Category: Editor’s Letter

Dear Reader,

What’s a world without art? Ask me, I think I know.

My husband died last September. Since then I’ve balked at art. I despised art. I hated anything that took any time away from those precious hours and days I could have been with him. All the Saturday nights spent at openings, when I could have been with my husband. All the hours spent editing this magazine, when I could have whiled away the hours with my husband.

Larry Gagosian could have knocked on my door with the original Ed Ruscha palindrome painting, “TULSA,” and I would have said, “I don’t care, please go away.”

My new world without art persisted even beyond art, as I couldn’t listen to the music I loved. Anything enjoyable soon became unbearable as it reminded me of him. Reading fiction was a series of repeated sentences until I threw the book down. Forget going to a movie. I resorted to listening to bad music on the radio, just to not have total silence in the house. I was indeed living in a world void of art.

Then one day I drove past an art gallery. I decided to stop in on a show I’d been hearing about. I was the only one in the large cavernous gallery. Although the work was not particularly to my liking, I was struck by it. It was formidable, and the sheer volume was impressive. I’m sure there were assistants involved in making the art, but I didn’t really dwell on that. Then I started sobbing as I pondered each piece. Not that the work moved me so, but the quietness of it, the meaning of it, just being alone with it and looking at it, letting it seep into my senses. I wondered what inspired the artist to make such objects. What moved the artist to spend all that time on making those paintings. Was it love?

I think it must be. How could it be anything else? Why would anyone put so much time into singing a song, writing a book or painting a canvas? I wandered up to the second floor with my sunglasses on, hiding my tears. (What if the gallerinas thought I was choking up over the art!) The art up there hit me the same. Ho hum, but who is this person who put so much effort into it? It certainly must have meant a lot to them.

When I left the gallery I had decided that I enjoyed that experience, even though it was painful in a way. Seeing the art made me think in a different way. It’s like I was really seeing again for the first time, emerging from darkness. It made me think that I might be able to bring art back into my world, that it might actually provide comfort, take me to a safe place.
It’s been a struggle getting through these last two issues, and I still haven’t been out to see many shows. But I am looking forward to art healing me and bringing me a fondness for life that I have lost.

I’ve had the help of all my co-workers, colleagues and good friends, to get this issue together. We had the theme scheduled some time back, and we wanted to focus on the “inside” of art, behind the scene. Who are the art dealers (Jeffrey Deitch), the museum directors (Michael Govan), the nonprofit directors (Hamza Walker)? These people don’t make art, but they must have the same kind of love for art, at least we hope so.

Can art heal, bring about change? We’ve had that discussion in these pages of Artillery for over 12 years now. I think I can say yes, it can.

Dear Reader,

The sky outside my office window is thick and hazy; the hot air dry and static. Los Angeles temperatures are hitting record highs and there’s no rain forecast for the foreseeable future. There are forest fires all over California, nearly apocalyptic in size and destruction. Our president’s behavior borders on insanity but nothing stops him. Our country and the world are going to hell, and we all feel helpless. With all this happening, it’s damn near impossible to even think about art. How can art possibly matter?

Yet here in our September issue we explore the theme of Utopia that was enthusiastically suggested by our editorial team. It felt like our bleak present might be just the right time.

But what exactly is Utopia? How can we define something that doesn’t exist? It’s sort of like Heaven, I guess—a dreamt-up fantasy. Nonetheless, it’s something that we all tend to want to experience: Imagine all the people living life in peace… you may say I’m a dreamer—in the words of a needlessly dead rock star. That’s a harsh reality. John Lennon died at the hands of a stranger with a handgun. Gun control anyone? I was skeptical of an issue dedicated to the idea of Utopia, as I am not a dreamer. If there is a hell, I believe it’s right here, right now.

Then I was confronted with all these artists that are making art with devotion and determination. Their intention is to make a statement and do something about our troubled times. Jayna Zweiman, the creator of the famed Pussy Hat, is interviewed by contributor Anne Martens. By definition, she is not an artist; she works as an architect. But she wanted to do something for the Women’s March that she wouldn’t be able to attend, thus the pink crocheted hats. Zweiman is just one example of the artists profiled in our Utopia issue who use their craft to send out a message of love and hope. Christopher Richmond creates fantastical worlds in his films, more like sci-fi, in which we can escape this world and find a new one, but they are often worlds filled with nightmares and confusion. Then there’s Akio Hizume, who works with natural objects such as bamboo, to exemplify the important relationship between humans and nature.

All the artists in this issue produce work that directly addresses what’s happening in the world today. I used to think that art could never make a difference, but the more I see such art the more I believe that fresh ideas can open us up to transformation. Persistence alone can often bring change.

Yes, Utopia is a fiction, like Adam and Eve. When I first learned that Adam and Eve was just a fairy tale, I was mortified. It was the parish priest who taught catechism class to our age group who broke the news. I was like, well, how come it’s in the Bible then, and why were we told that in the first place? I remember being a little pissed off—I felt like I had been lied to.

There was no Adam and Eve; there is no Santa Claus, and no Easter Bunny. It’s all very sad. We may never get to Utopia, but it’s a place to dream about, and what are we without our dreams?

