This beautiful show grapples with the history and purpose of habitat dioramas—those eerily lifelike tableaus found in darkened museum halls—and, by extension, questions the past and present life of natural history museums. What is the role of a natural history museum...
REFRAMING DIORAMAS

Gallery Dogs & Cats

STAYING SANE(ish) WITH DR. TRAINWRECK Ask Dr. Trainwreck
Trying to Navigate LA Dear Dr. Trainwreck, Can you talk about chasing fame and how that affects friendship? I’m from the Midwest and came out to California for art school. I’m fresh out of school (one year) and was able to get pretty good gallery representation early...

In Search of a City
“Loa Angeles is 72 Suburbs in Search of a city.” —Dorothy Parker January is always a quiet month for the Los Angeles art world, but it was made even quieter this year by natural disaster—the fires shut down many art institutions while the city grappled with...

ROLL CALL

Where Artists Eat

ART DAMAGED Reverse Hated

STAYING SANE(ish) WITH DR. TRAINWRECK PTSD, Trauma, Fires
What is to give light must endure burning. —Victor Frankl I had this plan, I was going to spend each issue clarifying an overused, misunderstood and generally obnoxious term or diagnosis. Remember last time when I went on a tirade about ‘triggering’. I planned to do...

An Artist Answers Questions with Narsiso Martinez
TOP 3 SONGS? Strange Fruit (Abel Meeropol) interpreted either by Billie Holiday or Nina Simone, Strawberry Fields (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) interpreted by La Santa Cecilia. I was attracted by the music video. TOP 3 DEAD ARTISTS? Jean-François Millet...

Taxi Driver
I’ve moved around, a lot. Not kicked around, just trying to find some dirt that was my own, and mebbe some puzzled hands for this jigsaw heart. And in all of that highwaying, i found that, no matter the burg i plopped down in, i could get a job driving a taxi. The...

POEMS
The Sublime and The Beautiful Revisited Ascending even lower into the empyrean of autonomy, believing one’s own lies, the beauty that should only be seen through somebody else’s eyes. A pointless exercise, no purpose does it serve: tracking one’s moves, getting on...

LUDOLOGY
I’m located at an arts institution (free to the public on Tuesdays). I’m a painting by someone who is better known as a sculptor. I’m older, but not ancient. I live in the permanent collection. I have color, but it’s severely limited (I’m mostly shades of white) I was...

François Pain at JOAN
What is art without the asylum (from classical Latin asȳlum: refuge, sanctuary)? In François Pain’s first solo show in the US, three video displays, a mini-bookstore, and a vitrine of pamphlets compete for the viewer's attention. At the center is a 2025 video...

ADORATION at REDCAT
Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film Adoration follows a half-Arab teenager who weaves a fictional story about his father orchestrating a terrorist attack, causing a stir within his suburban community. Adapting it would be a difficult task in any case—not just because of the...

Sawako Goda at Nonaka-Hill
This exhibition features paintings, sketches, and ephemera from the estate of Sawako Goda (1940-2016). Goda's oil paintings immerse the viewer into a strange urban sea in which the body merges with gems the size of appendages. Goda's "story of the eye" shifted when...

Valerie Keane at Gaylord Fine Arts
Valerie Keane's works on paper are constructed with devotion, resulting in miniature worlds that reflect the viewer back unto herself. These are “flat” images in comparison to Keane’s other work, and yet a close look into the frame reveals parts that appear as though...

The Monster: Curated by Robert Nava at Pace Gallery
Per the exhibition text, “The Monster,” a multi-media group show at Pace Gallery, deals with the abstract creatures from early nightmares rather than the metaphorical “monsters” that haunt our adult existence. Childhood logic filtered through an adult POV often lends...

Jaxon Demme and Paz de la Huerta at Spy Projects
The damsel in distress; the innocent vindicated. These are relatively common motifs when it comes to trauma and recovery, yet Paz de la Huerta’s beautifully bizarre paintings make them feel new. Women and girls embrace while crowded by angelic creatures and wild...