columns
RECONNOITER
Anuradha Vikram is the artistic director of 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, which is currently celebrating its 30th year. Vikram is also a senior lecturer in the MFA Social Pratice Area Emphasis at Otis College. One Googles your name, and the term...
ASK BABS
WHITE MALES NEED NOT APPLY Dear Babs, I am a Latina lesbian. My friend is a straight white male. What are the chances that either one of us will have our art judged on its own merits, which is all either of us wants? Would you suggest we show our art anonymously or...
COMICS: DEAD OR ALIVE
Bamboo: Nature’s spirals, cosmic abstractions, and the long dress of eternity
In a city like Los Angeles, where there’s always some fresh starburst to occlude the starburst (or firestorm) that ignited only moments before, it’s easy to lose track of the treasures strewn in our path that will endure long after the firestorms have died down to...
Refuge from the Inferno: L.A.’s Best Summer Group Shows
‘What is it with dudes and trees?’ I wonder for a second as I’m about to put this up on-line—thinking more about Shakespeare’s pastoral romantic comedy than the cool oasis of a summer group show René-Julien Praz has curated at Praz-Delavallade’s L.A. premises. (Though...
SHOPTALK
PST AFTERMATH “An investment in the arts is an investment in our future,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti in conjunction with the release of a report on the economic benefits of PST: LA/LA. The initiative “attracted millions of visitors, supported thousands of good-paying...
ART BRIEF: THE WHITEWASH
Whenever I mention the V.A.R.A to artists, I’m invariably met with a blank stare. The Visual Arts Rights Act, passed by Congress in 1990, grants artists a form of Droit Moral or moral rights, intended to protect artists’ control over the fate of their works. Moral...
UNDER THE RADAR: TEMPORARY SERVICES
About a month ago Virginia Katz cajoled me into leading a discussion at her regular public salon at Eastside International gallery at LA’s Brewery art complex. Since every time an art critic speaks in public an angel loses its wings, I am not really big on the whole...
DECODER: LOOKING FOR AMBIGUITY
I think we might have to consider the possibility that fine art is a genre. Or perhaps has become a genre. Someone clever whose name neither I nor Google can retrieve right now once said that philosophy is the spawning ground of the sciences—meaning that the things we...
SIGHTS UNSCENE
BUNKER VISION: DINNER ISN’T SERVED
If you happen to be searching for films that feature food, there are no shortages of places to look. Just about every pop culture magazine and blog has a listicle of food in film. These range from movies like Babette’s Feast (where a dinner is a labor of love), to...
RETROSPECT
Along with everyone else, I was always thrilled to see another painting of Wayne Thiebaud’s cars screeching up and down the insane hills of San Francisco in one traffic jam after another, melting into another modern painting of man’s insanity. However, when I finally...
Dave & Jeff’s Wonderful Column Area
ASK BABS: ETIQUETTE FOR ARTFUL LIVING
Dear Babs, Although I’ve long been an admirer of art, it occurred to me only recently, now that I have a meager disposable income, that I might start purchasing pieces of my own. But the prospect of starting my own collection is seriously intimidating. I recently...
RECONNOITER
In celebration of Artillery’s inaugural Food Issue, caterer and collector Tom Peters has agreed to divulge several of his secret and most cherished recipes. He began both his profession and his passion in the early ’80s. Since then, he has amassed a clientele that...
COMICS: DEAD OR ALIVE
All Tomorrow’s Parties — Icons of Style in the age of disposable culture and personality fetish
I’m becoming accustomed to conversations changing overnight over the last year or two; and certainly the context of those conversations is being altered more or less continuously. Less expected is when the perceptions of a set of issues or phenomena of any variety –...
