“What happens to a dream deferred?” This question asked by Langston Hughes in his poem Harlem sets the stage of Charles White’s development as an artist. In 1934, and again in 1935, the teen was awarded scholarships to study art. Each time White showed up in person to...
Night Gallery: : David Korty
David Korty's early works called to mind the paintings of Alex Katz and Luc Tuymans as they flattened space, often depicting people in urban settings to imply narratives. More illustrative and interpretative than didactic or realistic, these works were an immediate...
LACMA: : Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler
Flora, Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler's enticing and enigmatic, double-sided film installation premiered at the 2017 Venice Biennale (in the Swiss Pavilion) and is currently on view at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through April 7). In this presentation,...
Pitzer College Art Galleries; Elephant: : Cathy Akers
For over a decade, Los Angeles artist Cathy Akers has tenaciously researched two experimental open land communes in Northern California—Morningstar and Wheeler’s Ranches, each historically located in West Sonoma County. Through the years the artist has built...
Carolina Maki Kitagawa at Eastside International
When we withdraw from other people out of choice, we call the result privacy. When someone forces us into seclusion, it’s kidnapping. The artist Carolina Maki Kitagawa’s new show at Eastside International Los Angeles, “Story’s End No. 1 // Continúa El Cuento Nº....
Diane Rosenstein: : Emma Webster
The 19th-century landscape painter Albert Bierstadt may have been a deer whisperer, able to corral an entire herd to pose for "Among the Sierra Nevada, California," but let's be real. The deer are fake. In Emma Webster's recent foray into landscape painting, she takes...
Fellows of Contemporary Art: : Medium
George Braque's simple act of stenciling the words “BAL” and “BACH” onto two of his Analytic Cubist paintings in 1911 launched a trend in modern and contemporary art so pervasive, there is no way he could have imagined the ramifications. The use of text in art has...
Blum & Poe: : Parergon
“Parergon,” a two-part exhibition at Blum & Poe, puts a spotlight on an influential yet unfamiliar era of Japanese contemporary art of the 1980s and ’90s that was shaped by political, economic, and social upheaval. Curated by Mika Yoshitake, the show offers a...
François Ghebaly: : Kelly Akashi
Drawing parallels between seashells, glass and the human body, Kelly Akashi's exhibition, "Figure Shifter," is a mystical mise-en-scène whose cryptic press release reads as a brief fairytale written in the first person by some mythical spiritual entity. This dimly lit...
LACE: : Take My Money / Take My Body
“Take My Money / Take My Body” at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions is Narei Choi and Nicolas Orozco-Valdivia’s conceptually ambitious curatorial debut as a collaborators. As contemporary Korean pop music was expressly manufactured to generate the global fanaticism...
Steve Turner LA: : Paige Jiyoung Moon
Paige Jiyoung Moon's small-sized acrylic paintings on canvas and panel (all between 6 and 18 inches square) are expansive narratives. Beautifully rendered in exacting detail, they depict everyday moments that, like going on a hike or hanging out with a friend, are...
Marie Baldwin Gallery: : Gary Brewer
Almost always, recognizing something as “beautiful” comes automatically, instantly—handed to you by a long function of evolution, culture and memory. Yet, at much slower rate, observation can generate a more conscious kind of awe, especially in nature, where hidden...
Strong New Shows in DTLA
Downtown Los Angeles welcomed strong new shows this past weekend, with vibrant crowds exploring historic core and arts district galleries. In the historic core, jill moniz’ Quotidian Gallery offered a stunning show in Serpentine Fire. Viewers munched small bowls of...
Joan Jonas: Moving Off the Land
To coincide with this year’s fourth edition of the FOG Design+Art Fair, the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture invited pioneering multimedia artist Joan Jonas to present two live performances at the center’s Cowell Theater. In the work, titled Moving Off the Land,...
Roberts Projects: : Amoako Boafo
African painter Amoako Boafo is bringing a fresh and unique perspective to portraiture and figurative painting. Based in Vienna since about 2014, the young Ghanaian is now showing a series of new works titled “Black Diaspora” that cast a subtle, but probing look at...
Huntington Library: : Celia Paul
Following her long intimacy with one of England’s most renowned modern artists, you might expect to see Lucian Freud’s influence in Celia Paul’s work. But Paul “forged her own path,” says European Art Curator Catherine Hess. Seven of Paul’s works, rarely exhibited in...
Taiwan Academy: : Poyen Wang, Kio Griffith
Poyen Wang and Kio Griffith’s captivating exhibition “Atlas Portal” deftly explores cultural identity, the immigrant experience, and alienation through the lens of personal memory. Wang is a digital media artist from Taiwan, and based in New York City since 2015....
The Underground Museum: : Deana Lawson
Poetically conveying clues to her photographs' complex themes, "Planes," the title of the Deana Lawson show at The Underground Museum, connotes levels of existence; walls of rooms; and images' physical flatness. Most of the Rochester-born, New York-based artist's...