Melanie Pullen invites me into her sunny apartment as she cleans up from a party the night before, “This is why I left New York!” she says, gesturing to full-length windows with a sweeping view of Koreatown. “All this room!”Pullen’s enthusiasm for Los Angeles is apt,...
It’s worth considering why it’s so easy to caricature Donald Trump. He looks strange—with his fake tan, anus-like pout, signature comb-over—topped with a bright red, race-baiting ball cap. Like any President-to-be, he’s the focus of boundless criticism and ridicule,...
Mel Chin’s latest public art project in Los Angeles, The Tie that Binds: MIRROR of the FUTURE, was initiated last summer during CURRENT: LA Water, the city’s inaugural month-long Public Art Biennial presenting temporary large-scale artworks sited along the LA River...
In a post-truth world, what are the value of words? Intuition beats brags of sexual assault. 140-character tweets trump columns of The New York Times reporting. It was something evident at the first debate, prefigured by Fox News pundits, and understood by every...
The famous physicist Richard Feynman once said, “Men should study hard what interests them in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” Dave Tourje is a living example of this philosophy as he is interested in practically everything from hot...
Since 1933, the 6th Street Bridge stood as the iconic landmark that connected Boyle Heights to downtown Los Angeles. In 2015, the official proclamation of its imminent demolition provided an opportunity for me to direct Virtual Vérité in a series of ephemeral...
I first became aware of the remarkable documentarian Adam Curtis a few years ago, when I stumbled across The Century of the Self, a four-part television program exploring the birth of the public relations industry by way of the career of Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward...
“Scientists are saying that the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.” So says Krysta Now in the underrated film Southland Tales. It’s hard to imagine that film getting made for theatrical distribution today. On the other hand, it...
HOW MANY TIMES? PAINTING IS NOT DEADDear Babs, I've been noticing more and more galleries focusing on figurative paintings. As a painter myself who has found the recent years difficult with the popularity of new mediums including photography, do you think there is a...
HELP SAVE SANTA FE ART COLONYThe Santa Fe Art Colony Tenants—some 80 working artists —recently had a close call. Theirs is the only rent-restricted artists’ live/work community in Los Angeles, and the clock was ticking down on their 30-year agreement with the...
Carolyn Merino Mullin is the Founder And Executive Director of The Animal Museum whose new space opened December 3rd in the heart of LA’s Downtown Arts District.ARTILLERY: What inspired you to start an animal museum? MERINO MULLIN: Other social movements—women’s...
We talk about this art and that art, and then we either start seeing influences or start making them up. A popular one is the Asian influence on the Impressionists, who we like to consider our greatest artists but we really mean most popular. However, comparing these...
The standard museum retrospective brims with artworks supported with biographical and thematic information. “Roy Lichtenstein: Pop for the People” brims with biographical and thematic information supported with artworks. Neither the selection nor installation of the...
Well known as a fashion photographer, Vijat Mohindra has made a career of photographing artsy spreads and celebrity fashion shoots for glossy magazines. He is known also as a chronicler of pop-imp/provocateur Miley Cyrus. His perspective in “Always Believe that...
Although Genevieve Gaignard’s fair complexion and red hair enabled her to blend in with her white contemporaries while growing up in a Massachusetts’ mill town, her solo show at the California African American Museum reflects the internal conflict she experienced...
Erika Rothenberg’s “House of Cards” is as timely now as it was when it was first shown in 1992. In our changing political climate, Rothenberg’s satirical, ironic wit and insightful commentary resonate on multiple levels. Organized by themes, the hand-crafted greeting...
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