Film and video artist Christopher Richmond has been interested in science fiction for as long as he can remember. When he was a kid, he rented videos based solely on the cover art; his favorites were sci-fi. “Any sort of surrealist landscape, I was sold,” he tells me...
Power to the Hashtag
While there’s nothing new about teenagers making parody videos—which have been a part of popular viral culture since the existence of strap on-webcams, :NSYNC and the boredom of teen years—a recent parody clip has transcended the form. What began as a typical pop...
Akio Hizume: Renewable Futures
The structure is made out of bamboo poles and stakes, secured with palm rope. It stretches from the side door leading out of the museum, crosses the small courtyard, and extends towards the street. The soft beige color of the Moso bamboo underscores the apparent...
Reine Paradis: Surreal Chic
The photographic tableaux of Los Angeles–based Parisian transplant Reine Paradis evoke an ambiguity of place. The central focal point of each is a solo figure, played by Paradis, typically costumed in an A-line mini or similarly chic garment fashioned from...
Hammer’s Made in L.A. Comes of Age
“Made in L.A.” has finally hits its stride—this fourth edition feels fresh with discoveries, both of artists you may know and many you may not. It features 32 artists, from emerging ones with promising talent to the exciting re-emergence of an artist who fell from the...
Gretchen Andrew: Searching for Different Truths
How to describe Gretchen Andrew’s practice? Her website proclaims her a “search engine artist and internet imperialist who programs her paintings to manipulate and dominate search results.” Piggy-backing on the Google phenomenon, Andrew has slyly infiltrated the World...
“Experience 35: Grounded”
John Divola is fascinated with the ruins we leave behind. He’s a trespasser by trade, wandering into suburban homes that have been abandoned or condemned, using his camera to document forgotten living rooms that have been stripped of human comforts and left to random...
Neon Lights, Big Poodles and Flowers
The heat goes on—and so does the beat of pulsating great art in Los Angeles. On Thursday, Laurie Shapiro offered a DTLA studio preview of her about-to-open gallery installation at Da Plume, "All Yoni is Love." The immersive lush psychedelic installation was draped...
STAFF’S FAVORITE
When I walked into OURCHETYPES (2018), an installation by Jade Gordon and Megan Whitmarsh at the Hammer Museum’s biennial exhibition “Made in L.A.,” I felt as though I had entered a bubble. The soft purple carpeted floors, the ambient voices emanating from the video...
Jason Gottlieb: A Healthier Approach to Cannibalism
Cannibalism is now a regular thing in the art world. I’m not being metaphorical by referring to the cutthroat competition of an art market mirroring the inhumanity of its elite clientele. I’m talking about actual artists eating people. In 1996 the artist Marco...
The Personal and Political Landscapes of Narsiso Martinez
Narsiso Martinez shapes richly detailed images of farm workers in oil, charcoal and ink wash—with discarded produce boxes as his canvas. A simple trip to Costco for pizza proved revelatory for the artist, when he found a purple-and-yellow banana box at the store. When...
Michael’s Restaurant
Known as a pioneer of the farm-to-table dining movement, Michael McCarty founded his first restaurant, Michael’s, in Santa Monica in 1979. Ten years later he would open his second location in Midtown Manhattan. Michael and his wife, the artist Kim McCarty, would...
ARTXFOOD: A Case of Cross-Cultural Indigestion
When is a painting high art, and when is it just nice wallpaper? On May 10, I learned the answer to this question when attending ARTXFOOD’s inaugural art-themed dinner, Hallowed Ground. ARTXFOOD is produced by ArtCubed Los Angeles, which hosted a “part salon, part...
UNDER THE RADAR: TEMPORARY SERVICES
About a month ago Virginia Katz cajoled me into leading a discussion at her regular public salon at Eastside International gallery at LA’s Brewery art complex. Since every time an art critic speaks in public an angel loses its wings, I am not really big on the whole...
DECODER: LOOKING FOR AMBIGUITY
I think we might have to consider the possibility that fine art is a genre. Or perhaps has become a genre. Someone clever whose name neither I nor Google can retrieve right now once said that philosophy is the spawning ground of the sciences—meaning that the things we...
BUNKER VISION: DINNER ISN’T SERVED
If you happen to be searching for films that feature food, there are no shortages of places to look. Just about every pop culture magazine and blog has a listicle of food in film. These range from movies like Babette’s Feast (where a dinner is a labor of love), to...
ASK BABS: ETIQUETTE FOR ARTFUL LIVING
Dear Babs, Although I’ve long been an admirer of art, it occurred to me only recently, now that I have a meager disposable income, that I might start purchasing pieces of my own. But the prospect of starting my own collection is seriously intimidating. I recently...