I was working on these shaped canvases and sculptures that had printed blowups of appliances and added elements such as Expressionist drips, shirtless guys in pain, cartoon and Fauvist chickens, and cartoon elements. One was like a reduced scale version of the bone...
I was urged electronically to go see Dutch theater company Wunderbaum on its last night in LA at the REDCAT with no details other than superlatives (which, however, managed to get a bunch of us on that contact list out). I knew it had something to do with LA artist...
Though the annual festival known as Burning Man has received the occasional serious sniff from the art world, my overall anecdotal accounting of the festival rep in what one might call the high-end international art world has been one of mild disgust and pity. In...
"What's with the God look?” I had thought to ask him at one point over the course of a rambling interview conducted in the lead-up to LACMA’s opening of his retrospective—provocatively, ironically titled, “Pure Beauty.” A slightly exaggerated (to say nothing of...
This interview took place December, 2009, at the restaurant in Los Feliz at Fred 62. Zak ordered the spaghetti. Find this article in our Jan/Feb 2010 issue; Artillery's first Biennial Sex Issue...(time for another!) https://artillerymag.com/product/janfeb-2010/ ...
IT'S true of the digital times that libido drives technology, but according to my friend Sergio Messina, porn is not only the engine of the Internet but the bona fide locus of art. And he's on a mission to prove it: "At the very least it's the perfect metaphor for the...
Mike Kelley and Michael Smith are iconoclasts who for years have challenged accepted conventions, creating artworks that provoke and titillate. Although friends since 1975, they have never collaborated before. “A Voyage of Growth and Discovery,” their first work...
It was two years ago when I first saw Susan Anderson’s photographs at an art fair in New York. They were images of little girls all dolled up, seemingly for one of those kiddie beauty pageants. I was struck by the pictures for several reasons: The photographs...
Tracking down George Legrady for an interview can be tricky. A man who juggles art and science for a living has a lot of demands on his time. Hence, I found myself at a panel discussion on Database Aesthetics at the convention center in Los Angeles early one Saturday...
Waters once said, “To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.” And after seeing his place in San Francisco, I would have to say he practices what he preaches. Antique furniture, tapestries and decorative drapery adorn the small but elegant 1920s apartment...
Pirates received its Los Angeles premiere at REDCAT recently: a visual and aural multi-screen feast/assault that covered all four walls of the theater. The audience, many of whom sat on the floor, were surrounded like the victims of the raid taking place onscreen(s)....
With today's digital era so rich in explicit displays of virtually every aspect of the human experience — including amateur exhibitions of bodily functions beamed to us live via webcam — the idea of museum exhibits raising hell in America may seem, well, passé? But a...
This article originally appeared in our November/December 2008 issue on Everyday Politics: In a text written for this show and displayed on one of the gallery walls, Kerry James Marshall says “I am working on paintings that address the theme of LOVE.” “Love” is...
It all started with a dream. "I was in a small library, and she opened the door. She put her file folders down and pinned me to the wall, kissing me," recalls painter Sarah Ferguson. "She was so, so forthright. I found it very refreshing." The woman in the dream was...
While going to school for graphic design, I was required to take a figure drawing class. My father, of course, was totally against it. “They’re gonna make you draw naked people! I’m not paying for you to go to school and draw men’s weenies, I tell ya what!” I paid for...
Mike Kelley’s first feature length movie takes place mainly at a high school. Cheery bright classrooms are full of 30-year-old sloppy students. Auditoriums stage assemblies with campy musicals and pageants. Gleaming lockers line the polished hallways. It’s a regular...
California is known as the land of fruits and nuts. And it’s true, we’ve got wacky environmentalists, kooky lefty liberals and fruity homosexuals. And artist Catherine Opie actually fits all three categories, sans the loaded adjectives. Nothing wacky about Cathy, and...
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