In 1981 a new photography monograph appeared that seemed like an artifact from a parallel universe. The cover was a studio shot of a nurse flanked by two nude men. Many of the photos in the book depicted nude men in potentially gay scenarios. It had only become legal...
BOOKS: Forbidden Photos
GALLERY ROUNDS: Mark Dion Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Mark Dion is best known for his conceptual artworks that riff on traditional historical or scientific presentations. He begins by collecting objects and researching a specific subject or locale, then merges his findings into evocative artworks that have an air of...
Letters in Exile, No. 6 By Maria Agureeva
Since March I have edited Letters in Exile with Maria Agureeva. Artillery generously offered Maria and other artists who had fled Ukraine and Russia an important platform from which to express their feelings, voice their grief and protest, and to share stories of...
STREET ART ALIVE
STREET ART ALIVE is a 25,000 sq. ft. immersive “multi-sensory art and culture experience” that presents Street Art from Los Angeles and other major cities around the world. The interior entrance to the show features a recreation of an ‘80s New York City subway station...
FORT WORTH, TEXAS: Hector A. Ramirez SENSE AND NONSENSE
I was thoroughly bewildered when I first saw Hector A. Ramirez’ work as a member of his MFA committee at Texas Christian University in 2017. He handed me Carpet Shoes, a worn pair of men’s brown leather shoes with rectangles of yellowish carpet glued to their soles...
CHICAGO: Paola Cabal THE WORK OF ATTENTION
It is 3:02 p.m. on February 26, and we are looking intently at the north wall of Paola Cabal’s studio while the Midwestern afternoon light streams in through her unobstructed west windows. Cabal is rapidly leafing through a Benjamin Moore paint-chip book, holding the...
KANSAS CITY, MO: Linda Lighton PSYCHO CERAMICS
With their blend of surreal retro glamor, sociopolitical and personal commentary, Linda Lighton’s ceramic sculptures command a double take. This veteran artist can make clay do just about anything, and her art has unabashed palpable appeal. But Lighton is also...
RICHMOND, VA: Diego Sanchez VISUAL INFORMATION
“One of the things I teach my kids is to be playful in their approach,” says painter and teacher Diego Sanchez. This freedom to experiment takes the pressure off and opens up the work in unexpected directions. It’s an attitude that has served Sanchez well in his own...
LINCOLN, NE: Santiago Cal POLITICS ON PAPER
Santiago Cal is a humble man with a demeanor that challenges traditional Western conceptions of artistic genius. His subtlety and humility are visible in his works, which are usually small or medium-sized carvings of fragile children. His visual narratives don’t hit...
NFTs Flood LA The Digital
NFTs are here, ushering in a new Golden Age in art. The flood of fiscal support into the NFT market has changed everything. This world has become very real and very serious, extremely fast. Investment firms are buying Degenerate Apes to flip! There’s a need to...
Warhol Case Goes to the Supreme Court Art Brief
Andy Warhol is having another “Moment.” He continues to remain a huge part of the social and artistic zeitgeist decades after his death. His Warhol Diaries are currently dramatized in a multi-part documentary on Netflix (narrated by a spooky robotic-voice AI “Andy”)...
The Art of Cruelty — 10 Years Later Decoder
A lot has changed since 2011, when Maggie Nelson first published The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, her critically acclaimed collection of essays addressing violence and transgression in avant-garde art. One thing that’s changed is the word “trigger”—now much more...
A Look into Warhol’s Love Life Off the Wall
The Andy Warhol Diaries, 2022 Netflix Limited Series “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” —Andy Warhol In his 1987 LA Times obituary of Andy Warhol, William...
Hungarian Rhapsodies Bunker Vision
Early success in any of the arts comes with a certain peril. This is especially true for artists whose art is rebelling against something like an authoritarian government. Filmmakers tend to require a lot of resources, so they are especially prone to censorship by...
SIGHTS UNSCENE Fashion at Frieze Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, 2022
SHOPTALK: LA Art News LA Gallery Migration, Museum Make-overs, and more.
New York, New York! The art market is back, and here in SoCal we’re seeing it with a slew of New York galleries moving in. Pace’s “mergence” with Kayne Griffin is official, and I hear the new signage now bears the Pace name. Sean Kelly gallery is occupying a...
ASK BABS Nonna's No-No
Dear Babs, I recently acquired an old painting of mine from grad school. It looks fabulous in the kitchen. It’s from a series of feminist art, large paintings of nude women in pin-up “cheesecake” positions taken from ’60s playing cards. I now have two grandchildren...
Poems "Silicon Valley" by Rhiannon McGavin; "Vanity in Vain" by John Tottenham
Silicon Valley A cloud is the earth displaced for tracks of cable underground, underwater A stream is the friction between content and a beckoning hand To kindle is to adjust the climate dial in a server farm An antenna is the arc of pesticide as it is sprayed...