I guess I’ll just close my window blinds.

Dear Reader,

Having a food-themed issue in an art magazine seemed a little out of the ordinary when the topic came up. Immediately visions of sugarplums and Wayne Thiebaud cakes came to mind. Then luscious spreads of dead pheasants and fruit bowls followed. Soft sculptures of hamburgers and BLTs stitched by the Oldenburgs popped up. Artists have been working with food for centuries, and still are. And why not?

Oftentimes art, food and culture are lumped together. If you’re a foodie, then chances are you are an art enthusiast too. Yes, these are two of the finest things in life. But they are not necessarily only for the elite?

All cultures enjoy food at all levels. Hopefully, this can be said about art as well. But food is necessary, and art isn’t, or is it? We went right away to LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold to address these burning questions. I asked Gold if he’d be willing to visit some galleries and have some lunch to discuss this epicurean phenomena; a feast for the eyes and stomach. Being no philistine, Gold immediately accepted the invitation. Follow Gold and me while we take in DTLA galleries and food trucks and ponder the meaning of art and food

Does food relate directly to class? There are people that are content with Two-Buck Chuck, and some that scorn the very notion of cheap wine. Christopher Michno interviews Christopher Reynolds whose art delves deeply into the subject of how class and food relate. Other than the obvious, how might one be able to afford caviar and lobster over a plate of beans and rice? Then there’s Narsiso Martinez, whose cardboard sculptures get closer to the source; migrant farm workers who pick produce at paltry wages for those of us that have the luxury to lounge around and read art magazines.

Food is definitely fodder for artists. It represents a whole cornucopia of metaphors and philosophies. It’s rife with sensuality and practicality. Or is it just confection, like Thiebaud’s desserts, whom columnist Mary Woronov ponders? Filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who made dining central to many of his films, is the subject of Skot Armstrong’s Bunker Vision column. And the deep dark world of cannibalism creeps into the picture with video game artist Jason Gottlieb.

The art world can’t get enough of food, we eventually discovered. Just a small example of artists currently working with depictions of glazed doughnuts, corn on the cob, gingerbread houses and toucans and pizzas, fill our centerfold curated by Annabel Osberg. Feast your eyes on the artists she foraged for her Summer Picnic Spread.

Besides the visual eye-candy of this issue, we think you’ll enjoy what we came up with after realizing that food is as relevant to art as it is inescapable in life. Our cover artist Ry Rocklen sums it up nicely, “Who doesn’t like pizza?”

Dear Reader,

Who am I? Isn’t this the biggest existential question? All artists ask this question and continue to explore it. But do we ever get an answer?

I watched an excellent documentary on the recently departed comedic genius, Garry Shandling, directed and conceived by Judd Apatow. It was probably the most compelling documentary on an “artist” that I have ever seen. The film explored Shandling’s copious notes and diaries, which echoed the constant theme: Who am I? Am I authentic? This was the most important thing the comedian felt that he had to work through. He couldn’t be fake; that was a dead end. In order for him to find success through his art, he had to get to the truth about who he really was.

What defines us? Our family, our environment, our community, our ethnicity, our gender, our religion? Most artists question this throughout their lives and careers. Some make it the central theme of their art. In the art world this is now known as Identity Art, and that is the theme of our issue.

As an artist myself, this was definitely a question I pondered, and to tell you the truth, still do. But one problem I felt with this constant focus was: Am I just being self-indulgent, narcissistic, narrow-minded? Why should anyone else care?

These doubts arose for me back in art school, just as I was learning to navigate the art world. I recognized early on that, yes, my art was autobiographical. When I finally came to this realization, I decided to embrace it. I felt I was more authentic, and felt confident about my voice, my vision, what I really cared about, because it was the truth.

In this issue, all the artists we feature are pursuing this challenging regimen, taking their art down many long roads—literally so in the case of Carmen Argote as she maps out her plan to follow her father’s road trip to Mexico. He abandoned the family when she was just a child, riding off on a motorcycle to the city of Guadalajara, where he was born. Scarlet Cheng interviews Argote as she is preparing for the same journey, to trace her father’s tire tracks so to speak, to see what he saw—also on a motorcycle that she’s learning to drive. It’s a question she needs to figure out for herself, for her art.

Thinh Nguyen, who is profiled by Betty Ann Brown, is another traveler. Nguyen roamed the Midwest, visiting strangers’ homes, to seek out truths about race, gender and ethnicity in America; Nguyen is from Vietnam but grew up in Los Angeles. Yxta Maya Murray sits down and talks with Young Joon Kwak about her work as part of the collective Mutant Salon and her alternate ego Xina Xurner. Judie Bamber muses on the role of her parents in her art. And our cover artist, April Bey, reaches toward Afrofuturism to find herself discovering the empowerment of being black in the art world.

Some people might consider these artists to be self-indulgent, or at least too focused on their own worlds, but one’s own world can overlap with other people’s and open up channels for real human connections, along the lines of “if you can’t love yourself, how do you expect someone else to love you.” We are all individuals in this fucked-up world, and by starting with ourselves maybe we can begin to solve the huge puzzle of life.

