In Branden W. Joseph’s book, Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts After Cage, Joseph precipitates his excursion into the minutiae of the early ’60s New York City avant-garde on Mike Kelley’s concept-like-thing of Minor Histories—a sort of...
ART BRIEF
“Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World”—intended to be the most important show of Chinese dissident art in recent years—limped into California late last year. The show traveled to the Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao, Spain and New York before its display at the...
SIGHTS UNSCENE
DECODER
If you’ve been to a museum lately you’ve noticed all the not-art. The artist’s notebook, the artist’s ticket to Switzerland, the fragment of the stage still containing the burn-mark from the performance, the suit the artist wore during the performance, the chart the...
Curfew
Leaving my converted-garage AirBnb near Little Havana, I was charmed to find the walkway was blocked by wheat posters and spray cans. It was 9 a.m. on the second day of Art Basel Miami Beach and artist Fiest was putting the finishing sprays on a series of his RIP LOVE...
BUNKER VISION
If you have any awareness of the New York underground, you have probably encountered the name Penny Arcade. Her resume is so diverse, that until she finishes her autobiography, it will be hard to comprehend the breadth of her activities. Those activities include...
COMICS: DEAD OR ALIVE
Reconnoiter
In 2016, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Kim SchoeNstadt launched her “Now Be Here” project in Los Angeles where 733 contemporary women artists gathered for a group photo at Hauser & Wirth. Tell me about how you started the project, Now Be Here. Hauser Wirth...
SHOPTALK
LA ARTS DISTRICT SANS ARTISTS LA, LA, our art scene is changing so rapidly. On a recent visit to the Arts District for a preview at Hauser & Wirth, I was struck by how tidy the neighborhood is looking these days. When that gallery opened two-and-a-half years ago,...
ART BRIEF
The bitter years-long dispute between billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev and Swiss art-freeport mogul Yves Bouvier (reported in this column previously) has spawned a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Sotheby’s and has resulted in possible criminal...
UNDER THE RADAR
It’s been getting harder to tell the difference between weird and normal lately. Case in point: the current flurry of activity documenting the burgeoning interest in an obscure sub-genre of lounge music, known as “Library” or “Production” music. In many ways, the...
DECODER
Q: What are your influences? A: Mediocre things, like this interview. That’s a terrible question. So I think “When I do an interview, I need to remember to ask better questions than that.” Q: But people make their own connections between your work and that of other...
SIGHTS UNSCENE
RECONNOITER
Sarah Williams is co-founder and executive director of the Women’s Center for Creative Work (WCCW). What was your background before WCCW, and how did it influence your approach to the organization? I grew up in Hawthorne, CA, left to go to UC Santa Cruz, and came back...
BUNKER VISION
There is an old saying about documentaries: If you are the subject of one, it probably isn’t for the reasons that you think. Perhaps, by the same token, if you are included in a documentary on another subject, it might be for the right reasons. A recent documentary...
ASK BABS
Just One Word: PLASTICS DEAR BABS: I am really feeling the lack of creativity in my current occupation as a therapy/social worker, and am seeking to return to my passions and study either art history, curation, or some combination of the two in graduate school, which...
Bernardo Bertolucci (1941-2018) as miracle-master: The Conformist
We generally think of chance or random selection, in opposition to composition, certainly in opposition to mise-en-scène; but there are moments and circumstances that bring these very different conditions into dynamic interplay. I had occasion to consider this...
SHOPTALK
AI WEIWEI IN LA We haven’t seen much of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in these parts since LACMA presented his installation “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Head” in 2012. This fall he returned with a well-orchestrated splash—with three high-profile exhibitions opening in LA, all...