Ceramics is again making a major splash in the world of fine arts. Way back in the 1950s Peter Voulkos pushed ceramics into that realm, with his Abstract Expressionist pieces of cut and contorted clay slabs, followed by the works of his students (among them, John...
LA ART FAIR ROUNDUPMore fairs, Au Revoir PARIS PHOTOArt fairs, and yet more art fairs in January. There was the usual roundup—photo l.a. (Jan. 22–24), L. A. Art Show with all its components (Jan. 27–31), and Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC, Jan. 28–31)—plus...
Not all films about artists and the art world are silly, but most of them are. To paraphrase a Mark Twain quote, “There are lies, damned lies, and films about artists and the art world.” (Twain linked “statistics” with lies and damned lies.) From such films as the...
DANGEROUS TERRITORYLOCAL HOMIES ANSWER MACCARONE GALLERYSometimes gentrification can backfire, especially if you crow about it too loudly. Last September New York gallerist Michele Maccarone told The New York Times that Boyle Heights, where she was opening her LA...
Stephen Cohen is the founder of photo l.a. and the Stephen Cohen Gallery, which is now the Cohen Gallery on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. In January the stalwart photo fair celebrates its 25th anniversary. Artillery: Why did you start photo l.a.? What made...
The Broad Is Here Inaugural Show is a Highlights Survey Here comes The Broad! The striking white cube with diagonal perforations holding the contemporary art collection of Eli and Edythe Broad finally opened to the public on Sept. 20—after a delay of nearly a year due...
This summer we’ve had the extraordinary opportunity to time travel, and see the work of two artists, generations apart but both deeply moved by a need to reflect on the history of racial discrimination in this country. Through their work and careers, we see how times...
BIENNIAL OF THE AMERICAS 2015Denver Biennial focus on NowDenver has been trying to put itself on the map through art and culture, and one path has been the creation of the Biennial of the Americas. The third edition of the biennial (June 14–August 30) was launched...
In 2013 artist Doug Aitken realized an extraordinarily ambitious art project, "Station to Station," a kind of continuous art performance on wheels. This one rolled coast to coast, populated with creative folk who got on and off, making music, making art, making...
Photo Time in LAParis Photo and photo independentParis Photo (May 31–June 3) hit its third year—the final year of its lease agreement with Paramount Studios, wherein it takes over several soundstages and the “New York” backlot for an art fair. This year there were 79...
A trip to New Orleans is a voyage through time, through a history thick with contradictory layers, heated by much tragedy and some absurdity. Hurricane Katrina wasn’t the first tragedy that disrupted the city, and it won’t be the last. It’s no accident that Tennessee...
SNEAK PEEKOpen House at The Broad on a Sunday AfternoonI was lucky enough to get in on the one-day preview of The Broad, the new museum in LA that will house the important contemporary art collection of power philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. There was a viewing...
GALLERY MOVESIn and Out, Back and ForthTwo of our longtime Los Angeles galleries are closing: Angles Gallery is shutting down its La Cienega space, and Frank Lloyd has vacated Bergamot Station with its final show—of two legendary figures in postwar LA art, Peter...
It’s an amazing true story—the real story behind the phenomenally successful paintings of those children with those big, sad eyes of the ’50s and ’60s, the ones that defined “kitsch.” We always thought it was this fellow named Walter Keane who painted them, but it...
While contemporary Chinese artists such as Ai Weiwei and Cai Guo-Qiang often grab international headlines with their projects and exhibitions, there are very few women among them. Lin Tianmiao is one of the few. That is very much due to the strength of her work, the...
Los Angeles was treated to some remarkable public conversations this fall. In early October The Broad conversations series presented a fascinating dialogue between artist Kara Walker and filmmaker Ava DuVernay. A few weeks later the Hammer Museum offered up a...
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art continues to set a high bar for film exhibitions with their latest, “Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s.” The striking exhibition design by architects Amy Murphy and Michael Maltzan has it “interrupted” by three...
Gallery MovesIt’s a Californian Kinda ThingBy Scarlet Cheng It’s hard to keep up with the rash of new and relocated galleries this year—is this because of the economic rebound, or because Los Angeles continues to become more important in American’s cultural...
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