Dear Reader,

I’m an artist, who has quit making art. It’s been over a decade since I last shot a video or painted. Yes, I miss the hell out of it, but I’d rather give it up if I can’t give it my all. That was the decision I made when I started this magazine 11 years ago.

Something happened last year that made me nostalgic about making art: I got roped into teaching a drawing class at a local community college. As a practicing artist, I was never really a drawer. I didn’t sketch out my ideas; I didn’t have an artist’s journal—I’m not sure I even owned a 2B pencil. I found drawing to be tedious, difficult and not very satisfying. I didn’t feel that I was very good at it, so I lost interest every time I started to draw.

Teaching students to do something I was not very good at, or didn’t really have a passion for, made me feel that I might fail as a teacher. I was determined not to let my students catch on to that—I wanted to inspire them. As I delved into YouTube tutorials on perspective drawing, stippled still lifes and shaded spheres, I realized that what I’d really be doing was teaching the students how to see, not necessarily how to draw. About that, I felt very confident.

In this issue we explore drawing as a medium. The artists we feature take drawing to the max, and some of that is very literal, as in Laurie Lipton’s graphite images that can be as large as 12-feet tall. Or Andrea Bersaglieri, whose painstaking renderings of dirt and plants can blow the mind. Abel Alejandre’s portraits capture the sweat on a brow like no photo ever could.

Contributor Betty Ann Brown discusses the superior quality of a drawing over a photograph when it comes to realism. She revisits a time in her past when she was asked to draw artifacts by hand, to supplement the photographs for documentation of a project. Illustrations were found to be more useful as they added dimension to the subject and didn’t flatten the subject as a photograph might.

There are abstract drawings, but most drawing is representational. Is it necessarily a feat to make something look real? Many artists make drawings that might take a backseat to their more prominent medium. Take Wayne Thiebaud or Alex Katz. They are known for their paintings, but their drawings are exquisite; they are more intimate, quiet and special.

In the first meeting of my drawing class, I asked my students why they had enrolled in it. A common answer was: “I’ve always wanted to draw.” I then asked if it was because they wanted to be able to draw something that looked real? Everybody responded in the affirmative.

I reminded every pupil that when they sign or print their name, they are drawing. They scratched their heads on that one, but came every session with their pencil box and sketch pad. By the end of the semester, every student was able to draw, and their final project—portraits done in pastels—were truly gems. Each drawing was vibrantly unique in execution and detail. I could see each student’s heart and soul in their drawings.

The artists featured in this issue sparked that yearning to create art in me again. Something is very special about drawing. I think you’ll agree that seeing is believing.

Dear Reader,

The new year is a time to look forward, but in this issue we also take stock. Staff writer Ezrha Jean Black does so with her popular (and for obvious reasons, not so popular) Top Ten LA shows of 2017. Ezrha works hard to be fair-minded yet critical, with careful focus on what really impressed her over the past 12 months.

As editor and writer are wont to do, we often discuss past shows—that is, the ones we can remember! I always find that to be a useful barometer: if you remember it. But Ezrha is of her own mind; she can be surprising and sometimes judgmental, but is definitely not influenced by trend or fad. Take a look. I think you’ll agree she tapped in on some outstanding moments in the Los Angeles art world last year.

She, like I, takes special note of how today’s tumultuous world has an effect on the art scene, and really, how can it not? I’ve talked about it on this very page before; it would simply be atrocious if every artist only produced art with socioeconomic, politically correct content. That’s like having to watch only documentaries, or reading only nonfiction.

I don’t want that at all. And I don’t want it with the art world. But for the moment, topical art is the work that I respond to. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop reveling in a James Turrell neon pink room, or tripping out in a Yayoi Kusama installation, or gazing intently, almost jealously, at a van Gogh or Pollock.

Fortunately, here in Los Angeles we have the best of both worlds. The copious, Getty museum-sponsored Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions, which started last September, have certainly been timely, and we have always covered these shows of Latin American and Latino art.

Here we present three remarkable features on the remaining PST shows. Maximilíano Durón, based in New York—and sometimes LA—surveys the Queer shows included in PST: LA/LA. Murals play a big part in the Latino arts community, as they come and go, covered by Leanna Robinson. And down at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, Caribbean art captivates contributor Liz Goldner. Several of our regularly featured reviews include PST coverage as well.

The common thread in the PST LA/LA work is more message than medium. Sometimes that approach can get to be a bit much if you’re not in the mood but since most of it was new to our eyes—many works were shown in the U.S. for the first time—the political nature of the art didn’t feel predictable or tiresome.

But while PST presented work from far away, it feels like the latest round of political strife is centered right here at home. Which brings me to Code Orange, a new feature we are debuting in this issue. Los Angeles-based artist Laura London will be curating upcoming issues from photographs submitted by friends and readers that highlight political points or depict aspects of the current malaise. Code Orange will make up our centerfold for the time being, replacing Guest Lecture. We just felt that now was the time. We still like pretty pictures, but sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad. Yes, Happy New Year indeed.

Dear Reader,

In this issue we go beyond LA to interview three artists who live and work outside the country. British performance artist/musician Cosey Fanni Tutti talks with columnist Zak Smith about her new book and life as a band member. Skot Armstrong interviews Vaginal Davis, formerly known as Vaginal Cream Davis, who left Los Angeles for Berlin. And I landed an audience with Jorge Pardo, another expat who now lives in Merida, Mexico.

