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CODE ORANGE Time to Say Goodbye
Thank you to everyone who submitted their documentary photographs to the Code Orange column over the past eight years. A special...
BOOK REVIEW: parasocialite Brittany Menjivar's Literary Debut
Literati yet to meet Brittany Menjivar can now do so through her hardcopy publishing debut, a slender prose/poetry collection titled...
From the Editor March/April; Volume 18, issue 4
Dear Reader, I admit to being a Luddite when it comes to preferring a paintbrush to the computer. So, when artists gained access to...
OBITUARIES David Kunzle, Jay Willis and Margit Omar
Art historian and artist, curator and collector, gymnast, actor and activist David Kunzle, died January 1 at 87. Through his teaching...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Olivia van Kuiken Château Shatto
In “Biel Lieb,” Olivia van Kuiken’s inaugural exhibition at Château Shatto, oil paintings of untamed, bold color and mark-making swing between styles of ink wash, graphic novel, pixel, and gestures on the verge of becoming scripture, spellbinding the gallery. Fuchsia,...
PUBLISHER’S EYE: Yuji Ueda BLUM
Appearing as if they are on the verge of moving, Yuji Ueda’s ceramic vessels are complex, layered and their own abstracted compositions, both planned through his methodical process yet a surprise from the firing process. Based in Shigaraki, Japan—a place famous for its ceramic production and one of Japan’s Six Ancient Kilns—Ueda collects soil and wood from the region for his clay and fire for his kiln, the process for his pieces taking several months. Placed on the gallery floor, the larger pieces stand almost waist high, some oozing globs of celadon glaze and some with peeled-away layers, his tones earthy and organic with various crackled textures. While his vessels accentuate the fragility yet durability of ceramics, Ueda brings a thoughtful new perspective and dedication to the laborious process of his craft.
Yuji Ueda
BLUM
2727 S. Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
On view through May 4, 2023
REMARKS ON COLOR: Slave Ship Ivory March's Hue
To be sure, George Washington was an honest fellow by all accounts, smart and upstanding, and yes, his father did buy him a hatchet when he was six years old—hoping perhaps his son might become a lumberjack, or at the very least, an arborist. Instead, Washington employed it to chop down a cherry tree. Never did Augustine Washington, an iron ore industrialist by trade, imagine that his son would one day cavort across the world’s stage sporting a mouthful of dead men’s teeth! Really the only aspiration dear Augustine had for his...
REMARKS ON COLOR: Slave Ship Ivory March's Hue
To be sure, George Washington was an honest fellow by all accounts, smart and upstanding, and yes, his father did buy him a hatchet when he was six years old—hoping perhaps his son might become a lumberjack, or at the very least, an arborist. Instead, Washington...
POEMS "What's Available for Happy Hour" and "Cowardly New World"
What’s Available for Happy Hour?
“Nothing, happy hour is from four till five.”
“Really?”
“It’s a literal hour.”
“So, by extension all other hours are
unhappy?”
“Not necessarily. There are sad hours, bored
hours, angry hours, even ecstatic hours,
though some forms of ecstasy border on
pain.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
—Jared Joseph
Cowardly New World
There was a time when distraction
could not so easily be grasped,
when time was just time
and the past was just the past,
when places could just be themselves,
unassuming, undefined,
and one’s thoughts kept one to the task;
before the world became enclosed
by wide-openness, constricted
by expansion, where nothing
can just be itself
or forgotten anymore.
—John Tottenham
GALLERY ROUNDS: Blood: Medieval/Modern Getty Museum
Blood is unsightly in the flesh. Witnessing a bleeding person, one might turn away—or worse, be overcome with nausea and faint. For a...
PUBLISHER’S EYE: Yuji Ueda BLUM
Appearing as if they are on the verge of moving, Yuji Ueda’s ceramic vessels are complex, layered and their own abstracted...
CODE ORANGE Time to Say Goodbye
Thank you to everyone who submitted their documentary photographs to the Code Orange column over the past eight years. A special...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Olivia van Kuiken Château Shatto
In “Biel Lieb,” Olivia van Kuiken’s inaugural exhibition at Château Shatto, oil paintings of untamed, bold color and mark-making...
BOOK REVIEW: parasocialite Brittany Menjivar's Literary Debut
Literati yet to meet Brittany Menjivar can now do so through her hardcopy publishing debut, a slender prose/poetry collection titled...
PUBLISHER’S EYE: Jane Corrigan Sea View
Conveying narratives of girlhood, Jane Corrigan’s gestural oil paintings are like snippets from a coming-of-age book—whimsical and...
OUTSIDE LA: Will Hutnick Geary Contemporary
Will Hutnick’s practice resists easy categorization. While largely using the language of abstraction, his mixed media paintings also...
THEATER: LA MYTHMAKING Fear of Kathy Acker
In January I was chatting with Jack Skelley, the author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker (FOKA) published last year through...
PUBLISHER’S EYE: Jennifer West Gattopardo
In her multimedia installation at Gattopardo’s new location, Jennifer West combines images of outer space with those of spiderwebs,...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Amelia Lockwood & Chris Lux Guerrero Gallery
Last week, an abandoned home in the hills of Mt. Washington, once infested by raccoons and possums, transformed into "Revel Hall," a...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Rodney Graham Lisson Gallery
Does humor belong in art? The late Canadian multimedia artist Rodney Graham evidently thought it did. But Graham’s humor, on display...
REMARKS ON COLOR: Slave Ship Ivory March's Hue
To be sure, George Washington was an honest fellow by all accounts, smart and upstanding, and yes, his father did buy him a hatchet...
From the Editor March/April; Volume 18, issue 4
Dear Reader, I admit to being a Luddite when it comes to preferring a paintbrush to the computer. So, when artists gained access to...
ART FOR DUMMIES Sophie Becker and the Ventriloquy Redux
Often seen as an eccentric art form, ventriloquism has resurfaced and gained popularity again in mainstream culture over the past few...
STAYING INSIDE THE LINES Painting AI's Possible Future
Many consider the AARON project the earliest use of AI in artwork. If AI is the most recent and advanced example of humans using...
HYPER-REAL HYBRIDIZATION Patricia Piccinini Finds Beauty in Otherness
Australian artist Patricia Piccinini’s world is inhabited by creatures that suggest genetic engineering gone awry or the infusion of...
ABSTRACTION STUDIES George Legrady's Collaborations and Mythic Narratives
Generative AI image synthesis, exemplified by software like Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and similar tools, has captivated...
INFINITE VARIETY David Em Finds Endless Possibilities
Digital art pioneer David Em, whose work has been published and exhibited internationally, was the first to make images with pixels...
FURIOUSLY JUMPED UP Poor Things Delivers Visceral and Cerebral Thrills
"And when we know the world, the world is ours.” —Bella Baxter What is it exactly that makes a being human?” Is it the presence of a...
BUNKER VISION I'm Sorry, Dave
The word “robot” first appeared in a Czech play by Karel Čapek from 1920 called R.U.R., to describe humans made of inferior materials...