So I’m at brunch at Figaro (on Vermont) with two of my best (and one of my oldest) friends from out-of-town; and we’re actually sitting outside on the hottest day of the year (I’m imagining the wait-staff making bets on my imminent demise). There’s a very...
Strike the Pose: Getting high inside high fashion from way outside – the art of Helen Rae
The art world has been revisiting issues of identity and identity politics in recent months (see, e.g., the current issue of ArtForum), which had their own ‘second wave’ in the late 20th century borne largely upon the convergence of conceptualism, especially in its...
Disappearing in Public (and Private): Ramiro Gomez’s On Melrose and Domestic Scenes
While much of the focus on Ramiro Gomez’s new show at Charlie James Gallery, and Gomez’s work generally, has been on labor – as subject and focal point; as a device re-framing public discourse around the subject; as the un- or under-addressed component of its surround...
Disappearing In Public (and Private): Ramiro Gomez’s On Melrose and Domestic Scenes
While much of the focus on Ramiro Gomez’s new show at Charlie James Gallery, and Gomez’s work generally, has been on labor – as subject and focal point; as a device re-framing public discourse around the subject; as the un- or under-addressed component of its surround...
A Little Night Music: 21c Liederabend, Op. L.A.
So much of contemporary art and music is preoccupied with a space, both physical and cerebral, between layers, liminal boundaries – the space between potential and actuality; the ‘what-if’ imponderables of what-was, what-might-have-been, and what-might-be. It’s both...
“Distracted Mourning” – Guy Richards Smit’s Mountain of Skulls
These notes are for Marilyn. “Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs....”William Shakespeare, Richard II, III:2I woke up this morning thinking about death – my own and others’ (including a friend who may be...
Between Shadow and Illumination – Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium
Fresh (if that’s the word for it) from the carbon cycle conundrums posed by the FotoFest 2016 Biennial in Houston, I faced the ambivalence of ‘homecoming’ between LACMA and the Getty Museum, returning to, if not the ‘haunts’ of my mole-dark youth, certainly a few of...
“Everything is connected….” – Changing Circumstances: Looking at the Future of the Planet –
AWOL is in Houston this evening – with official leave this time (at least in theory, still leaving no accounting for her invisibility the last two or three weeks in Los Angeles) – at the 2016 FotoFest Biennial. The theme of this year’s Biennial is Changing...
James Welling: Choreograph – Regen Projects, through March 26th
It is impossible to do justice to a show of the scope, ambition and sheer beauty of James Welling’s current exhibition of recent work at Regen Projects in a single blog post. But it would be no less impossible and even irresponsible to let it go without some...
“Let them eat cake and charge it please and thank you very much.” – Break Bread at Think Tank Gallery
We don’t ordinarily think of pastel colors as carrying the power or intensity of the deepest, most vibrant primaries, especially red; or for that matter a dense black or sharp black-and-white contrast. But pastels can have great associative and mnemonic power, in many...
Various Small Fairs – Art Los Angeles Contemporary, 2016
I think we can all agree that there are too many art fairs. We could almost stretch that to say there are too many fairs, period. We generate too many products – most of them of an astonishingly brief life-span, and worth still less of anyone’s attention; and consume...
The Man Who Fell to Earth (Part 3 of 3)
“We like dancing and we look divine.”David Bowie, “Rebel Rebel”from Diamond Dogs, 1974Finally – Bowie. Forever Bowie. “Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep….” I want to quote Mick Jagger (to be very specific about it) quoting Shelley (from Adonais –...
“Some Make You Sing….” (Part 2 of 3)
Something kind of hit me todayI looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way. . . We're taking it hard all the timeWhy don't we pass it by? David Bowie, “We Are the Dead”from Diamond Dogs, 1974 The first part of this post promised a superfecta; and I’m...
“Fill Your Heart….” (Part 1 of 3)
“If we can sparkle, he may land tonight….”David Bowie, “Starman”(from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1972)Those readers who have followed this blog since it launched in 2007 may recall that it was originally a somewhat diaristic...
Joy to the World: My Holiday Season in a Nutshell
Happy New Year, dear reader(s). I know I was living up to the blog title just a bit excessively in the last month of this just past year; but I wasn’t just staying at home. First of all, there was Norma – the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Bellini’s classic tale of...
Trust the Momentum – Karen Finley: Love Field
If there was a central flaw or fracture to Karen Finley’s The Jackie Look, it had mostly to do with a lack of clarity of its dramatic objective and trajectory. Finley seemed to be trying to both deconstruct an icon (or more precisely its refractions and reflections in...
Karen Finley’s “The Jackie Look”
There are probably as many words written about the ‘Jackie look’ by now as there are actual images documenting it. A quick scan of just a few of these images taken over the roughly 40 years of her public life reveals quite a range: the young equestrienne, the...
The Idea of North / The Disease of Humanity
The North is very much on our collective minds lately – especially in the wake of recent news that TransCanada has suspended its application procedure to build the 1200-mile Keystone-XL pipeline to transport tar sands-extracted oil across the U.S. Plains states to the...