Besides all the artists being in different parts of the world, all three maintain a practice that defies any common conception of “art.” Each claims, in one way or another, that by simply pursuing their passion, they are producing art. It’s not exactly a novel concept: Yoko Ono framed it years ago when she stated, “Art is my life, and my life is art.” Performance artists say it a lot, and I kind of get it. When I used to make videos, it seemed like everything I saw around me had potential for being some kind of arty video. I understand the consuming nature of being an artist: the passion, the devotion, the commitment, the self-indulgence.

It was my visit with Jorge Pardo that got me thinking. Jorge makes beautiful things—colorful Plexiglas lamps; patchwork pastel walls and floors; complete, fanciful, functional houses. But none of it is the sort of figurative or representational stuff we usually call art. Pardo’s work is confounding to me. It got me thinking who determines what art is. And why don’t we have an answer to what art is?

Other modes of expression have clearer definitions. No one hesitates or ponders what “music” is. My dictionary defines art as, “human creative skill and imagination,” but that’s awfully vague. And wouldn’t “creative skill and imagination” apply to the process of composing music, acting in a film or writing a novel, just as well as creating art?

Pardo builds and designs houses, so it seems fair to call him an architect. Not such a bad thing, right? But he insists he’s not an architect; he’s an artist who does house projects. Why is it important that he calls himself an artist, and not “just” an architect?

Is it more prestigious to be called an artist instead of an architect? Is it more powerful to call oneself an artist instead of a thespian? When do these boundaries get crossed, and the work becomes art? And why is it more important to be associated with the art world, than the pedestrian world of architecture, or theater?

Cosey Fanni Tutti has been known to strip for her performance; why isn’t she then a stripper? Vaginal Davis sucked cock on stage; isn’t she just a cocksucker? Is it all just putting a fancy label on it all? These artists profiled in this issue all challenge the meaning of what art is. They claim their art is meshed with their lives. They live and breathe art; it is their calling in life.

Maybe that’s what it amounts to. Your work is what you call it. Then it’s up to us: is it art, or is it not? Check out our profiles here, and see for yourself!

Dear Reader,

This new Fall art season takes off with a bang in Southern California, as the Getty’s second installment of Pacific Standard Time (PST) gets under way all over Los Angeles. PST: LA/LA spotlights Latin American art and Latino art. Once we started digging into what’s going to be out there, we at Artillery realized that we have a gold mine here.

Los Angeles art lovers can experience Latin art like never before. We have a special package in this issue devoted solely to PST, including recommendations. You will find profiles of some local artists who are participating in PST retrospectives and group shows. As no one can get to everything, Associate Editor Christopher Michno will be your guide with his intro to our PST coverage.

Just a cursory look at all the offerings suggests that art in the U.S. is very different from Latin American art. But if you focus on the Latino art that’s being exhibited in tandem with the Latin American art, there are similarities. The Latino art here in Los Angeles shares much of the same sensibility as Latin American culture, though seemingly with a lighter touch. Although it’s really too early to tell, as most of the shows aren’t up yet.

One of the earlier shows on display opened at LACMA in July—a teaser, if you will. The title, “Home—So Different, So Appealing,”—borrowed from the title of the most famous work by British Pop artist Richard Hamilton—perhaps served as a preview for what’s in store; I found it to be compelling. The works selected were similarly accomplished, yet also raw and honest. One Argentinian artist filled up an entire gallery with used child-sized mattresses on bed frames. Every grimy mattress had an image of a map on it. This installation seemed to epitomize the Latin sensibility: gritty, honest and intelligent, with a flair for aesthetics. Many Latinos were included in the exhibit as well, and seemed to share that sensibility. There seems to be an international bond, whether it be political, environmental or social; a commitment to making art about what matters to us as a society.

Missing from these varied exhibitions will be big shiny objects, oversized sculptures, multiple works churned out by assistants and metal foundries. “Bigger is better” just got shot down to smaller and more intimate; active not static, more message than brawn.

The Latin American art that we will be exposed to will reveal a culture that responds to social injustices with integrity and soulfulness, that resonates and communicates. In these troubled times, we can’t just be one lone nation with our heads in the sand. I feel this PST: LA/LA couldn’t have come at a better time.

Dear Reader,

“Write what you know”: this famous advice from fellow Missourian Mark Twain has always resonated with me. I apply it to my writing and I relied on it when I used to make art. The quote was delivered by many a professor and mentor in my past. It made perfect sense to me, and it was the easiest way to approach any creative endeavor.

So when the most recent dust-up about censorship in art took place—concerning Dana Schutz’ painting of Emmett Till’s mutilated corpse at the Whitney Biennial, and more recently, LA artist Sam Durant’s sculpture at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis—it was the first thing that popped into my head. Why were these two white artists making art about the pain and suffering of people they knew nothing about?

