Ushering in the new era of Trump, a sea of pink at the 2017 Women’s March became the first undeniable sign of mass resistance. A resounding response to “grab ’em by the pussy” and other far-flung insults that characterized the presidential election. For a while, the handmade, cat-eared hats were everywhere. One might even a draw a correlation between the Women’s March and its inclusion of Pussy...
Film and video artist Christopher Richmond has been interested in science fiction for as long as he can remember. When he was a kid, he rented videos based solely on the cover art; his favorites were sci-fi. “Any sort of surrealist landscape, I was sold,” he tells me during a conversation at his studio near MacArthur Park on a hot summer-like day in February. He was also fascinated by comic...
While there’s nothing new about teenagers making parody videos—which have been a part of popular viral culture since the existence of strap on-webcams, :NSYNC and the boredom of teen years—a recent parody clip has transcended the form. What began as a typical pop montage video, viewed across Russian social media, was transformed into a national political protest movement, a parody evolving...
The structure is made out of bamboo poles and stakes, secured with palm rope. It stretches from the side door leading out of the museum, crosses the small courtyard, and extends towards the street. The soft beige color of the Moso bamboo underscores the apparent simplicity of this tunnel/bridge, which was designed following the geometric and mathematical principles of the golden ratio and...
The photographic tableaux of Los Angeles–based Parisian transplant Reine Paradis evoke an ambiguity of place. The central focal point of each is a solo figure, played by Paradis, typically costumed in an A-line mini or similarly chic garment fashioned from transparent, tinted PVC; she is most often posed humorously or awkwardly—sometimes, heroically—in an iconic landscape, accompanied at times...
“Made in L.A.” has finally hits its stride—this fourth edition feels fresh with discoveries, both of artists you may know and many you may not. It features 32 artists, from emerging ones with promising talent to the exciting re-emergence of an artist who fell from the public eye for several decades—Luchita Hurtado, age 97. In the last two years, Hurtado has had two shows, but her last solo show...
How to describe Gretchen Andrew’s practice? Her website proclaims her a “search engine artist and internet imperialist who programs her paintings to manipulate and dominate search results.” Piggy-backing on the Google phenomenon, Andrew has slyly infiltrated the World Wide Web. For example, an image search for “powerful person,” which one would expect to produce images of presidents and world...
This week’s announcement that Klaus Biesenbach, director of New York’s PS1, the Museum of Modern Art’s satellite in Queens, was chosen to be the new MOCA director was greeted by mixed notices among the LA art community including: “He never smiles.” True if he’s judged by his photos. Biesenbach, who is the Godfather of the Berlin Biennale, was quoted as saying LA reminds him of a “new Berlin.”...
When I learned of the news that Jonathan Gold had passed away, I was at a memorial for a dear friend—what a cruel irony. It came as a shock to me as I had interviewed Jonathan in late May for Artillery’s food issue. Gold’s name is emblazoned in black-and-gold letters on the cover of our current July/August issue. Besides the weirdness of having an interview with someone that has since died, it...
Although Christopher Reynolds’ art is full of food imagery, few of his installations and performances traffic in actual foodstuffs. “It’s not really about the food, but the food referencing,” the Northern California-based artist says in a phone interview. There is at least one glaring exception—an opulent performance last year at a private supper club in Santa Monica, but that, too, pointed to...
For someone brought up within a more or less secular Roman Catholic culture, living now (atheism aside) essentially as if she were a nun, one would think I might know something about “Vespers”—the title of Justin Liam O’Brien’s current show at the Richard Heller...
During the early months of the pandemic, Judy Fiskin needed a new way of working in which she did not have to leave the security of her home. Fiskin happened upon a real estate website with interior images of houses for sale and...
Occasionally a gallery delivers a show of work that activates the intellect, rewards an afternoon of driving, and restores a little hope. In the small gallery at François Ghebaly are Patricia Iglesias Peco’s large works on paper. Flowers rendered in understated...
Lisa Solomon creates evocative watercolor self-portraits wearing the traditional attire of the countries that make up her ethnic heritage, as well as the traditional clothing of countries she’s had misidentified as a part of her cultural history. Perfect, precise and...
Alonzo Davis’ paintings are breathtaking in their materiality. Using saturated, refractive palettes, and woven paper and canvas to form a layered topography, the works assert their physicality as much, if not more than the imagery. Abstract—but with elements of...
Immersive and sensual, the richly floral images of Gary Brewer’s “Voluptuous Charm of the Monumental Image” is a kaleidoscope of color and form. These are works bursting with life, subtly O’Keefe-like—though still uniquely Brewer—evoking the mysteries of nature, the...
In the late winter of 2019, I became enamored with Joan Didion. I and my then partner were driving the backroads of Tennessee and North Carolina as a leg of a cross country move from Portland to Philadelphia. Somewhere along our trip I picked up a copy of South and...
In Laguna Art Museum’s 10 years of mounting its annual Art & Nature installations, a consistent theme has been the preservation of our planet. In this year’s version, the museum celebrates the beauty of nature while artfully addressing environmentalism and...
Forever enchanted by Francesca Woodman’s photographic realms, I trace her contorted, fluttering body in the passing shadows and opaque reflections of her self-portraits–I see a witch, a siren, a spirit, a saint, a veiled apparition. Woodman’s body is simultaneously...
The first word that comes to mind to describe "In Praise of Shadows" is ‘immense’. This may be what is expected from an artist’s thirty-year retrospective, but William Kentridge is not just any artist. The South African artist is prolific, and this show captures the...