I first purchased my now well-worn copy of David Gebhard and Robert Winter’s Architecture in Los Angeles: A Complete Guide some three years ago. For just six dollars, I walked away from downtown LA’s The Last Bookstore with the 1985 edition of a book that quickly...
The other day while seeking collage materials, I picked up a magazine. There was an article about Beethoven’s 250th birthday this year. It seemed like every performing arts venue was doing something grand to commemorate the occasion. Something seemed off, so I checked...
Dear Babs, I’m a high school senior and I was planning on enrolling in college to study art next fall either in Los Angeles or New York City, but Covid has me thinking I might want to take a year off or reconsider college entirely. What should I do? —Nervous in...
Carmina Escobar is an extreme vocalist with an active teaching practice. Born in Mexico and based in Los Angeles, Escobar investigates emotions, states of alienation, and the possibilities of interpersonal connection through voice performances that challenge our...
Flamingo’s Dream has never missed a church social, eats all the watermelon at the weekly buffet, shoving the rinds in her purse to take home to her poodle. Flamingo never goes out without makeup, “putting her face on,” hoping to catch the eye of a bad boy, a...
Bright White, forever the blank page, the empty backdrop, illuminating the dreams and desires of other colors – added to, enhanced, augmented, amplified and enlarged – the beginning of everything and the end of nothing – it should be enough just to be yourself, but...
Slate gray is stoggy, sometimes stingy, and believes himself diplomatic. Presses his suits in the dead of night. Prefers the dawn to the dusk, and rarely works even a minute past five. Is precise and patriotic, though rarely vulgar in his applause. Married for...
Tucked between two of the quaint brick and wooden structures comprising the colonial phantasmagoria that is LA’s Olvera Street, is a rooftop mural painted by the famed Mexican activist, Marxist organizer and painter, David Alfaro Siqueiros. The passion project of...
An inevitable consequence of democracy, of equality, of freedom; of systems and technologies that more evenly distribute the power to influence the world; is the production and distribution of a tremendous amount of bad art. More of us learning means more of us know...
Donald Trump is a figure out of commedia dell’arte—a puffed-up clown who thinks he’s brilliant but is, in fact, an ignorant fool. His televised commentaries with the Coronavirus Task Force could have been uttered word-for-word by Il Dottore, the ridiculous “expert”...
In July 2019 a new art space opened in Los Angeles. This wasn’t a neat minimal white cube for showing expensive art. At first glance one might be reminded of a vintage video store. If the space was on your radar, you would have probably noticed that it hosted...
Dear Babs, If Trump gets another term in office I think I will leave the US. Where’s the best place to go for an artist who wants to flee America? —Expat Patty Dear Expat Patty, I remember getting a question like this back when Trump first came into office, so it...
If there’s been a silver lining for the LA art scene during the pandemic, it just might be the new Gallery Association Los Angeles (GALA) an online platform known as GalleryPlatform.LA, that has taken root while everyone was quarantining. Brainchild of uber-gallerist...
Dear Reader, Babs thinks now is the time we ask some important questions: Who are your friends, collaborators and colleagues in the art world? How many are white? How many are Black? How long has this been the case? Who controls the museums, galleries, fairs, auction...
The saga of British art dealer Inigo Philbrick is testimony to the pitfalls of the trust and handshake deals that have become customary at the highest levels of the art world. The fall of Philbrick—a protégé of Jay Jopling, the principal of London’s most prestigious...
You could draw people in masks. Paint them. Paint on them. Make videos where the face above changes but the mask does not, challenging the viewer to notice and read the eyes, the hairline. You could fashion new masks or sculpt respirators. And the gloves, too:...
Dear Babs, As an artist practicing social distancing I’ve begun feeling guilty for not doing more with all this new free time. I look on social media and everyone is being so productive, making art, and learning new skills. I’m not making art or much of anything....
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