Writing about what you know mainly refers to experiences and the emotions that one knows and feels, but of course we develop those emotions from our surroundings and the treatment we’ve been exposed to: anger if we’ve been abused, insecurity if unloved or abandoned, love and happiness if we grew up in a safe environment. I don’t really know much about the backgrounds of Schutz or Durant, but I can safely assume they didn’t suffer from prejudices due to the color of their skin.

That said, I’m not going to come right out and say, Hey, you can’t have empathy or a real desire to comment about injustice. In many cases it’s our moral duty to speak up. I had forgotten the brutal details of Emmett Till’s tragic fate—a black teenager tortured to death by grown white men—and when I went back to research it I felt rage and sorrow over the acts that humans willfully inflict on each other. It’s unbelievable to me, and the indignation is palpable. Perhaps so palpable I would even want to write about it (as I am here) or make art about it. Why shouldn’t I be able to do this?

At the same time, I can empathize with the Native Americans who are protesting Scaffold. Durant’s sculpture is a replica of a gallows where 38 Dakota Indians were hanged. Now the Dakotas are saying, Fuck You White Privileged Artist, for thinking you can empathize with our plight, and then get on your high horse and receive gobs of money for your art and move on to the next topic of injustice. Thanks for your thoughtfulness, but no thank you. The Dakotas said of Scaffold: “This is not art.”

Okay, now I’m really confused. Have the Dakotas now become arbiters of what is and what is not art? Walker Art Center apologized, and Durant is contrite. The sculpture is now being burned, and Durant is more than okay with that.

Is Durant giving in? Doesn’t he feel that it is important to uphold our First Amendment? The whole episode feels like a grad-school walkthrough, when faculty members would tear through your studio and trash your art, then scream, “This is not art! Bad Artist! What the fuck are you making art about?” I guess Durant didn’t get that treatment in grad school. I know I certainly did. But I made art about my dysfunctional family, something I knew more about than my faculty members could ever know. Nobody can challenge that.

Ultimately, I don’t think Durant’s art should be destroyed, or even dismantled. Scaffold was installed in the Sculpture Garden between pop-art sculptures of a giant cherry and a rooster. Perhaps the Walker curators made a poor choice on that!

I respect our First Amendment, and would like to hold onto it dearly. Durant and Schutz had every right to make that art, but they also have to deal with the consequences of their free speech. A statement Durant delivered was noble in a sense: he realized his mistake, that wood and steel are nothing compared to the tyranny the Dakotas met on the gallows he replicated. Maybe Durant is beginning to understand that he can’t speak for the pain and suffering of people he knows nothing about. Durant’s heart is in the right place, and I feel Schutz’ is too, but I think they should have really thought through why they made this art. They need to dig deeper into what they are trying to say, and go back to the basics: Make art about what you know. No one can take that away from you.

Dear Readers,

When I heard that Chris Kraus’ feminist cult book, I Love Dick, was being made into a TV series, I couldn’t actually believe it. My first reaction was: How? How could someone come up with a television script of that book? The main “action” in the book is someone writing a lot of letters, or talking about writing those letters, or scheming about how to send those letters—not much action at all. And the art world is a very big part of its gestalt. What would be the appeal for a mass television audience?

Perhaps that’s not for me to worry about, but as editor of a contemporary art magazine, what I find baffling is how the art world has become a much bigger place. Have you noticed? Art is everywhere lately. Even at the dentist’s office I see art magazines mixed in with People and US Weekly. (Okay, I have been known to leave copies of Artillery at my dentist’s office.) The popularity of art has invaded our society in a myriad of forms: billboards, subway stations, display windows, ad campaigns, hotel lobbies, restaurants, even our local deserts! Almost every hip TV series has a scene at an art opening, as if it’s as normal an outing as going to the movies or bowling.

Kraus’ book I Love Dick being made into a TV series, starring Kevin Bacon as Dick, and Kathryn Hahn as Chris, directed and co-produced by it-girl TV director Jill Soloway, seems to take the cake. The series is centered in and around the art world. Art is what the main characters live and breathe; as artist, art student, art curator, art professor, art writer, artist wannabe. It’s all art, all the time.  

Is art normal now? Do “normal” people understand us artists now? I used to think I was special because I wanted to be an artist or that I had talent, which made me different. I thought being an artist was so special that I balked at the idea of even saying I was an artist, if someone asked what I did. My parents didn’t know what to do with the idea of their daughter being an artist. It was only when I began to teach art that they were able to utter the word, art.

But isn’t that what the art world has been striving for all along? The fairs, the biennials, the triennials, the auction houses, museum blockbusters—all these fairly new establishments were designed to build a larger, broader audience. Admittedly, all artists would like more recognition; who doesn’t want their work to be featured on the cover of an art magazine? Kraus expressed in our interview she would have died to get the kind of publicity that her book is received now for the films she made back when she was a filmmaker.

I think we must accept that art is here to stay in a big way, otherwise it wouldn’t be infiltrating into the mainstream culture. That’s what our issue, Art in the Mainstream, explores. We’ve got art books being made into television programs; Scarlet Cheng finds art all over our deserts; Zak Smith will tell you about our former president trying his hand at painting; Josh Herman explains the use of museum apps for luring millenials to go see art shows; and Sarah Sargent reports from Washington DC that the Yayoi Kusama exhibit was so popular that there was a lottery for timed tickets.

