Articles
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...
Seeing Detroit Through Fresh Eyes Taylor Renee Aldridge Returns to her Hometown to Head Modern Ancient Brown Foundation
Recently I had the opportunity to visit Detroit for the first time in my life. What a magnificently diverse city bustling with bars and restaurants on every corner in the downtown area, with one of the top encyclopedic art museums in the nation where the socialist...
ABOLITION IN ACTION Crenshaw Dairy Mart Cares About People
The artist-of-color-led arts organization and collective in Inglewood, Crenshaw Dairy Mart (CDM), is continuing a legacy of Black-led art spaces in South Los Angeles. Co-founded by multi-hyphenate artists Patrisse Cullors, alexandre ali reza dorriz and noé olivas, it...
HEAVY WATER Rethinking the LA River for Future Generations
The Los Angeles River is a permanent topic of fascination for artists in this city. In order to establish the city, bureaucrats and businessmen fought to colonize this humble waterway. They tore it away from Indigenous people, encased it in concrete, then rerouted it...
NATURE’S WAY Lucia Monge Collaborates with Her Environment
As a kid, Lucia Monge often gazed at birds through her grandfather’s binoculars, taking in the wonders of nature at an early age. Sometimes the birds looked so extraordinary and colorful that she pondered: Could they be real? Or were they something from a fairy tale?...
THE STARS ARE ALIGNED Lita Albuquerque on Observational Astronomy
A matriarch of the Land Art movement that is closely associated with the American Southwest, Lita Albuquerque has engaged with the surface of Earth from the South Pole to Saudi Arabia, Peru to Paris. But she has always given special attention to the music of the...
SENSE OF WONDER Innovation in the Islamic World
Centuries before Leonardo da Vinci lived and worked in Italy, a Persian astronomer, physician, geographer and writer was conducting research into the nature of the cosmos and man’s place in it. Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283) wrote and illustrated The Wonders of...
DEATH OF A STAR Directed by Jasmine Johnson New Theater Hollywood
The tedium of a particular self-consciousness ascribed to Generation Z was on full display in The Death of a Star, a performance and self-proclaimed “reality show,” directed by Jasmine Johnson, which had a sold-out four-day run at New Theater Hollywood (NTH) this...
POEMS "Licking Time" and "A Lesser Work"
Licking Time There’s a fortune to be made thinking about licking the bare upper thigh of historical figures. The way the first person gave up all hope echoes in everyone everywhere forever. Wearing animal print, and writing poems one can get close to the world licking...
COMICS Fortean Adventures
NO REALER THAN OTHER THINGS Focusing on the Positive at This Year's Whitney Biennial
The 2024 Whitney Biennial—“Even Better Than the Real Thing”—features artworks, films and performances by 71 artists and collectives. Within the show’s title is an obvious allusion to AI, but the Whitney suggests that it also raises the possibility of other ideas of...
(BITTER) SWEET VIRGINIA Navigating Monuments in the Cradle of the Confederacy
In March, an invitation to view ceramic work by New York–based artist Patrice Renee Washington brought me to Richmond, Virginia, for the very first time. A midsize Southern city often referred to being as far north as one can get until one is in the North, Richmond’s...
LESSONS TO BE UNLEARNED The 60th Venice Biennale is Less Art World and More Real World
This year’s 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, titled “Foreigners Everywhere,” curated by Adriano Pedrosa from Brazil, takes an in-depth look at the work of more than 300 artists and collectives who have experienced exile and colonialism. Pedrosa’s thoughtful...
CALIFORNIA GOLD Hilbert Museum Expands its Space and Collection
Millard Sheets’ glass mural Pleasures Along the Beach (1969) adorns the façade of the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University in Orange, CA. Its brightly colored California scene, portraying sunbathers, birds and sailboats, beckons visitors to the newly...
POEMS "Receipt" and "The World"
Receipt Bus stops are one full breath apart Is why men drink in them. Their poor slow hearts, Their poor slow blood. Leant on elbows on knees they Hawk up galaxies. The car becomes a well when you Cry there. 24h carpark. —Without my Marrow and the wind blows I’m a...
COMICS Having a Wonderful Time!
DYSTOPIAN FILTERS Ethel Lilienfeld Considers the Nuances of our Virtual Selves
Technology cannot be separated from the world we live in today. Indeed, post-pandemic, we are experiencing even more of our daily lives virtually. This phenomenon lies at the core of French multidisciplinary artist Ethel Lilienfeld’s work. Using video, installation...