If you are one of the cool kids (or artists or gallerists), then most likely you were at 3rd street in DTLA last Saturday for a jam-packed and super festive opening. We aren’t talking Hauser, rather its newish next-door neighbor Over the Influence. OTI—with its Hong...
Off With Their Heads
There is a new queen in town. Last Saturday the Tanya Bonakdar matriarchy entered Hollywood in the most appropriate of ways—with the 12th solo presentation of gallery SoCal artist Charles Long. The exhibition “husbands, sons, fathers, brothers” provides context; it is...
Building Bridges: Glenn Kaino
After dodging the reporters and cameramen that were shooting footage of Leonard Nimoy’s star for memorial news coverage on Hollywood Boulevard, I was buzzed into Glenn Kaino’s studio and escorted up to the second floor by an assistant. Once face to face with the...
Analia Saban
An acknowledgment of tradition coupled with a refusal to conform to established conventions makes Analia Saban an artist not easily categorized. Her work flows seamlessly across genre, concept and medium.A native of Argentina, Saban recalls arriving in California...
Kris Kuksi and Preston Daniels
Death, destruction, strife and pollution—the pairing of Kris Kuksi’s and Preston Daniels’ variations of dark sensationalism transport us to their version of artistically-mediated Armageddon, with each creating unique and hauntingly extravagant objects. Kuksi’s baroque...
Some Assembly Required
Upsize, supersize, largesize, megasize—there are most likely a dozen more of these contemporarily fabricated verbs that are necessitated by our want/need to consume at the current unprecedented rates. The commerce-based art world, not unlike the modern fast-food...
The (Charles) Long Road Home
One artist who is returning to his roots after spending the last several years working on massive projects is sculptor Charles Long. For his next major exhibition “Up Land,” at his gallery Tanya Bonakdar in Chelsea, Long is embracing his personal style of hands-on...
Unsung Hero
Unbeknownst to many, the majority of sculptors that are known for creating large sculptures in bronze, never actually work with the material. Rather they sculpt in some alternative natural—such as clay or wax—then when the final aesthetic is reached, the object is...
Incognito: JR, Banksy, Fairey
Remaining anonymous coupled with becoming a globally recognized figure is no easy feat; it seems almost a requirement of celebrity status that the entire world know your name and face. The crux of what has catapulted some into the spotlight also necessitates a need...
Andra Ursuta
Death becomes her, there really is no better way to describe Andra Ursuta’s first solo show in the US. Ursuta’s work has been dark, conceptual, sexually-charged and fueled by a death obsession; now fear is the impetus for creating a fictional graveyard in the Hammer...
Devon Tsuno
Environmental undertones, bright poppy color and a sense of collaboration create a striking combination for Devon Tsuno’s exhibition “Watershed,” which is split into two distinct sections. Tsuno is native to LA and an educator enamored with the Los Angeles River...
Victoria Fu
A special place exists within those fleeting moments transitioning from slumber into an awakened state. In those few seconds when dreamscape combines with reality, both a mild confusion and an eerie comfort sets in. Our mind sifts, sorts and makes sense of what is...
STAGGERING WORKS: Beatriz da Costa
From the light, airy and playful feelings of the Laguna Art Musem’s “Faux Real” exhibition on the main floor, the atmosphere of “Ex·pose: Beatriz da Costa” shifts into dark, moving and intense as one descends into the museum’s dark basement. Da Costa’s “Dying for the...