Come one, come all… art for everyone! Maybe that’s a good thing?

Dear Readers

In our last issue, which came out in January, I wrote about Trump becoming our president and the effect this potentially disastrous turn of events might have upon the art world… or not. In any case, in my last sentence I said that we would not be silent.

Does that mean that every issue will now be filled with anti-Trump–related art? No! But it does mean that we jumped at the first opportunity to address what is happening in our world today.

So, in this issue we focus on contemporary art that deals with our current political climate. When Mexican writer Gerardo Lammers contacted me to ask if I wanted any coverage in Mexico, I had to ask if any artists were responding to The Wall? It turns out that there just so happened to be an exhibition specifically about The Wall in Guadalajara up at the moment, titled “Fuck The Wall.” (Please tell us how you really feel.) Lammers writes about the show and interviews some of the artists, which presents a unique opportunity to see what artists have to say about being on the other side of the wall. On our cover, artist Mauricio Cárdenas juxtaposes the point of view, revealing how Mexicans see us… not a pretty picture.

Another artist we feature is Ana Teresa Fernández, who has been dealing with immigration and The Wall since 2012. Minneapolis artists Shanai Matteson and Colin Kloecker address our environment and how water will become a rare precious commodity if we don’t take care of our planet. African-American painter Kerry James Marshall, who has a survey show up now at MOCA in Los Angeles, is interviewed by contributor Max King Cap. Marshall has been addressing the absence of blacks in American portraiture for quite some time now. Leanna Robinson reports on the Association of Hysteric Curators, a Los Angeles women artists’ organization that revisits history, correcting the void of women in our history textbooks. And Susan Silton is our Guest Lecture: Her work deals with freedom of speech and her special edition postcards are included in every copy of our magazine.

I’m very proud of this issue. Everyone came together, wanting to participate and weigh in with what’s going on today. Our columnists didn’t hold back either. We have a TREMENDOUS photo of the LA Women’s March by our columnist Sights Unscene photographer Lara Jo Regan. Zak Smith can’t shut up about the futility of making art about politics. And Calder Yates thinks artists have a responsibility to not shut up. Josh Herman keeps an eye on the daily activity of Trump graffiti: the back-and-forth tagging from anti-Trump to pro-Trump.

I pondered in my last editor’s letter whether I, as an artist, would suddenly switch gears and do work about Trump, and I thought that I probably wouldn’t. But I think I’ve proven myself wrong. Here I am, publishing an issue all about artists reacting to important world issues. Artists are speaking up and having a say and wanting to contribute, and not staying silent. I guess I couldn’t help myself either.

Dear Readers  

Happy New Year! Last October I was invited to moderate a panel titled: “Is Art our Last Safe Place?” The general topic was whether art could be healing in times of war, poverty, starvation, overpopulation …you know, all that stuff that just keeps getting worse. The conversation drifted into whether artists have a responsibility to respond to worldwide oppression and address it in their artwork.

Most of the audience and panel appeared surprised to consider that artists have any responsibility to address any particular thing in their art. Artists shouldn’t have to do anything! I was somewhat on the fence; I used Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica, as an example to illustrate how the artist must have felt the need to respond to the war at the time; Picasso is not known as a political artist per se.

I find myself now thinking about this topic again, with our new president and his cabinet and the frightening times that surely lie ahead. If I were an artist today, making art like I used to, I wonder if I would be willing to switch gears and start addressing all this in my work. I was an artist during the Bush years; I confess, I don’t recall any anti-Bush paintings or even any war protest posters made by my hand. I was busy painting my fucked-up family, video-taping my alcoholic father, playing a therapist, all in the name of art.

I haven’t made art now for 10 years—as long as I’ve been writing these letters. So I wonder, what if I were making art now? Would I turn my video camera away from my own personal problems and suddenly start making art about the real world that exists outside myself?

Just as much as I don’t like being censored, I don’t like being told what to do. Since I don’t create art anymore, I really can’t answer that question.

Did Picasso paint Guernica because he felt he should? I don’t think so. That painting wouldn’t look like it does if he was just going through the motions (and we do know Picasso was capable of that). Making art is about passion. Picasso felt passionate about the war, about the world falling apart before his eyes. He had to make Guernica. He had to for himself.

As for me, my fucked-up family has now dispersed and my parents are long-gone. I’m bored with me as my favorite muse. Artillery is now my art, and what matters as an editor is very different from what mattered when I was making art.

In the end, if you’re an artist you must follow your heart, and wherever that takes you, you must paint it, write it, sculpt it, smear or spray it. But for us—the public, the citizen, this magazine—we’ll be keeping an eye out for those who feel moved to engage on the urgent questions of the day.

For this issue, we had assignments already in, but were able to squeeze in a few pieces from regular contributors who felt compelled to deliver on topics they feel passionate about. Tucker Neel rose to the occasion to talk about political caricature. Josh Herman extols the current importance of graffiti, and our Guest Lecture is Harry Gamboa Jr., who weighs in on the LA art world encroaching into the Boyle Heights neighborhood, and how that is affecting hundreds of families in East Los Angeles.

