Articles
Eileen’s Top Ten of Frieze Week
On this special date—the Monday after Frieze Week LA—I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers. We made it through. I did it all this week, or as close to all of it as I could with merely a press pass. Here are my final stats, which I...
Roll Call Jan/Feb 2025
In Search of a City
“Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city.” —Dorothy Parker This is a column about the Los Angeles art world. Or at least it was supposed to be. I successfully pitched this column on Wednesday December 4th, 2024 and my editor assigned me a deadline of Saturday,...
Postmodern Vaudeville Amy Gerstler on Dynasty Handbag's Frenzied Satire Titanic Depression at MOCA
Even though the term ‘performance art’ has become a catch-all phrase, it still feels too narrow to convey the onstage antics of Dynasty Handbag, the performance persona of writer, visual artist and actor Jibz Cameron. When Titanic Depression debuted in New York in...
Alternative Spaces A Look at Alternative Spaces in Los Angeles
Chez Coronado Founded by Andy Little and Calli Webb and nestled in an unused portion of a basement under an apartment building, Chez Coronado specializes (so far) in works that, like the space, are small, intimate, personal and eccentric. Their most recent offerings...
Artist Takeover Emma Webster
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Adrift between lust and sleep, the highway unwinds behind closed eyes, in scratchy sheets and stinging heat. A one-way street on repeat. Cracking the veneer, stripping it away, in the obvious light of day. Coming from nowhere, going nowhere, but never far enough. The...
An Artist Answers Questions with Danny Fox
Top 3 beers? Okay, without a doubt—Guinness. And because I’m in LA, I’m going to say Pacifico. And a can of Stella. Top 3 songs? Dirty Old Town by the Pogues. Sara by Bob Dylan. Chelsea Hotel #2 by Leonard Cohen. Top 3 dead painters? Alfred Wallis. Vincent, of course....
Art Damaged Expansion of the Critic
Staying Sane With Dr. Trainwreck The Introduction
Please allow me to introduce myself... In the UK, we are called ‘Agony Aunts’. But here in the states we are known as advice columnists, or ‘Dear Abby’, as a catchall. This one, however, is a bit different than the manners-focused columns that were once mainstays of...
Staying Sane with Dr. Trainwreck The Conversation
The ‘conversation’ (incidentally the worst possible way to describe anything other than an actual conversation, as in, human beings speaking with one another) around language and words is ongoing and, dare I say, rather boring. That aside, it is vital that we reject...
Race Place
Since 2018, I’ve made a point of catching the Made in L.A biennial at the Hammer Museum, and at times I’ve come away with mixed feelings toward the city’s most ambitious survey exhibition. While it is worth asking — as many critics before me have — whether or not a...
Capturing The Castle LA’s Coolest Apartment Gallery Leaves the Living Room
Harley Wertheimer wears many hats: The native Angeleno is founder and director of CASTLE Gallery, as well as co-owner of Hollywood’s Stir Crazy café, and up until recently he was vice-president of A&R at Columbia Records. While Wertheimer got his professional...
An Indigenous Gaze Towards The Future Wendy Red Star Recontextualizes Native Culture in Outer Space
Growing up on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, Wendy Red Star witnessed the ways her cultural heritage was practiced, performed and integrated into the daily lives of her tribe. These customs seemed deeply disconnected from the displays in history museums...
My Favorite Cézanne The Only Impressionist Painting I Actually Like
Every time I say I don’t like Impressionism people lose their minds—and I get it, people love the stuff, can’t get enough. I admit that I sometimes say it just to freak them out, because you should see the looks. I mean, you’re probably looking at me like that right...
The Suburbs Are Dead? Brad Eberhard Makes Noise with Alto Beta
“Well, there were many creatures in the cave. And some of them had their problems, but all of them, they were my friends....You don’t meet friends like this every day, so I’m staying in the cave.” —Wounded Lion, “Creatures in the Cave” I first met Brad Eberhard...
Excavating Natural History Mark Dion Explores the Sticky Wonders and Legacy of the La Brea Tar Pits
As an urban kid growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I adored the American Museum of Natural History. The low-lit museum seemed like a palace of wonders to me. In its inner chambers the glowing dioramas of exotic animals in their native habitats appeared like...
Linda Vallejo A New Exhibition at parrasch heijnen Showcases Five Decades of the Artist’s Work
Linda Vallejo’s career-spanning exhibition at parrasch heijen is a homecoming of sorts. The gallery is ensconced in the center of Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights district, where she was born, and a stone’s throw from the iconic Sears Building — an area where Vallejo spent...
The Appropriated Strike Back Is the Idea of What and Who Is Appropriatable Changing?
While many of the contemporary art world’s basic assumptions have been challenged in recent years, one that has remained remarkably constant since at least the 1960s is the collective verdict on appropriation: It’s fine! Andy did it, so it must be—and too many...
POEMS "Fame" and "In Our Shadow"
Fame There are some people who can barely be tolerated in person but are beloved as fictional characters. One reads about them in a book or watches them on a screen, and one feels special because one recognizes their beauty. But when one meets them in person, one...