Articles
LUDOLOGY
Deliver to us, in JPEG form, a pair of artworks—one from before 1900 and one from anytime after—that have an interesting visual connection (that is: one any viewer can plainly see). Most interesting juxtaposition wins! Artillery will choose a winner from the entrants. That winner will receive a multi-slide carousel post on our Instagram feed and have their work appear, credited however you like....
STAYING SANE(ish) WITH DR. TRAINWRECK — (print exclusive) Dear Dr. Trainwreck
Dear Dr. Trainwreck, How can I, a layman, tell the difference between someone I have to cut some slack for because of their mental health diagnosis, and someone who is just being a jerk and blaming their diagnosis? Don't some conditions make conversations around this hard, or even dangerous? Dear ____, I can see why you did not sign this. Because yes, dangerous is exactly the right word, and I...
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 themselves—an anonymous face among the anonymous masses. Perhaps the most common assumption about this class of artists is the one...
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 integer), referencing the ancient Greek sculpture of the suffering priest (Laocoön) who tried to sound the alarm on the Trojan horse,...
Reviews
DUELLING REVIEW: Viola Frey at The Pit
When The Pit announced a show by the late ceramicist Viola Frey, it piqued my editorial interest. I myself first became aware of Frey when I began taking ceramics courses with other sculptors, who would often speak of her as a totemic influence on their practice and...
ESIRI ERHERIENE-ESSI at Night Gallery
There is a moment in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass when the Unicorn says to Alice: "Well, now that we have seen each other…if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.” The private question of whether one sees themselves reflected in the art that is...
THE MOMMY LEAKS THE FLOOR at New Theater Hollywood
One of the performers—if “performer” is the right word—in The Mommy Leaks the Floor, a new work by Asher Hartman staged at New Theater Hollywood (May 16–25), is Pablo, a real-life infant, born earlier this year. Throughout the play, cradled in his mother’s arms on the...
JASON FOX at David Kordansky Gallery
The flattening of high and lowbrow imagery is certainly not new, indeed the painter Jason Fox has been mining this territory since the early 1990s. In his current show at David Kordansky Gallery, “Why Are You Sitting in the Dark?,” Fox refines his enigmatic...
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN at Lisson Gallery
This, remarkably enough, is Carolee Schneemann’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, six years after her passing. Schneemann may be late, but her show isn’t. It may indeed be a case of too little; the sparse hanging (8 wallworks and an installation) barely hints at...