Arthur Simms’ appealing ad-hoc sculptures are often fabricated from found materials with representational as well as abstract qualities. Simms was born in Jamaica in 1961 and came to the US in 1969. Many of his works are autobiographical, relating to his journey to...
There’s a special kind of push-pull pleasure to an exhibition that derives from conceptual interests, but is realized through material experimentation and finesse. Such was the case with Swiss artist Mai-Thu Perret’s appealing new exhibition “Mother Sky.” My first...
Still life meets prop table in a series of surreal symbolist tableaux, as painter Michael Hilsman inventories his dreams and sets the scene for unguessable actions to come, or inscrutable actions just past. In capacious landscape-based works, Hilsman offers horizon...
Steeped in noir, as visceral and real as a photograph or a frame plucked from a black-and-white film, the rich monochrome charcoal works of Eric Nash draw the viewer into a quintessentially Los Angeles world. While not a native of the city, Nash has embraced it with...
Los Angeles is a city of immigrants: over 200 different languages are spoken here. Every immigrant comes to this country with an already established identity. Each has to jettison their old identities and craft new, LA-based ones. Some do so by making art. One way to...
At the entrance to “Global Asias: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art from the Collection of Jordan D. Schnizter and His Family Foundation” at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, stand two giant ceramic heads. One features a black-and-white striped neck, red crown and...
The quality and diversity of the work of Yolanda González—a painter, illustrator, printmaker and ceramic sculptor—makes a solo installation of her work long overdue. This current exhibition, with nearly a 100 pieces from the career of the 59-year-old LA–based Chicana...
This iteration of Macho Stereo was a durational performance by Marcus Kuiland Nazario with Paul Donald presented by CultureHub, a collaboration between the legendary New York theater La MaMa and the Seoul Institute of the Arts at Hot Shot Muffler in Highland Park....
A series of secreting, grotesquely glamorous portrait paintings rendered in gloopy lip gloss, lustrous nail polish, sparkly eye shadows, tints, and creams pay homage to queer-feminist heroes and the power of the performative body. Intimate in scale, Vaginal Davis’...
Cubist, geometric, abstract, and seminal—together those words sum up the exhibition of Lee Krasner’s work, “A Through Line” at the Kleefied Contemporary Art Museum. The exhibition traverses Krasner's vibrantly colored path, showcasing her wide range of painted works...
Many of the works featured in Nancy Monk's exhibition "Walk + Wood" at Craig Krull Gallery are of small scale and draw from a restrained palette. Looking at the works, the viewer sees things that, at first glance, appear whimsical and childlike. However, on closer...
Keegan Monaghan's paintings feel like the moldy nooks and crannies of a house or a well-worn shoe, rendered in epic and compact proportions. Their compositions shiver with an eerie affection akin to the apparitional creaking of my old, poorly insulated apartment. The...
Augustina Wang's fantastical world evokes a style of magical realism that is uniquely hers, embracing the immersive aspects of fantasy that function as a means of escapism, allowing more playful, nuanced, and expansive notions of identity to flourish. The femmes that...
Geophysical reality and machine dreams meld together to often mesmerizing effect in Refik Anadol’s revelatory exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch. The show is at once an ode to the elemental forces shaping the earth’s outdoor spaces (and the human mind’s internal ones) and...
Vessels are shadowy shapeshifters—morphic geological bodies that contain ancient and imaginative geometries. A strange uncanniness is embedded in Masaomi Yasunaga’s ceramic vessels, evoking fossils and corporeal architecture. The sheen of some of their glazed surfaces...
The 1960s Black Arts Movement ignited an important cultural event among its participants. Visual artists addressed themes of Black pride, self-determination, and culture. Preceding it was the Harlem Renaissance (1920–29) with aesthetic architect, Alain Locke, the...
Njideka Akunyili Crosby's portraits feel static on the walls of the Huntington Library. Thomas Gainsborough's famous "Blue Boy" painting in the adjacent room suddenly feels stagnant and deflated. The Nigerian-born and Los Angeles-based artist's large-scale collages...
Linked by their common use of embroidery, the 13 artists featured in Craft Contemporary's exhibition "Strings of Desire" bring the beautiful intricacy of thread to life. It is imperative to see these works in person to appreciate the effect of threads, yarns and...
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