Articles

Travels in the Midwest
Musing on Art and Architecture

A couple of months ago I took short trips to Phoenix and Denver for a change of scenery, to indulge in culture, and to see the rebranding of Sheraton hotels. Denver is a surprisingly interesting city, and we stayed in the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, which is very well located near the main street of Denver, 16th Street, with its free streetcar, and near the Capitol with its famous...

A Journey into the Mind of Calliope Pavlides
Pragmatic Surrealism

by Kate Caruso

Calliope Pavlides engineers her compositions like a to-do list, an Easter egg hunt, or survival kit. Her works on paper for an upcoming exhibition at Harkawik in New York City exist as impossible still lifes and contrary landscapes. In the wake of a global pandemic, a climate crisis and personal micro-dramas, the Greek-born artist must “place everything on the table” and assess the damages. She...

The Activism of Allison Janae Hamilton
Land as Witness of History

by Annabel Keenan

Land has been a constant throughout history. We bring to land our personal experiences, and land in turn acts as a witness to the people and events that come and go. For artist Allison Janae Hamilton, land is her most enduring subject. She describes land as a participant in and reflection of histories from the beautiful to the traumatic. Her works are haunting and inspiring, unnerving and...

The Spiritualized Landscapes of Hung Viet Nguyen
DEVOTED TO NATURE

by Genie Davis

“Art is a universal language,” Hung Viet Nguyen says. “And when I came here as an immigrant, my English language was not that great. My strength was in painting. I slowly convinced people that my art is my language.” Nguyen came to the US from Vietnam in 1982, with a background in biology and a lifelong passion for art. After making the move, he decided to make art his livelihood as well. A...

Leila Weefur’s Hymns for Other Voices
Uncomfortable Questions

by Barbara Morris

Explorations of gender identity are central to the work of Oakland-based artist and curator Leila Weefur, how they felt that their identity was suppressed by belonging to the Christian Church is at the crux of their latest project, “Prey†Play.” Presented in two separate and complementary incarnations, both in San Francisco, one is at Minnesota Street Project, as part of their California Black...

Top 10 Picks of 2021

by Ezrha Jean Black

I resisted compiling this list (the limitations of which are obvious); but then thought: “Wait! In this awkward year of slow emergence from a pandemic that may never really be over, how many really great shows could there actually be?” Until, as I went over the shows that had intrigued me enough to write, review, recommend, it was clear there were more than 20 of them. There are a number of...

Top Films of 2021

by Scarlet Cheng

What a year, and what a year for films—many of them delayed in production or distribution due to COVID, but roaring back as the theaters reopened. Below is my list of top theatrically released films of 2021; films I have had a chance to see thus far. I’m struck by how many were directed by women—a group which usually represents less than 10% of directors in the top 250 grossing films in the US,...

Remarks on Color: Cringing Cucumber
December's Hue

by Eve Wood

Cucumber is so much more than a tea-time British delicacy, served on white bread with loads of butter, yet Americans cringe at the thought! Cringing Cucumber, as she is known in the States, decided to open a specialty shop in the heart of Manhattan, serving all manner of crustless delights, aka sandwiches, including fig and pepper, baked wasp with Madagascar honey, watercress and mustard,...

Bennett Roberts
It’s About Time

by Tulsa Kinney

Back in 2006, I approached Bennett Roberts at his gallery on Wilshire Boulevard with a bit of chagrin. The LA art dealer had always been nothing but nice, helpful and accommodating to me as a person and as an arts writer. So my heart was heavy when I had to break it to him—before he could read it in the latest edition of Artillery—that we had panned his Kehinde Wiley show. Roberts, unflinching,...

June Edmonds
Freedom in Abstraction

by Richard Allen May III

The post-pandemic era can offer rewarding challenges, as I found out when engaging in my first Zoom interview. I spoke with painter and educator June Edmonds on the occasion of her current 40-year retrospective at the Laband Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, and a simultaneous solo show at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Edmonds appeared on screen with a welcoming smile and friendly brown eyes...

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Reviews

PICK OF THE WEEK: Olivia van Kuiken
Château Shatto

In “Biel Lieb,” Olivia van Kuiken’s inaugural exhibition at Château Shatto, oil paintings of untamed, bold color and mark-making swing between styles of ink wash, graphic novel, pixel and gestures on the verge of becoming scripture, spellbinding the gallery. Fuchsia,...

BOOK REVIEW: parasocialite
Brittany Menjivar's Literary Debut

Literati yet to meet Brittany Menjivar can now do so through her hardcopy publishing debut, a slender prose/poetry collection titled parasocialite. As a cheeky culture correspondent (a Salvadorian born in the DMV) and founder of Car Crash Collective (a late-night lit...

OUTSIDE LA: Will Hutnick
Geary Contemporary

Will Hutnick’s practice resists easy categorization. While largely using the language of abstraction, his mixed media paintings also borrow elements of glitch art with seemingly disjointed imagery that is somehow both static and in motion as patterns, shapes, and...

THEATER: LA MYTHMAKING
Fear of Kathy Acker

In January I was chatting with Jack Skelley, the author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker (FOKA) published last year through Semiotext(e). We spoke about how young writers are connecting with the older generation in the Los Angeles writing scene—it feels a lot like...

PICK OF THE WEEK: Amelia Lockwood & Chris Lux
Guerrero Gallery

Last week, an abandoned home in the hills of Mt. Washington, once infested by raccoons and possums, transformed into "Revel Hall," a temporary exhibition space showcasing Amelia Lockwood's raw, altar-like and talismanic ceramics alongside Chris Lux's admirably crooked...

GALLERY ROUNDS: Rodney Graham
Lisson Gallery

Does humor belong in art? The late Canadian multimedia artist Rodney Graham evidently thought it did. But Graham’s humor, on display at the Lisson Gallery through March 23, is of the companionable sort: gentle, slightly self-deprecating, never sarcastic or cutting,...

Griselda Rosas
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles

The title of Griselda Rosas’ exhibition, “Donde pasó antes (Where it happened before),” recalls the classic fairy tale preamble, “Once upon a time...,” but also suggests a cautionary sense of place, a reference to location that doesn’t frame so much as foreground the...

Todd Gray
Vielmetter Los Angeles

Photographer Todd Gray is a rule breaker. In this brave new art world he has fashioned for us, gone are the two-dimensional, singular perspective, rectangular photographs that hung on the walls these past 200 years. In their place, Gray presents something entirely...

Joey Terrill
Marc Selwyn Fine Art

The 1980s witnessed the specter of AIDS as it decimated a generation of queer men and many others. Some prevailed—artist Joey Terrill among them, though he wistfully noted in an interview, “Unlike my friends … I’m still here—working....” That sentiment sets a...

Leidy Churchman
Matthew Marks Gallery

At Leidy Churchman’s “Heart Drop,” what unfolds is not rooted in rationality nor the immediate appearance of the paintings. The show features winsome and playful subjects, colors and text, yielding an impression of light-hearted themes that in time reveal pictures...

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