In much the same way Chris Burden imbues his visual vernacular with his own brand of personal/social provocation, Sean Duffy, in his newest exhibition, aptly titled “Paintings,” at Susanne Vielmetter, shatters the expectation of the pristine sacred surface, electing...
What can I say that hasn’t already been said about two of the greatest artists in history, except that Van Gogh and Kandinsky, not to mention other lesser known expressionists like Gabrielle Münter, and Franz Marc helped to shape the way we look at the world today....
I overheard a student of mine say “Nobody uses pencils anymore. They are just so old school.” This made me very sad until I saw Kio Griffith’s recent curatorial effort, "Draftpunk" at Autonomie Projects. I was reminded that not only is the pencil very much alive, but...
Regarding John Altoon—all I can say is GO TO LACMA NOW and see Altoon’s stunning, inspiring first major retrospective. Altoon was a visionary, but more that perhaps, he was deeply committed to the process of painting and willing to see where that journey took him....
As a viewer, one must “bear witness” to Steve McQueen’s artwork, which constitutes a totally awe inspiring engaging sensory experience. McQueen’s 1998 video installation titled Drumroll, in combination with his series of 56 photographs of gutters and dams in and...
Mike Kelley was a ruthless investigator, of everything from Mother Mary, to rainbow afro wigs to stuffed toys to the complex mechanism, which was his own mind. The works that comprise this retrospective are alternately humorous and aggressive, quietly lurking and...
Nathan MabryI can think of nothing as “fiercely alluring” (literally) as the open-mouthed skull of a T-Rex, and one with a luscious bronze patina to boot! Nathan Mabry delivers another provocative and mythologically charged visual opus at the Cherry Martin Gallery....
Martin Mull has certainly earned his place in the canon of exceptional narrative painters, those for whom painting is a delicate and complicated process by which the artist quantifies his/her relationship to the world around them. Mull’s assessments are usually dark,...
John MillsJohn Mills’ recent exhibition at Rosamund Felsen Gallery is compositionally complex and visually challenging. As the title suggests, High On Signs represents the artist’s love affair with line and shape and more importantly perhaps, the iconographic...
John TottenhamJohn Tottenham, who regularly graces Artillery’s pages with his near orgasmic wit and verbal subterfuge, is a fantastic artist, though in typical self-deprecating style, he might in fact tell you otherwise. “The Indifferent Sublime” is, well, truly...
Koi No Yokan IIImagine meeting someone, and knowing that you will one day fall madly in love with that person, and you have mastered the Japanese concept of Koi No Yokan. Love is not immediately activated, as in the American sense of “love at first sight,” but becomes...
Luke ButlerI can see Luke Butler hanging out with Montgomery Clift and Liz Taylor, sipping daiquiris by the lake-house with not a care in the world, but then all great movies must come to “an end.” Butler specializes in these two powerfully evocative little words...
Materially Defined All art has corporeal form, and must be “made” of something, and in the case of “Materially Defined,” at CMay Gallery, the literal materials themselves dictate the greater metaphorical meaning of the individual works in the exhibition. Macha...
Rachel Kastor: Ambitious ImplementsRachel Kaster creates startlingly effective visual conversations between seemingly disparate objects including glass, found wood and bronze. Many of Kastor’s visual relationships depend on tangible visceral associations; glass is so...
Rachel Lauren KasterRachel Kaster creates startlingly effective visual conversations between seemingly disparate objects including glass, found wood and bronze. Many of Kaster’s visual relationships depend on tangible visceral associations; glass is so fragile, yet...
Night Terrors And Day Dreams Edgar Allen Poe, the undisputed master of darkness once said, “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night,” suggesting that the light can be a necessary benediction just as the dark...
Mary Weatherford Mary Weatherford’s first exhibition at David Kordansky finds its roots in the powerful gestural mark making of artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell. These powerful large-scale paintings conflate the loose semi autonomic gestural...
Maura Bendettat Edward Cella Art + Architecture In this her newest exhibition at Edward Cella, aptly titled “Vespid Empire,” Maura Bendett has hit the ball not only out of the park but well into the stratosphere. In nature, vespids are colonial nesting wasps, and...
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