That's what black people are, myths. I come to you as a myth," announces Sun Ra in a scene from Space Is The Place, the marvelously entertaining mixture of blaxploitation, space travel, mysticism and free jazz that screens on one of the many video monitors at the "Blues for Smoke" show. By this, presumably, he means as myths to people of other races, particularly white people—and nowhere is that...
In the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, the anonymous unmarked storefront of Mark Bradford’s studio betrays nothing to passersby, but the large white security gate which rolls back to reveal a parking lot at the north east end of the property is an unusual flourish for the area. Inside, the multi-building space is organized and impeccably neat. Cocoon-like, it feels insulated from the...
Slender, dark-haired Lisa Aslanian speaks softly but with conviction as she shows visitors around her sparsely furnished 1,000-square-foot space, The George Gallery. The venue derives its name from George Sand, a pseudonym for the intrepid 19th-century writer Aurora Dupin. On North Coast Highway in Laguna Beach (a city halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego), where ocean breezes waft in the...
One of the largest survey shows of contemporary Canadian art ever produced, "Oh Canada," is the culmination of five-year's research and 400 studio visits by North Adams MASS MoCA curator Denise Markonish. It joins a history of international survey exhibitions of Canadian art as well as biennials in Montréal, Alberta, Quebec City and by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa from 1926 to 1989....
FOR AN ARTIST, FINDING THE ENTRY POINT to a canvas can be the most confounding part of the creative process. Tomer Aluf, a 35-year-old Israeli who has lived in New York City for the past eight years, uses fictional narratives in which he is the protagonist as his doorway. Like an armchair Gauguin, his imaginary expeditions become fodder for his paintings. "There's something romantic about being...
Curated by Gary Brewer and on exhibit both online and IRL at Wonzimer Gallery in DTLA, "The Shape of Life," is a dazzlingly lovely show. The nine-artist exhibition includes works by Brewer, Tim Hawkinson, Aline Mare, Cheyann Washington, Jeff Colson, Mercedes Dorame,...
There is a natural tension drawn between old and new, conservative and progressive. Often times, it can feel that between those two positions there can be no resolution. Even in art, it can be difficult to fit the opposing ideals together; though when it happens, the...
Brie Ruais' stunning ceramic sculptures have a visceral quality. Though created in her Brooklyn studio, they stem from private, site-specific performances in the desert where the naked Ruais uses her entire body to shape clay into large geometric formations that meld...
Curatorial work began on the fifth biennial in the “Made in L.A.” series long before March 2020, and it might be March 2021 before audiences can see it in its entirety. Yet so emphatic is the exhibition’s insistence on the physical embodiment of ideas, the political...
Kader Attia’s debut with Regen Projects —a selection of previously exhibited and new works—continues the French-Algerian artist’s critique of modernity as embodied by Western capitalism and the mechanisms and ideologies of colonialism. Attia has frequently examined...