While sagas of personal transformation are a staple of recent nonfiction filmmaking—from U.N. peacekeeper Roméo Dallaire’s inexorable drift into despair (and back) in the CBC’s Rwanda documentary Shake Hands With the Devil, to crack-mom Kirk White’s unexpected ascent into rehab in the Dickhouse sleaze-fest The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia—two entries in the 2013 Los Angeles Film...
Richard Hell swaggers up the side-walk, as if in a private movie that is being played out for the pleasure of others, as if he is being watched—which he is. Full of himself. Happy: yes, I suppose that’s another word for it. And why wouldn’t he be happy? He is about to read from his new book to a room full of people who love him: who love his work, that is—which is apparently the same thing. And...
Jenny Holzer’s “Kind of Blue” was the show-stopper at the recent “Tenth Anniversary Acquisitions” exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Holzer’s blue LED strips cascading from ceiling to floor in a 12-hour loop of “truisms and quotes” floated from the museum’s central pavilion, created a mirror effect in the reflection pond, and illuminated the galleries both day and night with its...
Nao Bustamante kicked off Human Resources LA’s July 27th benefit and Perform Chinatown After-party with characteristic mischievous flair. In the preamble to her performance, as she was thanking HRLA for inviting her and thanking us for being there to support the benefit, she seamlessly slipped in some minor mayhem: “Thanks for coming out on this hot LA night even though you all know how hot it...
The large brightly-lit room of the Armory at last month’s Monster Drawing Rally was crowded with people—and it was hot. I’m one of the artists participating in this fund-raising event where around 25 artists draw for one-hour shifts, hang the completed work on a selling-wall where all art sells for $75. If more than one person wants the same piece, a playing card is drawn, and the highest card...
As the planet enters the beginning of a post-pandemic, post-Trump administration era, it was wonderful to be baptized in optimism from Evita Tezeno’s exhibition, “Better Days” at the Luis De Jesus Los Angeles gallery. One sweeping taste of these works results in a...
With spring just ahead, we are on the precipice of a momentous transition. Rays of hope are beginning to warm the cold landscape of our world, as they have again and again throughout humanity's existence. Caitlin Keogh explores this cyclical nature of history (and our...
A man sits center frame, drowned within an interior sea of red hues, arms spread as he pensively gazes against our direction into the distance of the frame. A woman laughs cross-legged on a stool, mouth wide open as if paused mid-speech or laughter, as a grinning fox...
If you wanted to get an indoor photo during the first wave of punk rock, you needed a camera that you could adjust the settings on, and you had to learn what the settings were. That didn’t really change until the advent of digital photography, which makes photographs...
Sprüth Magers is currently exhibiting two shows by two of the most notable creatives of the last forty years: Cindy Sherman’s "Tapestries" and John Waters' "Hollywood’s Greatest Hits." Though, if you’re anything like myself, one will leave you elated, and the other,...