Mike Kelley said for years that he would agree to be profiled in Artillery. That was practically a running joke when we would see each other at art events. Finally, in early November 2011, I contacted him to make it happen. He emailed to say he was very busy but he...
Puke performance artist Millie Brown just returned from the South by Southwest Festival where she “performed” with Lady Gaga. The UK artist has recently relocated to Los Angeles and painted her colored vomit canvas to a very small crowd in a rare performance at club...
Dear Readers,Troublemaker Dave Hickey blew into town last month. The outspoken art critic held forth at the Grand Central Market, gracing Angelenos with his caustic observations about the corroding art world. There was much tweetin’ and hollerin’ after (and apparently...
When I drove up to Zackary Drucker’s home off San Fernando Road, the front door was wide open—a startling sight since most of the surrounding houses have metal bars over the windows and doors. The Los Angeles video and performance artist lives in Glassell Park, an...
Dear Readers,My mother always told me, “It’s a man’s world.” I vividly remember her saying that to me when I was crying in my bedroom after my boyfriend stood me up. Mom consoled me with those words, while patting my head and wiping away my tears. She also told me...
Dear Readers, Cold trickling creeks, running rivers and green woods were my surroundings growing up. That’s where we played as children and partied as teenagers. When I moved to Southern California, the unchanging climate and landscape were a bit unsettling—they still...
Dear Readers, Suddenly, big is all around. Big, meaning huge spaces to create art in. Big, meaning large works to hang in gargantuan galleries. Big used to be considered vulgar but now it’s vogue. Big was garish, wasteful, decadent and dumb. Now it’s smart and...
From the shaded parking lot, a stark beam of light shines through the loosely shut double doors of a nondescript white brick building. It is late morning, and the sun is already beginning to assert its presence as I approach the now-defunct Regen Projects gallery. It...
Artillery was always skeptical about the selection of Jeffrey Deitch as director of MOCA. In 2010 we did a cover story musing on the idea of Deitch at the helm. Preposterous! was our first reaction. And we backed it up with interviews from Los Angeles and New York...
I’m listening to Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass’ Classics, Volume 1 as I write this. Besides being famous for his ’60s music, Alpert has apparently been making art for almost as long. I ran into his formidable sculptures again recently, this time at the Robert...
Dear Readers, I didn't get a chance in my last column to talk about art critic Dave Hickey's announcement about being fed up with the art world and "quitting." This is old news by now, but I feel compelled to continue the discussion. When I first read the...
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! ART STAR STOPS MAKING ART! That was going to be my headline after hearing the remark Mike Kelley made at the close of our interview. I was wrapping up our conversation, all ready to ask the final question, like Barbara Walters: "What's...
This interview took place December, 2009, at the restaurant in Los Feliz at Fred 62. Zak ordered the spaghetti. Find this article in our Jan/Feb 2010 issue; Artillery's first Biennial Sex Issue...(time for another!) https://artillerymag.com/product/janfeb-2010/ ...
It was two years ago when I first saw Susan Anderson’s photographs at an art fair in New York. They were images of little girls all dolled up, seemingly for one of those kiddie beauty pageants. I was struck by the pictures for several reasons: The photographs...
Tracking down George Legrady for an interview can be tricky. A man who juggles art and science for a living has a lot of demands on his time. Hence, I found myself at a panel discussion on Database Aesthetics at the convention center in Los Angeles early one Saturday...
Waters once said, “To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.” And after seeing his place in San Francisco, I would have to say he practices what he preaches. Antique furniture, tapestries and decorative drapery adorn the small but elegant 1920s apartment...
Mike Kelley’s first feature length movie takes place mainly at a high school. Cheery bright classrooms are full of 30-year-old sloppy students. Auditoriums stage assemblies with campy musicals and pageants. Gleaming lockers line the polished hallways. It’s a regular...
California is known as the land of fruits and nuts. And it’s true, we’ve got wacky environmentalists, kooky lefty liberals and fruity homosexuals. And artist Catherine Opie actually fits all three categories, sans the loaded adjectives. Nothing wacky about Cathy, and...
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