If you weren’t around for the 1970s, it’s a hard era to explain. And thanks to AIDS, there are fewer people left alive to explain the queer experience of that decade. Happily, there are movies. The reason that these movies exist is almost accidental. Budding auteurs,...
Quarantine isn’t much different from my old normal. In case you hadn’t noticed, this column is 99% reviews of things that I receive through the mail or via the web - anything that doesn’t require me to leave home and interact with my fellow art world and academic...
Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in 1771, the Serrano and Paiute indigenous people of Southern California created outdoor parietal rock drawings called petroglyphs in an area of the southern Mojave Desert known as Victor Valley. This once-remote desert is where the...
Three weeks ago I was visiting LACMA for their landmark exhibition “Where the Truth Lies: The Art of Qiu Ying,” featuring a Ming dynasty painter at the Resnick. Afterwards I came out to look for the plinth where a new Yoshitomo Nara sculpture would be going—the...
The planet, some of us might say, is having a moment. Panic, collapse, disruption—with the tables turned on the principal disrupting species by an errant configuration of protein presumably just doing its thing in the carbon cycle; also course-correction, regrouping,...
Since the self-isolation began, I’ve been seeing variations on the joke: “introverts have been preparing for this their whole lives.” One might well surmise that a column about things to watch in your bunker could come in handy about now. Since many of our readers may...
Many artists, we’ve been told, are obsessed. The way they repeat a subject, or a theme, their attention to detail or to finish, or just the impressive volume of work they produce, can only be explained by obsession. They think about feet or toast or red a lot—maybe...
Before a few weeks ago, as far as I know, I had never had direct communication with anyone who’d even heard of The Rev. Dr. Fred Lane (though I’m sure some of the LAFMS folk could prove me wrong). Lane hasn’t released anything since 1986 when Shimmy Disc dropped his...
Labor relations are a natural topic for film and documentaries. From the earliest days of cinema, there have been grouchy bosses. The most famous of these might be Michael Moore’s Roger and Me (1989). Strikes always provide a great context to explore the viewpoints of...
LA Fair Report The fairs are bursting out all over in February—and I just have time to jot down a few notes before deadline. Photo LA (Jan. 30–Feb. 2) is going strong for its second year back on the westside, in the Barker Hangar. This is LA’s longest running fair, in...
Dear Babs, I really liked Hans Haacke’s retrospective at The New Museum, specifically his polls that asked viewers their opinions about current news and events. It’s cool he wants his audience to interact with his art. But it got me thinking, why can’t I contact him...
Architectural critics have been quick to celebrate midcentury modern architects for their pointed sensitivity to a building’s environs, noting that it was this development more than any other that distinguished California modernism from other modernist movements. But...
There are plenty of deserts around the world. As President Trump memorably said when he abruptly pulled American troops out of Syria as a favor to the Turkish president Erdogan: “There’s a lot of sand there.” So why is it that Desert X, the organization that has put...
People have been photographing sex since the invention of cameras. But the distribution of moving images that depict actual sex acts only became possible in the early 1970s. X-rated films shown in theaters were subject to prosecution into the 1980s. As content moved...
Museums and Unions The Marciano Art Foundation has closed, abruptly and in a cloud of controversy. Since its opening in 2017, most of the employees worked part-time, handling visitor services and making close to minimum-wage salaries. On November 1, District Council...
Dear Babs, I’m in college majoring in illustration and minoring in fine art. My problem is some of my fine-art professors put down illustration and make it seem I can’t be part of the “Art World” and still be an illustrator. What do I do? —Stymied Student Dear Stymied...
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