Articles
Top Films of 2021
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, according to the long-running “Celluloid Ceiling” study. In my list, they are more than half. It’s also interesting that several super-hero/sci-fi films made my list—it’s not a genre I’m fond of, because they usually rely heavily on traditional and...
Remarks on Color: Cringing Cucumber December's Hue
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, sardines on toast, and her personal favorite, singed caterpillar butts on sourdough. Needless to say, the café, which was called The Last Great Cucumber Lodge, did not catch on immediately. Fellow restaurateurs including The Lavender Mustache and The...
Bennett Roberts It’s About Time
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, seemed to be suppressing a grin. Was it because a review in Artillery had no significance to him, or was it his absolute confidence that Wiley was already untouchable? I chose to believe the latter. He graciously invited me in to linger at the show...
June Edmonds Freedom in Abstraction
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 that peered through rectangular glasses. A pair of circular sepia earrings complemented her double-crescent semi-Afro hairstyle with its curled strands. When asked about her early years, she fondly recalled, “My mom was a teacher and she loved to draw....
Constance Mallinson Talking Trash: Figuratively and Abstractly
Constance Mallinson’s career has spanned the many vicissitudes of the art world, from Minimalism to Pattern and Decoration, through to postmodern conceptual strategies. More recently, she has created a form of realistic painting that draws from Modernist Abstraction rather than the figurative tradition, and which offers an original alternative to the currently popular trend of pictorial and illustrative painting. David DiMichele: I’d like to start by discussing your current and most recent large scale, highly representational oil paintings based on plastic detritus you collect on walks in your neighborhood. The plastic fragments are often...
