The perfect day had been planned: visit the Getty Center in the afternoon to catch the Mapplethorpe show, then stay for the Chris Burden documentary, Burden, with a picnic sandwiched in between.Viewing the velvety Mapplethorpes became this rich and poignant...
Dear Readers You’ve heard the one about how sculpture is something you bump into when backing up to look at a painting. An old boyfriend who was a sculptor told me that joke.He also told me the story about how Louise Bourgeois was at a high power dinner with an...
Dear Readers,Film and art just go together. If you’re into art, you’re most likely a film buff (and film snob), and if you’re into film, well... maybe, actually, it doesn’t go the other way around. So let’s stick to the first theory. This is a contemporary art...
Dear Readers, Last month, Artillery held a panel discussion on whether artists need art school. On my way to the panel, I received a phone call from a friend telling me he wouldn’t be able to make it. This friend is known for his cynicism; he added wryly that if he...
Dear Readers When I moved to Los Angeles to attend grad school for my MFA at the University of Southern California, it was apparent I was at a crossroads in my life. Making the decision to leave the place where I grew up, to leave behind all my family and friends,...
Just blocks from Venice Beach near Appleton Way I’m wandering down an alley, trying to find Jud Fine’s studio. Over the cell he tells me to look for the DWP truck parked in front. But as I turn the corner the truck is pulling away. I’m not quite sure which nondescript...
Dear Readers We’re going “outside the cube” for our summer issue. This is our second look at alternative spaces—the first time we zeroed in on domestic art spaces—but this time we’re focusing on noncommercial art venues outside the white cube of the commercial fine...
Dear Readers In this issue we take a look “Inside Art”—what’s inside the art world, other than art. This is a theme that has interested us for some time now, but it really hit home after I interviewed abstract painter James Hayward for our last issue on painting. One...
Dear Readers Our paint-themed issue just makes me want to paint. I figure that’s a good thing. As a former serious painter, I get wistful for the days when I was alone in the studio for hours with pigment, medium and turpentine—especially when I see a good painting...
Los Angeles painter James Hayward taught a USC graduate seminar in 1987. That was my introduction to him. He wasn’t much of a teacher, but he sure was a talker. He sat in a chair front and center in the classroom with his legs stretched wide open. When he would get...
Dear Readers Happy New Year! We start off 2015 with a survey of Asian art. I’ve been wanting to cover contemporary Asian art for quite some time but never had the confidence that we could represent that culture. It’s the largest and most populated continent on the...
What do Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Richard Prince and Jeff Koons have in common? If you answered all are old white-guy artists that make lots of money with their art, you would have answered correctly. But they have another thing in common. They are all NOT...
Dear Readers,Yes, this is still Artillery. We’ve got a new look, but we’re still the same on the inside. We feel that our revamped design is more reflective of what we are all about and how we’ve evolved over the last eight years.We claim that we’re “The Only Art...
“I’m a hypocrite,” Linda Vallejo says, referring to her latest series “Make ’Em All Mexican.” “I grew up on Fred Flintstone and Frank Sinatra. I’m all American.” She adds, “I think we are all hypocrites in one way or another. We all have our prejudices and judge each...
Dear Readers,Lately I’ve been getting wistful for the past. It’s not that I want to go back, never to return. It’s more that I yearn for more simple and innocent times; I’m not sure I prefer wisdom to naiveté.It’s the direction art has been going that has made me...
The residential valley neighborhood wasn’t what I was expecting when I went to Chas Smith’s studio for our interview. Big shade trees lined the wide boulevards of modest houses and neat lawns. Smith has been Paul McCarthy’s main art assistant for over a decade, and...
Dear Readers,When I started writing as opposed to making art, there was a lot of disapproval from my friends and colleagues. I was thrilled with my new creative outlet and found it to be more gratifying than painting. One comment from an editor was a little puzzling....
I am so glad I made sure to see the just-visiting Jackson Pollock painting at the Getty before it leaves this weekend—I did procrastinate a little. The painting, Mural (1943) has been at the Getty for an extended facelift. It’s now beautifully restored and has been on...