Generally, rubbish is quickly dispatched and secreted from public consciousness—or at least ignored. Constance Mallinson, however, revels in discards’ improbable pulchritude while questioning society’s prodigious dispersion of throwaway images, ideas and sundries. In...
Straddling all sorts of categories, Nick Lowe's pictures are defined by their byzantine intermediacy between stretched canvases and works on paper, paintings and drawings, fanciful dreamscapes and pedestrian scenes. Lowe possesses an uncanny knack for agglomerating...
Group shows are like parties: overarching themes can help ensure memorable experiences; but sometimes the most engaging are those where unexpected connections form fortuitously among diverse invitees, rather than being engineered. "Hot Time, Summer in the City"...
In timeless spirit and simple form, Julia Haft-Candell's ceramic sculptures recall the mystical austerity of primeval petroglyphs, carved totems and cave paintings. Yet their painted embellishments and surface textures are unmistakably modern, evoking graphic novel...
Forty-three works in an expansive range of media highlight Richard Deacon’s versatility in a broad yet uneven survey of the British sculptor’s art from 1979–2016 in “What You See Is What You Get” at The San Diego Museum of Art. Deacon’s austerely lyrical...
Jessie Homer French's paintings nullify categories like sophistication and naiveté; embodying aspects of both, they fit into neither. As implied by the show's title, "Food Chain," harsh realities figure prominently in French's depictions of subjects that include...
Injecting one or more inane Star Wars puns into a discussion of George Lucas’ proposed museum would be de rigueur; but I’ll abstain. It is time to take Lucas’ idea seriously. Suspend the adulation. Cut the skepticism of commercial pictures’ merit. A 275,000...
Arne Quinze’s jubilantly comely show, “Jungle Cities,” propounds fundamental questions about the problematic relationship between culture and nature. These questions align with the artist’s generally stated ambitions; however, the most urgent of them are posed...
One doesn’t quite know how to act inside Jacob Ciocci’s deliberately underwhelming installation. The artist has transformed And/Or Gallery into a bland arena that feels more like a waiting room than an exhibition. Chairs line the walls—are you supposed to sit? Tablets...
Daniel Pitín's paintings allegorize the uneasy tension between our mortal individuality and the cold cardboard abyss of the computerized world. Most works in his current show depict inchoate figures merging into geometric multi-planar forms. These unclassifiable,...
In Orkideh Torabi’s caricatures of silly men, comedy and poignancy stealthily overcome the unsuspecting viewer. Midway through this exhibition, one is liable to titter aloud as the portraits’ repetitive simplicity resounds to a starkly touching yet hilarious effect....
Lena Wolek's "Arbitraitor's Clauset" is clever in title and use of space. Arriving at her installation in the diminutive exhibition chamber misleadingly named "Egyptian Art & Antiques" feels like discovering a child's toy-room in a nondescript Beverly Hills office...
Attending a Daniel Rolnik event, you'll encounter many bizarre characters, Rolnik being the most amusing. I met Rolnik four years ago at a party in a vacant Beverly Hills house where he had helped organize a pop-up exhibition. His art world debut role was as a writer...
Through her show, “Paper or Plastic?”, at the innovative Mixografia studio, Analia Saban breathes new life into plastic grocery bags while highlighting their vapidity as an aging commercial technology.In earlier bodies of work, Saban cast mundane objects in pure paint...
This coming Friday, September 23, at 9 P.M. ET, PBS will air an hour-long Los Angeles-themed episode, the third installment of a four-episode block called Season 8 of its series Art in the Twenty-First Century.The series specializes in charismatic, broad-brush but...
If Rebeca Puga's paintings could speak, they might quote, in their collective voice, the Socratic paradox, "I only know that I know nothing." Instead of formulating bold statements, they suggest ineffable speculations.In pencil lines, thin washes, and wobbly...
1. Museum of Jurassic Technology (9341 Venice Boulevard, Culver City, California 90232)From its name to its introductory slideshow to its lighting to its exhibits to its top-floor tea room and aviary, everything about this museum is enigmatic and conducive to the...
1. Obsolete Despite its overall ambience of musty, bizarre creepiness, this synergetic cross between antique shop and contemporary art gallery somehow manages to convey a feeling so welcoming that one is liable to lose any sense of time and forget one is browsing...
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