ART BASEL IS BIGThe Big Mama of Art FairsArt Basel is big, very big. The main event is on two levels of a circularly designed building at the Messe Basel complex, with the “Unlimited” section next door in a gigantic convention hall. A series of outdoor installations,...
I have a confession. At some point between Graduation and 2010 or 2011 (whenever he last recorded with Katy Perry), I lost track of Kanye West. Yes, of course I was peripherally aware of what he might be doing, whether in terms of his own planned record releases or...
We live very close to horror in the early 21st century. But then I wonder how much has really changed since, say, the 1940s (although the northern 75 percent or so of the North American continent was relatively at peace during the 20th century up to that time). The...
Roughly a generation separates me from artist-curator Joshua Nathanson; but we clearly live in very similar moments in very similar cities. (My understanding is that he is based here in L.A., but he was born in Washington, D.C. and studied in New York prior to grad...
In the late 1970s there was a running joke surrounding Francis Ford Coppola’s much anticipated, but disaster-plagued and seemingly endless Vietnam War-as-American Heart of Darkness project, Apocalypse Now. While Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate was already bleeding...
Long before I had a clue about art, or at least modern or contemporary art, my older brother and I would occasionally be dropped off at twin fantasylands on either side of Central Park that, to our five and six year-old brains, were like complementary sides of what...
After a week that seemed to confirm everyone’s worst expectations for the planet, our dubious species, and its cratering political structures (to say nothing of crumbling infrastructure), it seemed almost miraculous to close on a note that, if it didn’t exactly...
So I’m at brunch at Figaro (on Vermont) with two of my best (and one of my oldest) friends from out-of-town; and we’re actually sitting outside on the hottest day of the year (I’m imagining the wait-staff making bets on my imminent demise). There’s a very...
A SIMPLE LIST1. It’s simple really, to paint is to trust. To believe in our instincts; to become.2. Painting is an investigation of being.3. It is not the job of art to mirror. Images reflected in a mirror appear to us in reverse. An artist’s responsibility is...
I was wondering why everyone in LA always dresses and talks like they’re at work and stoned and then I remembered it’s because they probably are. In 2016 it’s okay to go to work dressed like you’re at Coachella but it’s also okay for your boss to check your Facebook...
The mighty Atlas Press—London-based purveyors of “pataphysical texts,” Dada documents, Viennese Aktionist manifestos, and Oulipo anthologies—has reissued a legendary art book that uses a tabletop cluttered with the detritus of daily life as a jumping-off point and...
BERGAMOT STATIONFor Real... and it's LouderLos Angeles adds to very necessary public transportation with seven additional stops on the Expo Line, with runs from downtown LA clear out to Santa Monica. Yes, there are complaints that the train is slow and can take up to...
There was a recent article about the waning attendance at churches that featured a striking drop quote from a lad who went to a Catholic church for the first time. The only reference point he had for all of the standing up, sitting down, repeating or responding to the...
Aram Moshayedi is a curator at the Hammer Museum. He organized “Made in L.A. 2016” with Hamza Walker, Director of Education and Associate Curator, Renaissance Society.ARTILLERY: What is your area of curating at the Hammer? Moshayedi: There are no distinct areas of...
A DAY AT THE MUSEUMDear Babs, I would like to know if the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has turned into an elitist institution with exhibits only to be viewed if you have the money? Recently, for my birthday I wanted to visit LACMA to see the Mapplethorpe show,...
Have you ever been in someone’s home and seen a painting in the living room or hallway that you have never forgotten? It is not a famous painting, not even an impressive painting, but somehow it sticks with you. You don’t understand why you can’t forget it, but you...
The art world has been revisiting issues of identity and identity politics in recent months (see, e.g., the current issue of ArtForum), which had their own ‘second wave’ in the late 20th century borne largely upon the convergence of conceptualism, especially in its...
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