Thank you to everyone who submitted their documentary photographs to the Code Orange column over the past eight years. A special thanks goes out to Tulsa Kinney, editor of Artillery and staff, my assistant, Ceci Arana, the Robert Berman Fine Art gallery and staff for...
CODE ORANGE
From the Editor March/April; Volume 18, issue 4
Dear Reader, I admit to being a Luddite when it comes to preferring a paintbrush to the computer. So, when artists gained access to AI-generating tools, I wasn’t that impressed, nor alarmed. There seemed to be a lot of hoopla and fearmongering about the prospect of...
GALLERY ROUNDS: XANADU Gallery V, Pasadena City College
Currently on view at Gallery V, located on the Pasadena City College campus, is “Xanadu,” a group show featuring the work of nine artists. Though tightly curated by Shelli Tollman, who is also in the show, each artist has enough breathing room to leave a real impact...
“If Memory Serves: Photography, Recollections and Vision” at Brand Library and Art Center Q&A with Aline Smithson
Aline Smithson’s conceptual works begin where photographic materials and processes encounter lost and found moments. She has been exploring our complicated relationships with our memories and the devices we use to capture them, our self-presentation and surrounding,...
NIKOLAS SOREN GOODICH Gallery 169
Especially in an era of infinite variability, the mirror motif can get pretty tired pretty fast, whether as a means of solving abstract compositional problems or finding meaning in figurative relationships. In his latest series of mounted, translucent, usually backlit...
Scarlet Cheng’s Top Films of 2023 Fantasy Takes the Lead
What a year for feature films this has been, both rich and strange. Indeed, fantasy seemed to have taken the lead, as we emerge from the fever of the COVID epidemic and try to find the new normal. These were not the usual escapist fantasies, but fantasies that spoke...
Mary Woronov: A Survey West Hollywood
Mary Woronov, Chelsea Girl, writer, actress and painter, is currently displaying her luscious punk-rock paintings in a Pop-up exhibition at an old Land Rover/Jaguar dealership in West Hollywood. This is a rare opportunity to see this extraordinary survey of her unique...
FILM: Welcome Space Brothers Los Angeles Theatre
It’s weird how the treasure trove of Outsider Video Art that was Public Access Television has only started to seep into mainstream consciousness as it has disappeared—the amateur programming itself, as well as its very context and infrastructure, rendered infinitely...
From the Editor November/December 2023; Volume 18, issue 2
Dear Reader, This issue is a fave of mine. I’ve always loved crafts, especially as a youngster. I taught myself how to sew and embroider, and I made a hooked-rug wall-hanging in my high school art class. I was by far the youngest member of a quilting bee. I even...
PICK OF THE WEEK: “The Inexpressible is Contained” Sea View
Who has not asked oneself at some time or another: Should I disappear into the abyss or should I emerge and be seen? It’s a concern that is, at times, about recognizability and addressability, and if we are ready to situate our bodies which contain the raw materials...
PICK OF THE WEEK: Vivian Suter Gaga & Reena Spaulings LA
At "Tintin Nina Disco," Vivian Suter’s exhibition at Gaga & Reena Spaulings, I not only learned that changes were a part of her paintings, but that I should be ready to accommodate them. Walking through her show, I began to understand this was a peculiar trait to...
Musing on the Island The Catalina Museum for Art and History
The Catalina Museum for Art and History invited Artillery for its 70th anniversary fundraiser and art auction. Who knew, maybe we could bid on some donated art and enjoy a day trip for a good cause. The rather large Spanish-tiled building—surrounded by vacation-rental...
OUTSIDE LA: Einar and Jamex de La Torre Koplin Del Rio
The whimsy is uncontrollable and seemingly pours out of the front windows of Koplin Del Rio Gallery in the SODO arts district in Seattle. The work is unmistakable and anyone that knows knows. The de la Torre’s brothers (Einar and Jamex) have for decades been a staple...
Metro Art THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY
Visiting the three new Downtown LA Metro stations recently, I found myself intrigued with how artists commissioned by Metro Art use the transparency of glass to design artworks. The street level of the stations is enclosed by glass, both to allow natural light in and...
From the Editor September/October 2023; Volume 18, issue 1
Dear Reader, Seventeen years—that’s a long time. Most relationships don’t last that long. That number has now outlived all my other jobs; I’m referring to my relationship with Artillery. I started this magazine with my late husband in 2006, who warned me: Once you...
New Art in the Metro System
With the opening of Metro’s Regional Connector on June 16, three new Downtown Los Angeles stations have site-responsive art installations by eight artists in them. The artists were carefully chosen through a multi-stage process, and their designs became integral parts...
Fear of Hip Readings Jack Skelley’s Los Angeles Book Launch of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker
Los Angeles’ literati gathered at the Poetic Research Bureau in Silver Lake last Wednesday in celebration of Jack Skelley’s book launch of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker. The awaited book is his first-ever complete edition of excerpts detailing the anarchy of 1980s...
From the Editor July/August 2023; Volume 17, issue 6
Dear Reader, Reading wasn’t a top priority in our family; I don’t think I was ever read to as a child. It wasn’t as if literature was banned in our house, but the walls weren’t exactly lined with bookshelves. The preschool in our tiny town was held at the local...