In Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (2012) bell hooks states, “The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.” Such words were actualized in “Known & Understood: Selections from the Permanent Collection” on...
There are few forces in the world as powerful as memory. Reconjuring the fleeting scents of former lovers and the chattering sounds of childhood, memory evinces that life is composed of so much more than the here and now; it summons impressions that both soothe the...
Working in a continuous exegesis of an overarching project, pursuing branching pathways to their conclusions then returning to the center and setting off again, Alison O’Daniel transforms elusive ideas and ambiguous experiences into concrete objects—still and moving...
The initial apprehension upon entry to Ei Arakawa’s exhibition took a few moments to subside. It was swiftly alleviated upon realizing that it is not an exhibition in the typical sense but more of a journey through a cardboard-constructed maze: a metaphorical...
These notes are for Dave Hickey, Paula Rego, and Annie Ross. "Let me be clear about this: I don't have a drug problem, I have a police problem." Keith Richards — flyleaf quotation for Dave Hickey's Air Guitar Just a moment...
At the ICA Los Angeles, curators Marcelle Joseph and Legacy Russell have assembled 25 artists whose practices engage with the construction of identity and the self as subject –or, as Judith Butler puts it, The Condition of Being Addressable. This international and...
A grotesque feeling of excitement and misery shivers through me whenever I encounter Mika Rottenberg’s work. Her stories of monstrous mechanisms of hypercapitalism are infused with a queasy comedy that reminds me of Julia Kristeva’s “laughter of the apocalypse”...
Octavia E. Butler's speculative fictional imagining of Los Angeles seems to inch closer and closer to nonfiction as our apocalyptic reality grows louder and hotter by the day. At REDCAT, the exhibition of new work by American Artist shows how Butler’s words are so...
Cold sheets of perforated metal gnaw quietly at severed plaster limbs inside Matthew Brown’s La Brea gallery. Despite the unsettling horrors this description might conjure, Jeffrey Meris’ exhibition, "be ever wonderful," is deceptively healing and hopeful. A series...
As my feet touch the terrain of compact, glittering soil that covers the floor of the Hammer Projects space, it feels as if I’m stepping into another realm, another planet even. Kiyan Williams’ solo exhibition, "Between Starshine and Clay," curated by Erin...
CODE ORANGE: THE EXHIBIT. A Curatorial Project by Laura London JUNE 11–JULY 9 OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 5-7 ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY Bergamot Station Arts Center CODE ORANGE is an Artillery column conceived in 2016, the year Trump got elected. It is designed...
The creation of Black superheroes in Marvel Comics during the Silver Age (comics published from 1956–1970) and Bronze Age (comics published from 1970–1984) has consistently been the exception and not the rule. There was Black Panther (1966), Blade (1973) and Monica...
Fawn Rogers' exhibition "Your Perfect Plastic Heart" at Wilding Cran Gallery presents a series of paintings depicting oysters and their gooey erotic membranes. At first glance, these works struck me as a cross between Marylin Minter and Chloe Wise–glittery...
Three fine solo shows of paintings offer personal perspectives as unique as the artists who created them: Laura Krifka, Evita Tezeno, and Nancy Evans. Krifka’s “Still Point,” is a beautiful tribute to light, the human body, and the human heart. With domestic settings...
Vibrant matter dances and pulsates in vortical pools and currents. Artist Kevin Beasley petrifies matter in states of motion, submerging and emerging materials form dynamic topographies that embody personal and collective histories and significations. I remember my...
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...
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...
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...
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