Charles (or Chuck) Arnoldi has been a mainstay in Los Angeles art since the early 1970s, proposing a kind of material grittiness that is, if anything, the inverse of the finely tooled polish practiced by his finish/fetish friends. Arnoldi is, in fact, every bit as...
Evoking life's inconstancy, little is certain in Gracie DeVito's paintings, which seem to shift in the blink of an eye from abstraction to representation and back again. Even the edges of her shaped canvases seem to sway, slump, wiggle and distend as though struggling...
Dear Reader, The art world as we know it today is an industry. Like it or not, it is a conglomerate not unlike the film or music industry. It is a hierarchical system to be sure, but towards the top, the question of who rules is a little blurry. Is it the art museums...
William J. Simmons, art historian and Special Projects curator of the Felix L.A. art fair. EMILY WELLS: Your curatorial practice seems to be steeped in your background in queer and feminist art history. How do you see these two as informing each other? WILLIAM J....
Lisa Diane Wedgeworth is one of LA’s talented mid-career artists whose work steadily and forcefully moves to the foreground of our consciousness with its thoughtful and compassionate investigations of her emotional life. Her striking paintings, self-referential videos...
The other day Larry Johnson had an idea. He thought we should organize something for John. His plan was to have an artist thing. Dealers could come if they wanted to, but he suggested we not go overboard. It was a simple plan, but I, for whatever reason, started to...
Congratulations to our winner Gregory J. Amani Smith and our finalists. Smith's photo is seen above and first in our photo gallery in the March/April online issue of Artillery. The following photographs are the finalists. Please see info below on how to enter for our...
The former Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard in Hancock Park has always been an object of fascination—an imposing landmark designed in the modernist style by Millard Sheets in the 1960s, it displays mysterious Masonic symbols etched onto its walls. After the Masons...
Sylvia Fein’s exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum (#275 in their MATRIX series running Nov 13, 2019–March 1, 2020) gave us the rare opportunity to see the work of an artist who has forged her own path for over 75 years. The exhibition is a concise, thrilling...
For the traveler in Japan with a day near Okayama to spare, Naoshima Island’s Art House Project is well worth the journey. Since the late 1990s, contemporary artists and architects from Japan and elsewhere have taken over a number of structures, all located within...
Before a few weeks ago, as far as I know, I had never had direct communication with anyone who’d even heard of The Rev. Dr. Fred Lane (though I’m sure some of the LAFMS folk could prove me wrong). Lane hasn’t released anything since 1986 when Shimmy Disc dropped his...
Labor relations are a natural topic for film and documentaries. From the earliest days of cinema, there have been grouchy bosses. The most famous of these might be Michael Moore’s Roger and Me (1989). Strikes always provide a great context to explore the viewpoints of...
LA Fair Report The fairs are bursting out all over in February—and I just have time to jot down a few notes before deadline. Photo LA (Jan. 30–Feb. 2) is going strong for its second year back on the westside, in the Barker Hangar. This is LA’s longest running fair, in...
Given his outsize influence on Conceptual art, it’s surprising that Piero Manzoni is just now getting his first official biography. By the time he died in 1963 at the early age of 29 from a heart attack, he had pioneered a genre of painting without color, canned his...
Dear Babs, I really liked Hans Haacke’s retrospective at The New Museum, specifically his polls that asked viewers their opinions about current news and events. It’s cool he wants his audience to interact with his art. But it got me thinking, why can’t I contact him...
The trail you blazed was a well-worn path. Narcissistic heroics, with one eye on posterity. Until the time rolled around to reverse into the antithesis of what you once so convincingly pretended to be: stripped of the trappings of excess, climbing the twelve steps on...
Architectural critics have been quick to celebrate midcentury modern architects for their pointed sensitivity to a building’s environs, noting that it was this development more than any other that distinguished California modernism from other modernist movements. But...
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