Ross Lipman, the legendary film restorationist responsible for preserving the cinematic legacies of Bruce Conner, Kenneth Anger, John Cassavetes, and a cluster of forgotten American neorealist gems including Killer of Sheep and The Exiles, has turned his attention to...
“Distracted Mourning” – Guy Richards Smit’s Mountain of Skulls
These notes are for Marilyn. “Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs....”William Shakespeare, Richard II, III:2I woke up this morning thinking about death – my own and others’ (including a friend who may be...
Between Shadow and Illumination – Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium
Fresh (if that’s the word for it) from the carbon cycle conundrums posed by the FotoFest 2016 Biennial in Houston, I faced the ambivalence of ‘homecoming’ between LACMA and the Getty Museum, returning to, if not the ‘haunts’ of my mole-dark youth, certainly a few of...
“Everything is connected….” – Changing Circumstances: Looking at the Future of the Planet –
AWOL is in Houston this evening – with official leave this time (at least in theory, still leaving no accounting for her invisibility the last two or three weeks in Los Angeles) – at the 2016 FotoFest Biennial. The theme of this year’s Biennial is Changing...
ART BRIEF
Stefan Simchowitz is a controversial figure in the art world. He doesn’t own an art gallery yet maintains a large network of art collectors. He eloquently expounds upon art theory but is not associated with an art institution. He provides advice and monetary support...
UNDER THE RADAR
We are in the midst of the information age, with archives and libraries overflowing, and records piling up like plastic in the ocean. How does personal value translate to cultural value, or is it the same thing? Who decides what is worth preserving? How should...
DECODER
So I was at this opening—or maybe it was an event. In a project space. Or maybe it was a party. There were paintings. It was definitely not an installation. Or, okay: there were things installed in it and the whole space had been taken over and changed but it was not...
RETROSPECT
Kenny Price’s objects are modest in size and endless in meaning, which is another way of saying they make you think and feel instead of just impressing you. At a recent career survey at Parrasch Heijnen Gallery’s inaugural LA show, the first piece you are confronted...
CURFEW
Urban art is the great equalizer. With the rise of spray-painting and wheatpostering, the public is no longer forced to visit museums and see what rich white males call art. But one of the few mediums urban art cannot annex is sculpture; like museums, the field is...
THE POSEUR: Goodbye Gangway
During my last visit to my old drinking hole in San Francisco, the Gangway—right before I moved back to LA—I was having a few beers with one of the bar’s many characters I had befriended: Guy was his name. He had told me a few times about how he was a metal sculptor...
ASK BABS
OLDIE BUT NOT GOODIEDear Babs, Why are gallerists and curators so obsessed with seeing artists' very newest works? I like some of the work I've done in the past three or four years, but it seems this is considered too old. Why does something that's supposed to be...
BUNKER VISION
When a sculpture takes on the character of a national monument, it is easy for the name of the artist who made it to get lost. Making a documentary of recognizable landmarks of the flatter parts of the United States? Don’t forget that row of old Cadillacs half buried...
SHOPTALK
LA ART FAIR ROUNDUPMore fairs, Au Revoir PARIS PHOTOArt fairs, and yet more art fairs in January. There was the usual roundup—photo l.a. (Jan. 22–24), L. A. Art Show with all its components (Jan. 27–31), and Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC, Jan. 28–31)—plus...
SIGHTS UNSCENE
Buddy and Buffy, Art Los Angeles Contemporary Fair, Santa Monica, 2016. Lara Jo Regan's SIGHTS UNSCENE featured in Artillery.
James Welling: Choreograph – Regen Projects, through March 26th
It is impossible to do justice to a show of the scope, ambition and sheer beauty of James Welling’s current exhibition of recent work at Regen Projects in a single blog post. But it would be no less impossible and even irresponsible to let it go without some...
“Let them eat cake and charge it please and thank you very much.” – Break Bread at Think Tank Gallery
We don’t ordinarily think of pastel colors as carrying the power or intensity of the deepest, most vibrant primaries, especially red; or for that matter a dense black or sharp black-and-white contrast. But pastels can have great associative and mnemonic power, in many...
Various Small Fairs – Art Los Angeles Contemporary, 2016
I think we can all agree that there are too many art fairs. We could almost stretch that to say there are too many fairs, period. We generate too many products – most of them of an astonishingly brief life-span, and worth still less of anyone’s attention; and consume...
The Man Who Fell to Earth (Part 3 of 3)
“We like dancing and we look divine.”David Bowie, “Rebel Rebel”from Diamond Dogs, 1974Finally – Bowie. Forever Bowie. “Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep….” I want to quote Mick Jagger (to be very specific about it) quoting Shelley (from Adonais –...