Of late, I have been selling various valuable paper collectibles online. First to go were the early punk flyers and fanzines. Now it’s time to part with a collection of Raymond Pettibon limited edition “art zines,” as they are sometimes called on eBay. Despite being depreciated by coffee stains, spilled by a girlfriend way back in the 1990s, they fetch prices in the low three-figure range. Not...
A trip to New Orleans is a voyage through time, through a history thick with contradictory layers, heated by much tragedy and some absurdity. Hurricane Katrina wasn’t the first tragedy that disrupted the city, and it won’t be the last. It’s no accident that Tennessee Williams was repeatedly drawn here, with two of his most famous plays—A Streetcar Named Desire and Suddenly Last Summer—set in the...
Los Angeles has lost one of its most important and influential artists: Rachel Rosenthal. A pioneer of avant-garde theater and performance art, Rosenthal inspired several generations of actors, artists and activists. She was also a good friend and spiritual mother to many of us.Rosenthal was mesmerizing in performance, brilliant and articulate as a public speaker, and—perhaps most importantly—a...
Michael Govan has given a lot of thought to Los Angeles’ identity as a center for culture. While it may go without saying the opportunity to reshape an institution brought him to LA in 2006, if he is successful in revitalizing the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he will by extension elevate the city's reputation as an international draw for art and culture. In his nine years as director, Govan...
In his essay on photography entitled “The Decisive Moment,” Henri Cartier Bresson describes the intricacies of portraiture and the subject. He writes that the ideal portrait is a “true reflection of a person’s world – which is as much outside him as inside him.” We...
The two dozen or so paintings Bronx-based artist Tiffany Alfonseca made during a summer residency at the Mistake Room not only represent a kind of reimagined family photo album, but are intentionally rendered with fidelity to those source materials and their awkward...
Who is apologizing, and to whom? A large light installation on Victoria Square in Athens states: “We apologize for the discontent and stress that this may have caused you.” Who is included in—or excluded by—the ‘we’ and the ‘you’, respectively? What is ‘this’? Victoria is a heavily policed area, as it is home to many refugees, sex workers and substance users. It isn’t clear from the work itself if it’s apologizing to or for these populations, but the material consequence of the installation is an even heavier police presence in the area, resulting in increased harassment of the Square’s locals. On the official website for the artwork, a footnote reads: “Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that may arise from the presence of the installation in Victoria Square. We understand that even a small shift from our everyday itinerary and routine may be annoying…”. Brushing off increased policing as an “inconvenience” and a “small shift” demonstrates the disconnectedness of this supposedly socially engaged work of art, that’s based on research made “in collaboration with old and new residents from the Victoria Square neighborhood”. The piece is co-commissioned by Counterpoints Arts who, despite a focus on “arts, migration and cultural change,” evidently failed to recognize the threat that police violence poses to people within and beyond Victoria.
The Korean Peninsula is a region rooted in duality. It is a land both literally and ideologically split down the middle, a lasting result of Cold War-era proxy wars, Western imperialist action, and an on-going brutal dictatorship. And even before the interventions...
Three vastly different solo exhibitions make up the current exhibition at Gabba Gallery. Vivid and dense color is the keystone of Judy Ostro’s abstract patterned work in Never Too Late. Both mosaic and kaleidoscope, Ostro draws the eye and keeps viewers unbalanced in...