The art world is affected by what’s happening in the real world. And Artillery is responsive to that. I’m still on the fence about whether art can really change things, heal things. But at times like this, one can’t be silent.

Dear Readers  

It’s our Miami issue, meaning this issue goes to Miami. It really doesn’t have anything to do with Miami or the fairs. But it is an issue we designed, content-wise, by what we thought Miami fairgoers might like to read. This year we made it our Interview issue, packed with some of the most interesting artists working today.

We’ve been going to Miami since our first year of publication in 2006. That year we rented a car, filled it with the mags, and drove all the way, taking our time, making stops, tooling around the South like we owned it. Now, 10 years later, we’re planning to drive cross-country again. I’ve been to the Florida fairs several times in between, but it’s been a while. The newness quickly wore off, making it harder to come up with real reasons to go.

But I’m looking forward to going this time. I’m not sure what to expect since so much time has passed. Our first trip to Miami Beach was filled with excitement and wonder. Besides the fairs, it was also my first time in Miami. We went to a Peaches concert on the beach where rows of shipping containers were filled with hip galleries from all over the world, showing off their wares. Back then there were only a handful of satellite fairs and you could still dine at neighborhood mom-and-pop restaurants tucked in alleyways. I’m not expecting those prized gems to still be there; I’m sure a lot has changed. But one thing I’m pretty sure that will be the same is the art. The artworks and art galleries and art dealers and art bars and art parties and art performances and art panels and art dinners and art talks and art tours and oh, yeah, the art.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some great art to see. But the image-overload can be draining to the point of inspiring cynicism. It’s as if you’re in an art circus, where the elephant in the room is really the missing art. The clown is the distraction: the decorative art, the spectacle art. And the ringleader keeps luring you in: come see the art, come look at the art, come buy the art.

There is no art; the work somehow magically becomes sheer merchandise. Think about it—the art shown at the fairs is work specifically selected to move. Dealers are in fact hoping the art doesn’t come back with them. The galleries are not interested in taking risks; their biggest risk at this point is the financial burden of attending these expensive fairs, and they want to make their money back. So the art you’ll be seeing is safe art, two words that become an oxymoron when combined.

Still, I want to stress that one can find really phenomenal artworks at these fairs. A favorite piece (though I never got the name of the artist) was at a very crowded satellite fair in a big tent. The piece was on the outside wall of a booth; a crudely put-together cardboard replica of a Donald Judd wall-shelf sculpture. I don’t know why, but that’s always stuck out for me. I guess it was refreshing amid all the bronze, gold, steel, fiberglass, manufactured and fabricated… I guess the simplicity of it was soothing to me and playful enough to catch me off guard, yet paid homage to the great artist that invented it.

I liked that. It felt like art to me.

If I only see one thing at this fair in Miami, like the faux Donald Judd that left a lasting impression, maybe that will be good enough. In a place where collectors are chasing that last edition, dealers are pushing the newest fad, artists are trying out their comedy acts, all I can say is: Ladies and Gentlemen, Let the circus begin! Miami, here we come.

Dear Readers  

It’s our birthday! We’re 10 years old this September. I’ve been writing this letter for 10 years—it’s almost unbelievable to me. A decade is always something to pay attention to, I think. A relationship of any kind seems like an accomplishment after 10 years.

Milestones should encourage one to look back and reflect. I practically gag when I see our first Artillery. It’s so raw, so presumptuous, so small! But bold it was, and the rawness was refreshing. We’ve come a long way, for good or for bad.

And that good and bad comes and goes. The embarrassing typo! That one review that kept tormenting us! The gossipy tidbit that drove us to lose our beloved Mitchell Mulholland. The sex issue that lost us advertisers! That Queer issue that nobody wanted to pick up. For better or worse, we’ve learned some lessons along the way.

What’s been a constant though are Artillery’s writers and staff. A loyal lot, and for that, we have survived. Our first issue had a piece on SITE Santa Fe by Ezrha Jean Black, who became our staff writer. John Tottenham wrote about Jeffrey Deitch’s bloody awful mess of a reality TV show. I interviewed Cathy Opie about her Orange County Museum of Art survey show. John Baldessari was our first Guest Lecture. John Waters became our first subscriber. Not a bad lineup. I feel grateful for everyone who participated in that first issue; everyone was rooting for Artillery, our advertisers and our readers.

The choice content for the first issue was easy as pie to put together, mainly because of the vibrant LA art scene already in play. It was apparent there was a huge need for Los Angeles to have its own art magazine. Sure, there were a few art quarterlies floating around, but I’m talking about a magazine covering contemporary art and speaking to a wider audience. Today Artillery is nationally distributed with subscribers all over the world. Now that’s progress!

But what really strikes me after producing this magazine for 10 years is how the art world has changed. It’s almost comical when I think back on the time Tim Blum of Blum & Poe gallery boasted to me of scoring their first million. This was when they had just opened their Culver City gallery (producing a domino effect that is now called the Culver City Arts District). I recall him shouting out “a million dollars!” not unlike the Austin Powers character innocently citing that figure for a ransom deal (a gross understatement being the joke). That dollar amount was astounding then, but it’s peanuts in today’s money-propelled art world. Soon afterwards, Blum & Poe moved across the street into their present gargantuan space. It was astonishing to watch them moving up in the art world (and they continue today, adding galleries in New York and Japan).

