While painting may, in most cases, operate within the mind alone, sculpture is intrinsically connected to the body. Sculpture itself has a certain corporeality. The works aren’t abstracted onto a wall, but rather exist in the world among us. We are forced to reckon...
Pick of the Week: Psychosomatic
OUTSIDE LA: YU JI "Wasted Mud" Chisenhale Gallery, London UK
In contrast to city symphonies’ majestic depiction of high-rises and new machinery, Yu Ji displays discarded objects and debris. Instead of emphasizing order and repetition, the artist embraces liquidity and discord.
YU JI
YU JI Chisenhale Gallery OUTSIDE LA: London, UK By Eran Sabaner Kalaora At the center of Chisenhale’s main gallery, a black net is suspended, hanging between multiple points on the ceiling. Resembling a post-nuclear hammock, the net carries rubble...
Umar Rashid Transformative Arts
For an artist who has deliberately cultivated a naïve style, Umar Rashid (who also occasionally calls himself Frohawk Two Feathers) appears to have calculated the exhibition’s title, “Per Capita” with almost labyrinthine deliberation—an amalgam of the coyly...
Alexander Harrison Various Small Fires
Alexander Harrison’s aptly named exhibition “Midnight Everywhere,” is an exploration of the moods, tones and colors that the night brings. The paintings in the exhibition form a cohesive collection and tell the story of a solitary artist living in an old wooden house...
Helen Chung Rio Hondo College
All good art has at its core an essential moment of transmutation, a point at which the object and the idea which informs it fully coalesce. The essence of the object—whether it’s a painting or a bag sculpture—versus the impulse to create it in the first place are the...
Brandon Lipchik Richard Heller Gallery
A new suite of swimming-pool themed paintings by Brandon Lipchik look like everything but what they are. Their physical surface textures are varied from shape to shape, and even more so the range of techniques employed in each image. Their reductive geometrical and...
Lisa Diane Wedgeworth Band of Vices
Mari Evans’ poem, “I am a Black Woman” was resurrected through the “Passion Power Prayer” exhibition at Band of Vices, featuring abstract paintings by Lisa Diane Wedgeworth. With a singular vision her works extend an invitation, as in The Matrix (1999): to take the...
Elana Mann 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus)
While an artist-in-residence at Artpace, in San Antonio TX, Elana Mann created work for her exhibition “Year of Wonders.” Executed during the height of the recent pandemic and inspired by Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders (2001) that focused on the 1666 pandemic...
Sanctuary of the Aftermath Angel’s Gate Cultural Center
In “Sanctuary of the Aftermath” at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, curators Jason Jenn and Vojislav Radovanovic give viewers a lush, graceful experience with poignant experiential moments. Comprising 10 multimedia artists—David Hollen, Ibuki Kuramochi,...
Pick of the Week: Taewon Heo Libertine
The silencing of protest is the hallmark of authoritarian governments. While often this silencing can be very bloody, the most effective form of violence is legislative. The fight for democracy in Hong Kong – and the accompanying crackdown – is a prime example of how...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Elizabeth McIntosh Tanya Leighton Los Angeles
What happens when you are trapped inside your home with those you love? As the pandemic begins to wane, some artists are reflecting and exploring the dynamics and conditions of the confinement we experienced last year. Elizabeth McIntosh’s solo show “Family” at Tanya...
OUTSIDE LA: Venice, Italy The 17th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice
The "17th International architecture Exhibition of Venice" is one of the first international events opening in time of COVID-19. The open question that Hashim Sarkis, the artistic director of the current Biennale Architettura, articulates in his proposal seems to be a...
Pick of the Week: Lawrence Calver Simchowitz Gallery
Lawrence Calver’s first US show at Simchowitz Gallery, “On the Off Chance,” is one of the most fascinating studies in material of any show in Los Angeles that I’ve had the chance to review. Calver is not a traditional fine artist; his background is in creative...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Naotaka Hiro The Box
Two side-by-side paintings face the gallery's front door, awaiting visitors like sentries. They have all the elements that characterize Naotaka Hiro's "Armor" exhibition, namely colorful swatches and fervid mark-making that expands from a vertical center line. The...
Pick of the Week: Guy Yanai Praz-Delavallade
Guy Yanai is irreplaceable. Not simply his vibrant, structured style (though that too is unique,) each of Yanai’s paintings carries an air of individuality and transience. Seeing them for the first time is a new wave crashing on the shore of your subconscious, dousing...
OUTSIDE LA: London TAKIS at White Cube Bermondsey, London
Takis is no exception. His sculptures necessitate a venue with high ceilings, and some level of separation as many of them flicker, vibrate, or spin. One sculpture consisting of two lime green and black half-spheres and an iron pole, Aeolian (1983), requires wind energy to operate, and thus can only be displayed outdoors. When exhibited together, these sculptures resemble parts of an eccentric assembly line, leaving viewers agape at their inventive mechanics. Takis uses a wide range of materials, as wires, poles, electric circuits, and electromagnets abound alongside lamps and found objects.
Outsider Art Fair & Takashi Murakami "Super-Rough" Group Show, New York
Outsider art is on display in full force in SoHo with a special exhibition hosted by the Outsider Art Fair and curated by Takashi Murakami. Focusing solely on sculpture, the exhibition brings together works by nearly 60 Outsider artists, a term that generally refers...