The world of contemporary popular culture has largely left the biosphere behind, for a world of limitless extraterrestrial space. It is not so different from the contemporary avant-garde, which remains a cerebral, intramural phenomenon. It takes an extraordinary, even cataclysmic, event to turn the conversation, the way we see and talk about art—sometimes even a change of civilization.The 2016...
Liberty Cabbage. Freedom Fries. Whenever a reactionary quorum congregates one can be certain no good can come of it. While our senate stages a work stoppage on judicial appointments, and a viable presidential candidate—best known for his government shutdown antics—suggests patriots patrol Muslim neighborhoods just to keep an eye on those people, it is instructive to review the bigotry of our...
I recently overheard somebody make the observation that David Bowie’s death has “staying power.” It sounded like an idiotic remark at first but in this case it seems accurate. Sure, Bowie was one of the greats, an unfading star who provided an exhilarating soundtrack to countless lives, and a true gentleman who aged with preternatural grace, but it’s been more than three months since he kicked...
Ross Lipman, the legendary film restorationist responsible for preserving the cinematic legacies of Bruce Conner, Kenneth Anger, John Cassavetes, and a cluster of forgotten American neorealist gems including Killer of Sheep and The Exiles, has turned his attention to a more high-profile form of film history with his expansive examination of Irish literary genius Samuel Beckett’s sole foray into...
The “death of painting” is frequently traced to the work and writing of Donald Judd. In 1965's “Specific Objects,” the same essay in which Judd outlined painting’s limitations—above all, its inherent illusionism—he even more forcefully predicted the death of sculpture. Describing sculpture at the time as a “set form” or “a certain kind of form,” he wrote, “it can probably be only what it is...
Kicking off 2022, New York’s The Hole has debuted a solo show from Gosha Levochkin, the gallery’s first with the Russian American artist. Wild, vibrant and interminably buzzing, Last Element is rife with bright constructivist shapes, cartoonish figures and references...
Ross Bleckner’s first solo show in 25 years, “Sehnsucht” at Vielmetter Los Angeles, is a haunting meditation on longing and the cerebral process of lamenting. The 15 new pieces (created from 2019 to 2021) are fleeting in nature, chilling and deep. Mostly large in...
In "Another Land" at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Ken Gonzales-Day invites viewers to face the ugliest parts of ourselves and our nation’s history: its legacy of racialized violence. This latest series of drawings is informed by Gonzales-Day’s extensive research into...
Jane Margarette’s otherworldly sculptures and installations mine the tensions between the rough and the sensual, the realistic and the fantastical, the mechanical and the organic. In her exhibition at Anat Ebgi, A Honey of a Tangle, Margarette has created a suite of...
Gianna Vargas’ latest body of work “Dessicate,” comprises photos taken throughout December of 2021 during the middle of the pandemic. The work stems from Vargas’ trip to Utah where she took images of the forest amid winter decay. I made my way toward the intimate back...