Articles
DUELLING REVIEWS: BRUCE NAUMAN
AMONG THE THANATOIDS
He owns a mobile home he drives from place to place, crashing where he can for as long as he can, depending on the language in the local zoning ordinances. He works remote contract data entry jobs on a laptop, always connected to free public WiFi, and accepts all payments under the table via money transfer apps. He doesn’t pay for insurance but manages to treat his chronic illness with one-time...
IN SEARCH OF A CITY
“Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city.” —Dorothy Parker I like to go to parties. If you invite me, I’ll come. I never plan to stay long (“I’m just going to make an appearance,” I tell myself), but once I arrive, I end up having a great time and linger until some regrettable hour of the morning. I’ll dance if there’s dancing, sing if there’s singing, eat and drink whatever’s handed to...
COLLECTING THOUGHTS (print exclusive) Alexis Borges
Why do you collect art? Because I can’t not. