Articles

ABOLITION IN ACTION
Crenshaw Dairy Mart Cares About People

The artist-of-color-led arts organization and collective in Inglewood, Crenshaw Dairy Mart (CDM), is continuing a legacy of Black-led art spaces in South Los Angeles. Co-founded by multi-hyphenate artists Patrisse Cullors, alexandre ali reza dorriz and noé olivas, it has been operating largely under the radar since its inception in 2020. As the kids say, “If you know, you know.” The art world’s...

HEAVY WATER
Rethinking the LA River for Future Generations

by Renee Reizman

The Los Angeles River is a permanent topic of fascination for artists in this city. In order to establish the city, bureaucrats and businessmen fought to colonize this humble waterway. They tore it away from Indigenous people, encased it in concrete, then rerouted it past the rancheros and into the burgeoning metropolis. Even if one never visits the Los Angeles River, its presence has informed...

NATURE’S WAY
Lucia Monge Collaborates with Her Environment

by Eva Recinos

As a kid, Lucia Monge often gazed at birds through her grandfather’s binoculars, taking in the wonders of nature at an early age. Sometimes the birds looked so extraordinary and colorful that she pondered: Could they be real? Or were they something from a fairy tale? Those formative years in Lima, Peru, shaped Monge’s focus as an artist. “A garden is a great privilege,” she said in a recent...

THE STARS ARE ALIGNED
Lita Albuquerque on Observational Astronomy

by Shana Nys Dambrot

A matriarch of the Land Art movement that is closely associated with the American Southwest, Lita Albuquerque has engaged with the surface of Earth from the South Pole to Saudi Arabia, Peru to Paris. But she has always given special attention to the music of the stars, and to the desert—a fixture of both her Tunisian heritage and her life in LA. Albuquerque’s iconic celestial blue-and-gold...

SENSE OF WONDER
Innovation in the Islamic World

by Barbara Morris

Centuries before Leonardo da Vinci lived and worked in Italy, a Persian astronomer, physician, geographer and writer was conducting research into the nature of the cosmos and man’s place in it. Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283) wrote and illustrated The Wonders of Creation and Rarities of Existence (1280), a remarkable 13th-century document cataloging the earth, the heavens and the many forms of...

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Reviews

Richard Hawkins
at GAGA & Reena Spaulings

In typical Richard Hawkins fashion, his videos “Blood Everywhere” feature unclad male celebrities (Timothée Chalamet and Bill Skarsgård) slowly starting to rot, eyes blackening and blood gushing. Chalamet undergoes a literal “twink death,” while skipping over the...

Math Bass
at Vielmetter

Reminiscent of the visual languages of midcentury graphic design, children’s book illustrations, and corporate branding, Math Bass’s paintings are unnervingly poppy. The language consists of cartoonishly pared-down symbols (alligator, cloud, speech bubble, to name a...

Chase Hall
at David Kordansky

There is just something about Chase Hall’s mark-making. He covers the faces of his subjects in stylized patterns that resemble African masks before staining the cotton with coffee. The artist’s marks make a lifeguard’s flotation device resemble an African shield....

Haunting House
at Departure Lounge

The last time Jamison Edgar curated Matthew McGaughey was at Honor Fraser, where I had VR sex with the Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines. I wore goggles with Chip’s POV and had an unforgettable sexual experience with a creepily uncanny version of Joanna through...

Shiva Ahmadi
at Shoshana Wayne

A welcome break from hordes of contemporary painters retreading 60’s rear-guard aesthetics, Shiva Ahmadi is instead reminiscent of her near-contemporary Wangechi Mutu. Here are the same flowing watercolor lines radiating thick tendrils of hair, the same cosmic mother...

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