I didn’t know what to expect on my first visit to High Desert Test Sites, a series of art installations and performances out in the desert organized by artist Andrea Zittel, Aurora Tang and their team. The most ambitious edition yet, HDTS 2013 featured some 60 projects, stretching from Joshua Tree to Albuquerque over a week, Oct. 12–19. Their mission has been to support “experimental art that...
LA’s rise as a major architectural center, chronicled by the Getty Research Institute in Pacific Standard Time’s ongoing and extensive set of shows, is difficult to reconstruct despite the copious evidence. The architectural history of Los Angeles is multifaceted and heterogeneous; each of the historical strands that make up that complexity forms a complicated set of relationships with a larger,...
Like its Himalayan literary counterpart, Joshua Tree’s Shangrila is a utopian vision; part dream, part tourist destination. Concretely, it’s a one-bedroom residence on Shangrila Lane, overlooking a seemingly endless expanse of undeveloped, government-owned desert. It’s remote enough to seem completely isolated, yet close enough to civilization that you can feel the earthquake-like blasts from...
I often feel the need to escape the insincerity of Los Angeles for the non-ironic nature of the desert. Hollywood’s slapstick tradition seems to have similar desires. A rock, maybe a bit browner than his companions, sits at the bottom of a boulder-pile. We watch the video—wind tapping the mic, sage swaying—for nearly 30 seconds thinking: This is one of the most boring Discovery channel shows...
During a studio visit, Jim Skuldt points out that milk crates around the world don’t come in a single standard size and shape, as one might have thought. He points to a few of his that are filled and stacked beneath a large desk and loaded onto roadie carts that came from the purchase of Neil Diamond’s well-worn touring stage, which he has repurposed in the service of art. Such mundane things...
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...