Tell us who you are in 50 words or less: I live, collect, and breathe art. For the past ten years, I’ve run the La Brea Studio Artist Residency, The Cabin LA (according to ArtNewspaper, “Per square foot, the most influential gallery in LA”), and The Bunker LA. Two alternative exhibition spaces in LA. I also sculpt. What do you require from an artist you collect? Originality. Even if other...
Top 3 Songs? Portishead — All Mine Ziúr J.I.D. — Surrounds Sound (feat. 21 Savage & Baby Tate) This article is available in print and in our digital edition. To read the full article, please subscribe.
If you are reading this magazine, you might be an artist. Or you have a friend who is, or perhaps you are at a Barnes and Noble flipping through Artillery while you wait to purchase an oversized coffee table book of Rock n Roll photography for some guy’s housewarming party in Silverlake. No matter the circumstance, I can safely assume you, or the artists you know, or even the guy who just bought...
(Excerpt from an essay). Hugh Jackman makes a brief cameo in the third Night at the Museum movie aptly titled Secret of the Tomb, where he plays himself playing King Arthur in a stage production of Camelot. Jackman as Arthur gets visited by Sir Lancelot, played by Dan Stevens; but he’s not Dan Stevens playing Dan Stevens playing Lancelot, he’s the real Sir Lancelot brought to life via a magical...
What is the Purpose of All of This? And by This, I Mean Life Dear Dr. Trainwreck, I have recently gone through a life change (a major breakup and move) and am having a hard time finding my footing. The close friends that I thought would be there for me disappeared shortly thereafter, and I've spent the better part of the last several months trying to nurture new friendships with people who are...
I'm... ...located at an arts fortress that is always free, but you should make a reservation. ...an extremely sexual painting whose description of what the group is doing is written in a non-offensive language that the entire family can read. ...small (about the size of a piece of paper) and created in the early 19th century by a Frenchman. Send a selfie of you in front of your guess so we can...
Can John Waters offend anyone these days? It hardly seems so. “I’m tired of being respectable,” he quipped at his show, “John Waters’ Birthday Celebration: The Naked Truth,” admitting he might be relatively mainstream today. He listed all his recent awards, and now he is greedy for more! “I want the Nobel Piece of Ass Award!” Whether he can still offend or not, Waters doesn’t disappoint. This...
DAY ONE Last night, Vidiots at Eagle Rock saw the start of the only weekend of the year where being an indie filmmaker in LA feels like it truly matters as much as it should. As the second edition of the Los Angeles Festival of Movies kicked off, current microbudget stalwart actor Colin Burgess remarked it “probably has one of the best festival names out there right now, because most festivals...
To prepare for his current show “Noir” at Gagosian, Alex Israel claims to have walked about fifteen thousand steps per day around Los Angeles. This is highly unusual and, honestly, suspect. As the saying goes, no one walks in LA. Yet Israel insists on it and says that...
There’s something in the Los Angeles air recently that’s been conjuring the ghost of Charles Manson. He has been coming up in conversation frequently (or maybe I am bringing him up). California’s back on the national stage for its hippie-turned-fascist tendencies....
We recognize the legacy Jacqueline Humphries is working from the moment we set foot in Matthew Marks’ two gallery spaces; yet something throws the viewer slightly off. It’s the echt gestural vocabulary of post-World War II art, but as if viewed through a scrim or...
It’s a matter of complete coincidence that Ramsey Alderson’s show “d’Or” at Tiffany’s—an East Hollywood artist-run garage space programmed by Adam Verdugo—coincides with the 17th anniversary of the notorious Emos vs. Punks Fight held in Mexico City’s Glorieta de Los...
I left Gregg Bordowitz’s recently-closed exhibition at The Brick, “This is Not a Love Song,” thinking the same thing as upon leaving The Brutalist: “I didn’t know it was going to be so Jewish.” In both, the artist’s Jewish identity weaves through a deep consideration...
I went in blind to David Hammons’ Concerto in Black and Blue (on view for the first time since its 2002 debut)—both literally and figuratively. When I pushed back the heavy curtain shrouding the gallery, darkness swallowed me. I couldn’t pull out my phone to navigate...
There is something a little chipper about the art world right now that belies the national mood. Palettes tend toward cheery hues and uncomplicated content. Not that there’s anything wrong with upbeat paintings, it just seems like there are other types of content...
The title of the two-person show at Cheremoya, “Conversion,” has a twofold implication: religious and material transformation. Calla Donofrio’s desaturated paintings depict acts of (sometimes sexual) violence that have been censored by parts of the image being blacked...
In Robert Russell’s solo show “Stateless Objects,” lush paintings of solitary vessels and kitchenware float like apparitions on the walls of Anat Ebgi. A mix of Judaica—challah platters, kiddush cups, and the like—alongside porcelain teacups produced in pre-Holocaust...