Articles
To Protect & Serve: Philippe Vergne
The word he kept returning to was “conversation,” which, under less pressing circumstances, might have described our interview, except that Philippe Vergne, MOCA’s new director, was on a something of a treadmill. He had scarcely been on the job 10 days, and had...
Mike Kelley: Part 2
Mike Kelley said for years that he would agree to be profiled in Artillery. That was practically a running joke when we would see each other at art events. Finally, in early November 2011, I contacted him to make it happen. He emailed to say he was very busy but he...
American Gumbo: Wayne Thiebaud
While most people half his age are searching for their car keys, Wayne Thiebaud, now 93, peppers conversations with literary references and recalls in vivid, sensual detail the coat that Hans Hoffman wore at an art reception 50 years ago—“it was so thick that it...
The Unruly Muse
When I first read about Beatriz da Costa’s exhibition last year in Southern California, it sounded intense; I was intrigued and determined to see the show at the Laguna Art Museum. It featured da Costa’s most recent work drawing on the practice of engaging the...
Jeffrey Vallance Presents A Seance with Andy Warhol
Who knew? Who knew that Andy Warhol would become an angel, full of love and the love of God and the beauty that surrounds him in the heavens above? Last night, at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles, artist Jeffrey Vallance conducted a séance with psychic medium...
Roberto Gil de Montes: Hecho en Mexico at Lora Schlesinger Gallery
"Lora Schlesinger Gallery photos by Eric Minh Swenson" From Roberto Gil de Montes: Hecho en Mexico. Posted by Artillery Magazine on 4/23/2014 (10 items) Roberto Gilde Montes, artist talk Molly Barnes, Lora Schlesinger, Roberto Gil de Montes, Joan Quinn Farrah...
William Kentridge’s “The Refusal of Time”
William Kentridge's dazzling "The Refusal of Time," at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, marries science and art in an installation that comprises a 30-minute, 5-channel video featuring live stop-action animation, the spoken word and music projected on three walls of a...
Spectacular Subdivision in Wonder Valley
The desert is a surprising place, and we see it anew when artists are drawn there by site-specific projects such as “Spectacular Subdivision,” which took place recently in Wonder Valley over the weekend of April 4 through 6. About 35 artists made work for two sites,...
Robbert Flick: “Freeways,” at Rose Gallery
When I was just out of school and began my first regular daily commute of the Southern California freeways, I remember stealing glances to either side of the road. I caught brief glimpses of the fleeting vistas, noting how with every quarter mile, my vantage point...
POP-EYECONIC Group Show at Corey Helford Gallery
POP-EYECONIC Group Show, posted by Artillery Magazine on 4/01/2014 (17 items) Artist Chris Anthony and his girlfriend, Jessica Spotts, with his piece "Josephi... Artist Eric Joyner with his piece "Life Before Hamburgers". Artist Joey Remmers with his...
Alexandra Manukyan’s “Beautiful Disaster” at Corey Helford Gallery
"Images courtesy of @[362039667819:274:COREY HELFORD GALLERY] http://www.coreyhelfordgallery.com/shows/alexandra-manukyan/info-press/" From Alexandra Manukyan's "Beautiful Disaster" Opening Night. Posted by Artillery Magazine on 4/01/2014 (6 items) Alexandra Manukyan...
Guest Lecture: F. Scott Hess
The subject matter of several of my recent paintings derives from screwed-up iPhone panorama photographs. For centuries art linear perspective has ordered the space of paintings, determining how we look at an image. In panorama mode my iPhone-5 liberates the mind from...
Marc Selwyn’s Inaugural Opening
"Art luminaries came out to celebrate a new gallery for Marc Selwyn Fine Art: On February 16, 2014, invited members of Los Angeles’ vibrant art scene convened in the newly renovated historic 1940s Al Grimmet’s Garage, that has been transformed into the sleek, new...
TRADING PLACES
When I drove up to Zackary Drucker’s home off San Fernando Road, the front door was wide open—a startling sight since most of the surrounding houses have metal bars over the windows and doors. The Los Angeles video and performance artist lives in Glassell Park, an...
Psychedelic Shack
If one thinks of the essence of Modernism as being about direct experience rather than recreated experience, the artist who has really continued to expand possibilities is James Turrell. A striking aspect of his retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County...
Camera Obscura by Abelardo Morell
In 1987, the year his son Brady turned two, Abelardo Morell lay down on the nursery floor in order to see the world the way a wriggling baby would. From that vantage point he looked up at a stack of blocks towering over him as if it were a BCE column or stele, and he...
A Chip Off the Old Block
In many Japanese artistic traditions, from sword making to ceramics, creative techniques have been passed down from generation to generation. Some artists today can boast that they are the 15th generation of an artist family, tracing their roots to the 17th century....
Profile: Marisol Rendón
As I meandered through Marisol Rendón’s installation, “So, Dragons Do Exist?” at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles gallery last summer (this was before I had even glanced at the contrarian, almost self-negating parenthetical subtitle, “Considerations of the Unavoidable...
Exile off the Strip: Dave Hickey
So like a few of you (not many more—which was wise—you really didn’t miss anything), I went down to the Grand Central Market at 3rd and Broadway downtown to hear Dave Hickey plug his latest, Pirates and Farmers, subtitled “Essays on Taste,” under MOCA’s auspices—which...
Massacre on 53rd Street
Well the axe has fallen once again on the magnificent American Folk Art building, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects. The structure is considered to be an architectural gem having won numerous awards including an American Institute of Architects...