The Street Photographer and the Taliban
The term “street photographer” comes with a certain set of associations: Street photographers work in public, snapping candid photos of commuters or loiterers at telling moments. They take photographs of strangers in the crowd from the perspective of a stranger...
For My Jaded Angels
The first draft of this article was entirely different. It was a polemic. A scorched-earth condemnation of art. Ten thousand words. The next wave in a storied line of seismic criticism. As such, I titled it Towards a Number Laocoön (“number” as in more numb, not...
The Tote Bagger’s Guide to the Los Angeles Art Book Fair
Our reporter on the ground works her way through this year’s labyrinthine fair with the help of its most visible symbol: The tote bag. The Printed Matter Art Book Fair goes high and low, and tote bags are its connective tissue. The fair provides a platform for...
THE ABSTRACT FUTURE at Jeffrey Deitch
The seminal Jeffrey Deitch exhibition “Post Human” (presented in 1992 and reimagined in 2024) explored evolving concepts of identity in the digital era. “The Abstract Future” feels in some ways like its spiritual sequel. Brilliantly curated by Alia Dahl, the gallery’s...
LEE FRIEDLANDER at Castle
In the shadow of social media, describing a nude portrait of a woman as “authentic” or “not performative” is often a subliminal way of acknowledging that the image has been composed according to an “alternative” set of stylistic constraints: soft, flattering lighting;...
YANG FUDONG at Marian Goodman Gallery
Yang Fudong’s "Sparrow on the Sea" drifts like a fugue. Commissioned for the LED façade of M+ museum in Hong Kong, the silent, black-and-white film now plays in L.A. with full sound, anchored in a dream logic that warps memory and time. Three actors of different...