Articles
ART DAMAGED
STAYING SANE(ish) WITH DR. TRAINWRECK PTSD, Trauma, Fires
What is to give light must endure burning. —Victor Frankl I had this plan, I was going to spend each issue clarifying an overused, misunderstood and generally obnoxious term or diagnosis. Remember last time when I went on a tirade about ‘triggering’. I planned to do the same with narcissist, borderline, attachment styles, and so forth. Of course, I may still get there but I had to regroup. The...
An Artist Answers Questions with Narsiso Martinez
TOP 3 SONGS? Strange Fruit (Abel Meeropol) interpreted either by Billie Holiday or Nina Simone, Strawberry Fields (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) interpreted by La Santa Cecilia. I was attracted by the music video. TOP 3 DEAD ARTISTS? Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), Vincent Van-Gogh (1853-1890), Käte Kollwitz, (1867-1945), David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974). GIVE US AN ART WORLD HORROR STORY?...
Taxi Driver
I’ve moved around, a lot. Not kicked around, just trying to find some dirt that was my own, and mebbe some puzzled hands for this jigsaw heart. And in all of that highwaying, i found that, no matter the burg i plopped down in, i could get a job driving a taxi. The organization of them all was pretty much the same – quite loose, and almost exclusively cash. Plus i’m good at talkin, and a very...
POEMS
The Sublime and The Beautiful Revisited Ascending even lower into the empyrean of autonomy, believing one’s own lies, the beauty that should only be seen through somebody else’s eyes. A pointless exercise, no purpose does it serve: tracking one’s moves, getting on one’s own nerves. But how can life otherwise be lived without these airless flights: descending ever higher into the abyss of...
Reviews
REFRAMING DIORAMAS Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
This beautiful show grapples with the history and purpose of habitat dioramas—those eerily lifelike tableaus found in darkened museum halls—and, by extension, questions the past and present life of natural history museums. What is the role of a natural history museum...
François Pain at JOAN
What is art without the asylum (from classical Latin asȳlum: refuge, sanctuary)? In François Pain’s first solo show in the US, three video displays, a mini-bookstore, and a vitrine of pamphlets compete for the viewer's attention. At the center is a 2025 video...
ADORATION at REDCAT
Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film Adoration follows a half-Arab teenager who weaves a fictional story about his father orchestrating a terrorist attack, causing a stir within his suburban community. Adapting it would be a difficult task in any case—not just because of the...
Sawako Goda at Nonaka-Hill
This exhibition features paintings, sketches, and ephemera from the estate of Sawako Goda (1940-2016). Goda's oil paintings immerse the viewer into a strange urban sea in which the body merges with gems the size of appendages. Goda's "story of the eye" shifted when...
Valerie Keane at Gaylord Fine Arts
Valerie Keane's works on paper are constructed with devotion, resulting in miniature worlds that reflect the viewer back unto herself. These are “flat” images in comparison to Keane’s other work, and yet a close look into the frame reveals parts that appear as though...