhaps, by the same token, if you are included in a documentary on another subject, it might be for the right reasons. A recent documentary...
ASK BABS
Just One Word: PLASTICS DEAR BABS: I am really feeling the lack of creativity in my current occupation as a therapy/social worker, and am seeking to return to my passions and study either art history, curation, or some combination of the two in graduate school, which...
Adrian Piper: Concepts and Intuitions, 1965-2016
Adrian Piper’s retrospective was the largest solo show dedicated to a living American artist MoMA has ever produced, and though its Hammer iteration is a tad smaller, it’s no less of a triumph. A mixture of reams of text, performance, posters, newspaper ads, photos,...