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...
Kim Stringfellow’s photographs of derelict cabins that sit within the high-desert landscape of the Mojave provide a necessarily familiar entry point into “Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape.” This, the artist’s most recent project, is a bit like an iceberg with mass mostly hidden beneath the ocean’s surface: the research, digital media,...
It’s been a productive year for Farrah Karapetian, a participant in “The Black Mirror” group show at the Diane Rosenstein Gallery, L.A. Louver’s 2013 “Rogue Wave” survey, and the 2013 California-Pacific Triennial at the Orange County Museum of Art. She has also been writing a Tumblr blog, Housing Projects, concerning the house “in and as contemporary art.” Although the blog at first seems not so...
“Insights into Architecture,” inspired by architectural photographer Ezra Stoller (1915–2004), who is known for chronicling modernist architecture from the late 1930s to the 1970s was on display at the Palm Springs Art Museum from May 25 to October 6. To comment on Stoller’s photographs, his ability to capture the life and lines of a building is like witnessing a green flash. There is a moment...
The Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum beneath it, is a marvelous place to visit if just for the archeology and history. Now a viewer can see how contemporary artists interact with these ruins on a large scale. The exhibition “Post Classici,” curated by Vincenzo Trione, places site specific work or re-contextualizes existing works by artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto,...
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...
Ishi Glinsky’s exhibition explores monuments of survival that honor the sacred practices of his tribe, the Tohono O’odham Nation, native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Upon entering Chris Sharp Gallery I am instantly subsumed by Glinsky’s monolithically scaled...
Izzy Barber’s exhibition, “Maspeth Moon,” at James Fuentes brings together new plein air paintings that capture daily life in New York. Petite in size (the smallest 4” x 4” and others around 10” x 9”) Barber’s paintings are snapshots of quiet scenes that are at once...
The Impressionists, at the end of the 19th century, turned away from traditional muses and academies and became chroniclers of their contemporary era. They were described as flaneurs, self-styled spectators of modern life and people in leisure. But throughout their...
In a year when art sales floundered and galleries around the world quietly scaled back their operations, the announcement from New York’s The Hole, that they were celebrating their 10th anniversary by opening a second gallery, felt like a collective sign of hope. To...