Painter Amy Sherald became a household name in 2018 when her portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama was unveiled at the National Gallery of Art. Sherald’s unique approach to studio portraiture and practice of universally rendering Black skin in grisaille (an...
There almost certainly are figures both human and animal, as well as a plenitude of botanical, arboreal, avian and possibly extraterrestrial apparitions inhabiting and defining the landscape-like spaces of Lucy Bull’s paintings. But closer contemplation makes it...
With a large grouping of esteemed photographers—Jo Ann Callis, Tania Franco Klein, Kennedi Carter, Graciela Iturbide, Katsumi Watanabe and others— it’s the curator, not the artists, who moderates the conversation. In a world defined by schisms and polarities, and a...
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman’s solo exhibition “Sighs and Leers and Crocodile Tears,” at first seems to be a curious series of clichés, but a story begins to unfold—through Silverman’s attention to detail—about the history of power, erasure, hierarchy and otherness that...
Johanna Breiding’s show of photography and ceramics at Ochi Projects defied singular characterization in favor of an enveloping tsunami of empathic correspondence—a tidal progression of images both intimate yet nothing less than oceanic. The exhibition’s slightly coy...
Tarik Garrett’s compelling show addresses how the past intersects with the present. This minimal, mixed-media installation brings together appropriated documents, Polaroid photographs, junked wood, metal fragments, a partial tree trunk equipped with speakers and a...
Artists Vonn Sumner and Holly Elander each offer astonishing exhibitions of intensely personal artworks, that coupled with intimacy also present a prescient commentary on current socio-political times. Sumner’s solo show, “Burning Down the House,” features oil...
“Beginnings,” the new show from Spanish artist Paco Pomet, is funny. Hard-hitting criticism, I know, but humor can be a rarity in the world of contemporary art. Most art that one could even remotely consider funny is usually of the ironic, intellectual variety, like...
“Jungerman’s materials and reference points present a postcolonial approach to the minimalist form: he visits visual references the viewer may associate with famed 20th century minimalist painters and reconsiders these forms with his own reference points. His geometric lines refer to grids seen in his childhood printed on Maroon tribal clothing, and in books of Western art that he consumed. The syncopated rhythm of the Agida Drum—a 2.5m long drum played in Maroon tribes’ rituals—are felt in the works, palpable in the rhythmic and fragmented movements of the lines.”
Tim Simonds explores the whimsical and political dimensions of pedagogy in his sparse installation of sculptures and drawings at Cathouse Proper. With large trays of bleached-out collard greens on top of semicircular children’s tables, the main room of the gallery...
Belief – whether you call it religion, spirituality, or anything else – is as vital to our lives as shelter or sustenance. Myth-making is how lessons are passed down, how mysteries are explored, and how home is remembered. These...
Stanley Whitney’s first major solo exhibition in Los Angeles, "How Black is That Blue," reads like poetry. Utilizing his consistent style of painting “top to bottom,” Whitney’s colorful square works reveal several paintings within each piece. Favoring the...
Ochi Projects’ current exhibition, “an exit from this room and others like it,” features the latest painting and ceramic work of artist Hana Ward. In this show (all works 2021) both objects and paintings reflect on themes of time and isolation; feelings we are all too...
Katya Grokhovsky is an artist and curator who explores the expectations of the American dream and the lived experiences of immigration to the US. Originally from Ukraine, Grokhovsky founded The Immigrant Artist Biennial, which launched last year despite many...
Our city’s beauty is often overlooked. This is a subject I’ve touched on in the past, and it’s an unfair generalization that Los Angeles is an “ugly” city. Maybe it’s because our city is difficult to walk through, and so you don’t notice the beauty. Maybe it’s only...
Ishi Glinsky’s exhibition explores monuments of survival that honor the sacred practices of his tribe, the Tohono O’odham Nation, native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Upon entering Chris Sharp Gallery I am instantly subsumed by Glinsky’s monolithically scaled...
Izzy Barber’s exhibition, “Maspeth Moon,” at James Fuentes brings together new plein air paintings that capture daily life in New York. Petite in size (the smallest 4” x 4” and others around 10” x 9”) Barber’s paintings are snapshots of quiet scenes that are at once...
The Impressionists, at the end of the 19th century, turned away from traditional muses and academies and became chroniclers of their contemporary era. They were described as flaneurs, self-styled spectators of modern life and people in leisure. But throughout their...
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