Felix Fair Report In some ways the fairs and openings that packed the last week in July were a turning point for Los Angeles. It was the first such convergence since February 2020, with the pandemic shutdown following quickly in March. Would people actually show up...
The New Normal We thought the world would end in fire, or possibly in ice. And now we know it can end with a virus. As a child growing up in Taiwan and then later in the US during the Cold War, I often imagined—and literally dreamed—how the world would end....
Digital Art Happening In April there was a moment when Yours Truly realized we were finally, at long last, emerging from the pandemic that has shut us in for over a year. It was Saturday night, and we were lured downtown by “LUMINEX: Dialogues of Light,” a one-night...
Art Fairs Aren't Giving Up Delays, delays, and more delays. Last year Art Basel rather optimistically thought it would proceed with its Miami edition in December. That was finally cancelled when they came to their senses. I think there were online viewing rooms and...
SoCal’s Museums Museums have been shut down (again), which doesn’t effect the city of Los Angeles too much as museums weren’t reopened except for a very short week or so. Neither LACMA nor the Hammer ever reopened after mid-March shutdowns and, alas, the...
The Art Economy Inquiring minds want to know how galleries are faring during the pandemic. As you know, a number have opened up with limited hours, reservations and timed entry. More than once I have found myself the only person visiting a gallery, which made me feel...
COLA 2020 Sadly, so many art events, exhibitions, and performances have had to be canceled during Q time—too many to mention. Here I give a nod to the annual show for the COLA (City of LA) award winners from the previous year. They are each given $10,000 to create new...
When the lockdown ends and art-making resumes, there will be plenty of temptation to make art about what is happening in the world. Referencing popular culture in your art can carry risks. Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons were both successfully sued for things they...
We Will Never Forget the Spring of 2020 On May 25 the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police ignited a tinderbox over continuing racial and escalating economic inequality in this country. Of course, we were already dealing with the dreaded COVID-19, with its...
Pomp & Zoom Spring usually heralds a spate of art-school grad ceremonies and shows—the equivalent of debutante balls for young artists and designers trained at our august art schools. This year with shelter-at-home and social-distancing mandates in place, there...
Three weeks ago I was visiting LACMA for their landmark exhibition “Where the Truth Lies: The Art of Qiu Ying,” featuring a Ming dynasty painter at the Resnick. Afterwards I came out to look for the plinth where a new Yoshitomo Nara sculpture would be going—the...
LA Fair Report The fairs are bursting out all over in February—and I just have time to jot down a few notes before deadline. Photo LA (Jan. 30–Feb. 2) is going strong for its second year back on the westside, in the Barker Hangar. This is LA’s longest running fair, in...
Museums and Unions The Marciano Art Foundation has closed, abruptly and in a cloud of controversy. Since its opening in 2017, most of the employees worked part-time, handling visitor services and making close to minimum-wage salaries. On November 1, District Council...
Go Directly to Go The fall art season has taken off like a steeplechase, with so many openings on the weekends that one can take in barely a fraction of them. In addition to the shows at galleries and museums (Lari Pittman at the Hammer and Echiko Ohira at Craft...
Tarry Nights at LACMA It’s summer, but the traffic is as bad as ever, and the art world continues to percolate. Yours Truly recently came upon an evening concert at LACMA which was jam-packed from the stage at BP Plaza to where the museum conjoins with La Brea...
Artificial Intelligence Gets Uppity The future is closer than we think. Yours Truly has been binge-watching the series Humans on Amazon Prime, which has a remarkable cast playing “Synths,” or Synthetics, in a future-world where AI androids take over the menial and...
NEW FAIRS IN TOWN, PART 2 I don’t know about you, but Yours Truly is still recovering from our robust art fair season, when for one weekend in February we had five fairs bubbling up around the city. Seeing wonderful work was bliss, driving through traffic in the rain...
Photo LA & LA Art Show Our eyeballs may fall out, there’s so very much to see with this cornucopia of art fairs in SoCal this winter. It started with Photo LA (Jan. 31–Feb. 3) returning after a year-hiatus and leaving the cramped Reef/LA Mart downtown for the...
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