Articles
The opening of NeueHouse Hollywood on the West Coast—their second location—would warrant our attention regardless of any new piece of art attached to it. After all, since its first location opened in Manhattan in 2013, NeueHouse has been a hub for celebrities,...
The term, “mindful awareness,” is a buzz phrase in current therapeutic and meditation circles (and, as I discovered a year or so ago, the institutional art world—or at least the Hammer Museum, by way of its alliance with UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center). But...
More than any other MFA programs in Southern California—there are in excess of a dozen—CalArts and UCLA have long been associated with art super-stardom. Whether this perception is accurate or a mere distillation of selective anecdotes, it bolsters the mythology of...
Just blocks from Venice Beach near Appleton Way I’m wandering down an alley, trying to find Jud Fine’s studio. Over the cell he tells me to look for the DWP truck parked in front. But as I turn the corner the truck is pulling away. I’m not quite sure which nondescript...
All good crits are alike; each miserable crit is miserable in its own way. Isn’t that the way it goes? We asked a few reliable Southern California university faculty to recommend recent MFA grad students for contributions to our Back to School issue on their critique...
Each April, galleries in Portland, OR, exhibit photography in recognition of Photo Month. As one might expect from a small art scene, the exhibitions are locally important but seem nostalgic, derivative or touristic to outsiders. The two notable exceptions are Coleen...
In the perennial discussion of which of the several distinguished art schools in Los Angeles is the best, the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California has always been a contender. Until now. This year the Roski School, with its...
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and...
This summer we’ve had the extraordinary opportunity to time travel, and see the work of two artists, generations apart but both deeply moved by a need to reflect on the history of racial discrimination in this country. Through their work and careers, we see how times...
Popular music is increasingly a topic of exhibition in the museum and gallery world but I’ve found its presentation can be either overwhelming or underwhelming. After all, how can the curator condense an experience so visceral like performance—an act itself at once...
Last Sunday, instead of curling up to watch an episode of Orange is the New Black and calling it a night, I headed to Venice Beach where art collectors Mike and Diane Silver had opened their gorgeous canal-front home for “Nude Survey Two,” where the established Plein...
How often have you found yourself saying, “I would bring my business here, if only they had more generic, mall-safe, focus-group chosen art on the walls?” Surrounded by more museums, galleries, and out-of-work MFAs than in any other city, these SoCal establishments...
There are many versions of “space” in the art world, from the high gloss of a pristine museum exhibition to the cozy confines of a pop-up gallery hosted in a rented living room. Somewhere in between, catering to the general public but sustained by the upper echelon of...
The artistic landscape behind the orange curtain—aka the Orange County line—is vastly different from that of Los Angeles with its numerous galleries, studios, co-ops and art neighborhoods. The OC art scene is large but intimate, with a handful of key players operating...
“People come and can’t find the building.” Skira Martinez smiles. “‘There’s no sign! Where does it say CIELO?’ They have an image in their mind of what it’s supposed to look like… but it’s low-key and nondescript.” Martinez props temporary, hand-lettered signs in her...
Alongside Los Angeles’ mainstream exhibition spaces, an eddy of alternative art venues swirl for a time, submerge and disappear, enjoying varying degrees of notice. A few of these combine entrepreneurial efforts along with more altruistic programming, reflecting the...
After I received my MFA in the early ’90s, this country was in the midst of a serious economic downturn and alternative gallery spaces were beginning to crop up here and there. They opened in garages, storefronts and artists’ homes. They were places where artists...
Nearly all of Chris Burden’s numerous and generally laudatory obituaries include in the title or first line, “...the artist who had himself shot.” Beyond the immediate and not so subtle insinuation of craziness—“People thought he was nuts,” an admiring Ed Moses told...
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