Disruption! Art and the Prison Industrial Complex, a group exhibition currently on view at Pitzer College Art Galleries, brings together artists directly impacted by the prison system and those that address it in their work. Curated by multidisciplinary artist,...
It's difficult for paintings of female nudes in bucolic landscapes to transcend historic tropes of voyeuristic escapism, but Deborah Brown succeeds in positing hers as self-reflective meditations on contemporary femininity. The 11 paintings in her show at The Lodge...
If, as John Berger writes, “Oil painting… is a celebration of private property”, then Street Art is the equally joyous appreciation of public property. This difference is due to the nature of the work and their contrasting environments: Graffiti beats the streets...
After success and critical acclaim, Philip Guston somehow bravely abandoned his signature style. His transition from abstract expressionist to neo-expressionist (before there was such a category) was heretical. In ab-ex lockstep he had been part of the American...
In tandem shows at Roberts Projects, two figurative painters' allusions to contemporary anomie are animated by skeptical drollness. Celeste Rapone's bloated female protagonists contort and distend as though awkwardly striving to fill the expansive canvases they...
After a slight summer slumber, the LA art scene has officially turned the heat back on. This week I had the absolute pleasure of spending my Thursday morning in the LA Arts District at Hauser & Wirth for their press preview and breakfast featuring the work of...
A wildly busy night of openings marked the first night of the fall art season in Los Angeles, with terrific new shows running from the west side to the east. On Thursday in San Pedro, a terrific combo of poetry and art took over Michael Stearns Gallery, while a...
Offal, a group exhibition featuring 45 Los Angeles-based contemporary artists at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, works at finding how the metaphor of offal (which usually describes the parts of an animal that are discarded and not eaten) could be turned into a...
Dark humor pervades provocative works by Jesse Draxler, Jordan Weber and Mark Mulroney in "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There" at NO Gallery. These artists hail from different regions yet overlap in their hard-bitten manners of exploring mortality and contemporary...
Last Saturday, the hottest gallery opening taking place was at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles for the opening of Judy Chicago: Los Angeles. This exhibition presents a largely unseen body of early work, reminding us that about 50 years ago Chicago spent the good part of a...
During these last summer weeks, the LA heat gets to us all, making it essential to take a little breather. As a result, ’tis the season the LA art world slows, but honestly, the slight hiatus in the usually jam-packed agenda of openings was a nice reprieve, as I was...
At Marc Selwyn a year ago, "Jay DeFeo: The Texture of Color" included small paintings on paper from 1982-86. Those works imparted an inventive sense of discovery while also showcasing the artist's formidable expressive talent. The same is true for her current show,...
Los Angeles-based artist Mary Corse is known as one of the few women involved in the 1960s and 1970s West Coast Light and Space Movement, but in her later incarnations, she should also be known for creating a bridge between the “action painting” of Jackson Pollock and...
Dear Reader The number 13 is usually considered to be a sign of misfortune, but when you land on it in an unexpected way it can sometimes feel lucky. This September marks Artillery’s 13th year. It seems like a long time, especially for a magazine in this century. When...
Tarry Nights at LACMA It’s summer, but the traffic is as bad as ever, and the art world continues to percolate. Yours Truly recently came upon an evening concert at LACMA which was jam-packed from the stage at BP Plaza to where the museum conjoins with La Brea...
Before I interview Mr. Chow, he sets my copy of his book on fire. After smashing large Sharpies onto a blank page of the book in a riot of color (“green always goes well with red”), he pours flammable paint thinner on the page and calls for his “darlings” to bring him...
The Los Angeles art world is far from monolithic, but if there’s one thing you are certain to overhear at every gathering, it’s an expression of wonderment at the onslaught of new galleries opening across the city. And they’re right, it’s a lot. It feels like for...
Ceramics is real-world alchemy, where a material mined from the earth is magically transformed by human ingenuity. I love the fact that the result can be rough and reveal the grit and minerals embedded in clay, or it can be highly refined as a smooth white porcelain...
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