Photo by Leonard Nadel, 1956 “Bracero workers being fumigated at border town Hidalgo, Texas”, Courtesy Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Photo by Leonard Nadel, 1956 “Bracero workers being fumigated at border town Hidalgo, Texas”, Courtesy Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia loves to create objects expressing hybridized meanings, calling attention to how things are not as simple as they first appear. For “by Deborah Calderwood,” his first solo exhibition at CB1 gallery in downtown Los Angeles, he presented paintings appropriated from his wife Deborah’s early childhood drawings, touching on notions of originality and love. For “Papel tejido,”...
The most interesting thing about Mexican superheroes is that the super is short for supernatural. Where such people in the English-speaking world might inhabit a science fiction, their Mexican counterparts exist in the realm of Magical Realism.
Last year’s James Franco–curated “Rebel” show at the Joel Cohen/MOCA space included a collaboration between Hollywood’s polymathic heartthrob and indie enfant terrible Harmony Korine, in the form of a video entitled CAPUT. The rooftop rumble between bare-naked gang ladies wielding machetes and BMX bikes was one of the installations that sought to deconstruct Rebel Without a Cause and the movie’s...
THERE IS SOMETHING VERY REASSURING—;for someone whose attention, unless riveted by something truly compelling, tends to wander—about being told by her interviewee, "I pride myself on my short attention span." Chances are, though, Dawn Kasper's span of attention, however brief, is a whole lot more intense than yours or mine. As anyone who has followed Kasper's work—from its earliest...
In the 1950s-60s, Jasper Johns created two works – Flag (1954-55) and Target (1961) – which both carved his place in the art historical canon and established a new conceptual framework for art. These encaustic versions of instantly recognizable icons (an American Flag...
A Google search for teacup reveals delicate fluted cups and saucers, many decorated with floral patterns. The association is afternoon tea in England, a formal spread with snacks and fine china. The sources for Robert Russell's "Teacups" paintings are random...
The artistic process is often private. Artists seldom actively show the steps taken to craft an end product, but to some, like Ludovica Gioscia, revealing all is vital to their work. In a large, multi-faceted installation at Baert Gallery entitled Arturo and The...
I am certainly not alone in feeling that their idea of the American identity has changed drastically in recent years. The “American Dream” has proved itself to be as fanciful as the name suggests. It simply never existed for the majority of Americans. Even the...
If gazing upon the figurative paintings of Philip Guston is akin to a religious experience, then the exhibition "Transformation" at Hauser & Wirth represents a cornucopia of blessings. Spanning from the early sixties into the late 1970s, the show offers an...