Deceptively clean, simple, and filled with Southern California light, Ed Templeton’s new exhibition “The Spring Cycle” explores life in a suburban Southern California beach. And it has a deeper context: a critique of the banal isolation that often permeates suburbia....
GALLERY ROUNDS: Ed Templeton
THE FRUGAL MEAL Ethereal Sandwiches and the Demand for Less
I’m not in the habit of writing restaurant reviews but I was so moved by a recent dining experience that I simply had to share it. I needed to get something to eat in a hurry and decided to check out a local lunch counter that has been doing spectacular business for a...
OUTSIDE LA: Gosha Levochkin The Hole, New York
Kicking off 2022, New York’s The Hole has debuted a solo show from Gosha Levochkin, the gallery’s first with the Russian American artist. Wild, vibrant and interminably buzzing, Last Element is rife with bright constructivist shapes, cartoonish figures and references...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Ross Bleckner Vielmetter Los Angeles
Ross Bleckner’s first solo show in 25 years, “Sehnsucht” at Vielmetter Los Angeles, is a haunting meditation on longing and the cerebral process of lamenting. The 15 new pieces (created from 2019 to 2021) are fleeting in nature, chilling and deep. Mostly large in...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Gianna Vargas TAG Gallery
Gianna Vargas’ latest body of work “Dessicate,” comprises photos taken throughout December of 2021 during the middle of the pandemic. The work stems from Vargas’ trip to Utah where she took images of the forest amid winter decay. I made my way toward the intimate back...
Remarks on Color: Mourning Dove Brown February's Hue
Imagine existing between two worlds, neither here nor there, neither one thing nor another, brown, then pink, then a shimmering iridescent green. Life is very confusing for Mourning Dove Brown, as she is continuously changing color depending on the light, the time of...
GALLERY ROUNDS: The Loft at Liz’s Group Exhibition "A Practical Guide to Parlour Games & Magic"
Dazzlingly inventive and lovingly curated by Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanovic, “A Practical Guide to Parlour Games & Magic” at The Loft at Liz’s, features work by Phoebe Barnum, Brad Davis, Adrienne Devine, Doug Hammett, Orit Harpaz, Jason Jenn, Ashley...
Travels in the Midwest Musing on Art and Architecture
A couple of months ago I took short trips to Phoenix and Denver for a change of scenery, to indulge in culture, and to see the rebranding of Sheraton hotels. Denver is a surprisingly interesting city, and we stayed in the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, which is very...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Ilana Savdie Kohn Gallery
Ilana Savdie’s first solo show with Kohn Gallery comprises 13 canvases and nine works on paper. Savdie uses vivid color, structure and composition to explore ideas of a liquid world as a metaphor to an ever-changing identity. The title of the exhibit “Entrañadas”...
OUTSIDE LA: Helen Frankenthaler Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
The woodblock prints by American painter, Frankenthaler (b. 1928) that form "Radical Beauty" at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, follow the wave of recent retrospectives highlighting overlooked 20th-century female artists such as Hilma Af Klimt and Agnes Pelton....
GALLERY ROUNDS: Tim Hawkinson PRJCTLA
Tim Hawkinson is full of surprises. He is an idiosyncratic artist who is at once a master craftsman, a scientist and a tinkerer who has an amazing facility with a wide range of materials and mediums. His works are precise and cerebral, yet often about the imprecisions...
A Journey into the Mind of Calliope Pavlides Pragmatic Surrealism
Calliope Pavlides engineers her compositions like a to-do list, an Easter egg hunt, or survival kit. Her works on paper for an upcoming exhibition at Harkawik in New York City exist as impossible still lifes and contrary landscapes. In the wake of a global pandemic, a...
The Activism of Allison Janae Hamilton Land as Witness of History
Land has been a constant throughout history. We bring to land our personal experiences, and land in turn acts as a witness to the people and events that come and go. For artist Allison Janae Hamilton, land is her most enduring subject. She describes land as a...
The Spiritualized Landscapes of Hung Viet Nguyen DEVOTED TO NATURE
“Art is a universal language,” Hung Viet Nguyen says. “And when I came here as an immigrant, my English language was not that great. My strength was in painting. I slowly convinced people that my art is my language.” Nguyen came to the US from Vietnam in 1982, with a...
Leila Weefur’s Hymns for Other Voices Uncomfortable Questions
Explorations of gender identity are central to the work of Oakland-based artist and curator Leila Weefur, how they felt that their identity was suppressed by belonging to the Christian Church is at the crux of their latest project, “Prey†Play.” Presented in two...
It’s a Vincent Van A Gogh-Gogh! Review of the Van Gogh Immersive Experience
Doubtless you’ve seen the billboards: the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit has shown in cities across North America, and now it’s Los Angeles’ turn. It’s Time To Gogh! commands the sign, and I oblige, stepping into the old Amoeba building on Sunset Boulevard, which will...
The Truth Is Out There, Somewhere Decoder
Who doesn’t like a bit of mystery? But where are they keeping it these days? There are certainly unknowns—when will this pandemic really end? Did they really do that? But mystery is not the same as a mystery. True crime, for example, isn’t mysterious. In the end...
TALLY HO! Bunker Vision
A friend who made his name in the world of queer underground theater often quipped that “Film is forever.” When he landed a featured role in a late Paul Morrissey film, he was confident that something he had done would outlast him. That film turned 40 years old last...