The act of writing is a process of appropriations. Words predate the user, who then borrows and deploys them. With each new text, these tools of communication are shuffled to embody another of their possible sequencings, attempting to connect the writer to their...
When writer and poet Peter J. Harris wrote in his poem Only Wine (2004): Blessed be the laughter of lovers for it separates the edges of the future / bless me with your laughter, Blessed be the music of lovers for it spices the taste of all creation / bless me with...
Post-minimalist Keith Sonnier, who passed in 2020, was too prominent a figure to fall into the shadows, as have so many of his contemporaries. But given his striking originality, restless inventiveness and impact upon a broad range of peers and younger artists,...
Two men are talking in a car, as low green fields stream past the windows. “This used to all be fruit trees but the new owner tore them up,” says the driver. “And he planted rice?” the other man incredulously asks. The first man doesn’t answer but shakes his head in...
Suspending the administrative and bodily powers of fences and safety cones, Fin Simonetti's sculpture exhibition, "Hardening," at Matthew Brown quizzes viewers to ponder, "Am I safe, am I scared, or am I in love?" Perhaps it's a bit of all three. The gallery features...
As with many works of contemporary art, Claudia Keep’s compact paintings first entered my field of vision on social media, where her imagery retains its appeal, even as her textured, varicolored and economical brushstrokes are flattened out. Keep often makes blunt...
As our rushing descent into global environmental catastrophe continues, we are inundated with images of our planet's suffering. We’ve all seen the snapshots—a man up to his neck in water pushing children on a downed satellite dish during the 2022 flooding of...
Spectacular and sinuous, Ann Weber’s large-scale sculptures create a mythic world, one that viewers step within and explore as if moving through a strange and lovely forest of anthropomorphic shapes. Created entirely from cardboard strips, the sculptures are woven...
Global pandemics democratize pain, suffering and loss. Therefore, who does one turn to when inquiring about world-reshaping events that impact the interpersonal and economic fabric of society? The answer is artists as they function as visual ethnographic historians....
Inclining towards controlled madness while also surveying the forces to which we may dutifully acquiesce, Sascha Braunig's painting exhibition, “Poseuses,” at François Ghebaly, vividly replicates matrices of power that one can experience both personally and within the...
“Phranc: The Butch Closet” at the Craig Krull Gallery is a joyous celebration of a Los Angeles icon. The ambitious exhibit, which includes work and documentation from the past forty years, illuminates how Phranc and her music—she identifies herself as the...
When Donovan Johnson and his new partnership cohort stepped in to renovate and relaunch the once-venerable Bill Lowe Gallery—transforming it into the buzzy and ambitious Johnson Lowe Gallery of today—it signaled more than a changing of the guard at one of Atlanta’s...
Persuaded by her alchemist rhapsody and teetery yet unshakeable assertion, Isabel Nuño de Buen’s exhibition, “Now and Away” at Chris Sharp Gallery instills in me a yearning for more. Her intricately crafted wall sculptures, characterized by their personable scale and...
Birds in the trees: all is right in the world unless it’s three in the morning and their birdsong is interrupting your sleep. Birds on a telephone wire: a testament to adaptation in one’s habitat; I hope it doesn’t ruin your connectivity. Birds on the beach: better...
It’s weird how the treasure trove of Outsider Video Art that was Public Access Television has only started to seep into mainstream consciousness as it has disappeared—the amateur programming itself, as well as its very context and infrastructure, rendered infinitely...
“Have I ever felt strange suddenly being myself?” I thought after leaving Simphiwe Ndzube’s exhibition, “Chorus” at BLUM. If I integrate all the parts of myself into the world I believe in and want to see the most, maybe I too will find ordinary enchantment. Perhaps I...
Terri Friedman’s wonderful woven tapestries are on display in “tomorrow is just a thought,” the artist’s solo exhibition at Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Friedman has been creating her "yarn paintings"—applying formal principals of color, shape, and texture to her...
Poncili Creación is in LA, preparing to take us by storm with the glory of trash at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. In advance of their November 11 performance, Our Name is Moving, I took part in their creative workshop POSSIBILITIES OF MATTER and sat with them for an...
Subscribe to our weekly Gallery Rounds Newsletter for new Reviews, Art opps, Art Events, & More every week!