So I would say the extreme wealth in the art world would be the most notable change. Contemporary art became a commodity in the auctions like never before. That led to the second major change in Artillery’s fairly young lifetime: the art fairs. The art fairs would become another game-changer in the art world. Most galleries admit that the fairs are the necessary evil to being truly successful these days. One simply has to participate. So eventually, all good galleries pack up their wares and head to the fairs more times a year than they would care to admit. I wonder if in the future that gargantuan gallery space will even be necessary if it’s the fairs that produce the real profits that are being made. Yet the big galleries keep getting bigger: Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, DTLA’s new kid on the block.

My original vision of the magazine has changed too, maybe even grown up a bit. At first I wanted to include everything and everyone. Everything is art—Food, music, TV: It’s all art! I wanted a magazine that was fun to read. The art world is vibrant and exciting. Why shouldn’t an art magazine reflect that?

At first, it seemed like it could be done. Our gossip column, On the Wag: loved and hated; Roll Call: where art stars are celebrities; Ask Babs: an advice columnist who enjoys crushing young artists’ dreams; Retrospect: Mary Woronov sexing up Renoir; Dead or Alive: sardonic comics about dead artists. Many galleries and artists were confused. Apparently I was treading some unknown territory, poking fun at the art world, not taking it seriously enough. It turns out the art world is actually not very good at taking a joke. It prefers to remain an enigma, propped up by the academic jargon that appears in those other magazines.

If there was going to be any joking in the art world, the jokes would have to be pre-approved. But isn’t that the
antithesis of what making art is all about? If you’re not questioning something, are you really making art? If Artillery is not questioning the art world, are we doing our job?

These questions and issues plague me as Editor. What’s important in the art world? Are we properly representing the issues and challenges of art? It’s such a huge world. If we tout some art and it’s not hip enough, are we making a mistake? Should we cover this artist just because they are in a museum show? Who did we leave out? Why did we choose to profile this person and not that one? Some of these questions actually keep me awake at night. A long lost aunt actually called asking why I couldn’t feature her daughter who won a college art contest 25 years ago; the abstract painting on her wall still gets comments from house guests. It can be a tough job, trying to please everyone.

In the end, you just have to please yourself and have confidence that you are doing the right thing. This magazine is like an addiction for me. I’m still having fun, so why not keep doing it? It’s when I stop having fun, that I may stop. But for now, I’m still getting high.

Dear Readers  

 
This is our summer issue, an issue that has become the one I’m not sure matters. It’s summer! Who cares about work? Who cares about art? Whatever it is you’re doing, you just want to get it over with, and get the hell out.

It’s ingrained in us. The warmest season of the year has come to hot town, summer in the city… School’s out for summer! That doesn’t mean nothin’ matters in the summer. Everyone recalls their first summer fling, the pool parties, outdoor concerts, beach blanket bingos and camping by the lake. But work? Forget it!

That summertime attitude doesn’t escape the art world either. Most galleries have group shows or dust off what’s been hidden in the closet and close early in August. On the other hand, museums will often pull out the stops and present their summer blockbuster shows, ya know, for the tourists seeking to beat the heat.

For this issue we start in New York, that broiling griddle where museums provide the best escape. Gotham contributor Stephen Maine covers Nicole Eisenman’s survey at the New Museum, and writer John Haber recommends The Met’s rooftop garden for an early evening cocktail, Hitchcockian-style, starring Cornelia Parker’s PsychoBarn installation.

The San Francisco art action is heating up too. SF contributor Barbara Morris reports on the latest Minnesota Street Project, DoReMi. She explains why several top galleries moved to a new arts district. Artillery Shoptalk reporter Scarlet Cheng takes in the opening of the long awaited new wing of SFMOMA, and there’s a sidebar listing a few new galleries in the city of lights (Gagosian anyone?).

That Larry—he has 17 galleries now! A tony San Francisco location is his latest target. How does he do it? And to what purpose? Why does he need that many galleries? I find it a bit appalling that the art world has become a place where money calls all the shots.

In some ways Doug Chrismas of Ace Gallery, here in Los Angeles, could have easily become, at the very least, the West-Coast Gagosian. But maybe he’s just not as crafty as Larry. The rumors and speculations regarding Ace Gallery are put to rest in this issue when Charles Rappleye spells out the documented truth with authenticity and accuracy, and I’m afraid it’s not a pretty picture.

Now I’m no expert on how to handle money, especially since I’ve never really had the opportunity to do so, but it seems that when a lot of money starts accumulating, there needs to be different ways to spread it around and make more of it. Then it becomes necessary to try to become less transparent with all your money. You might even tell people you’re broke. So you try hiding it, you become stingy, and you don’t pay people. You even start believing that you’re broke. Just writing about it makes me paranoid! Imagine actually being in that situation. I’m sort of glad I’m not. I wish Doug Chrismas no harm, but I think he needs to act like an adult and quit trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. He’s in so deep now that a little of that wool might have slipped over his own eyes. I suppose you could blame it on money.

But who cares! It’s summer. Let’s get the hell outta here.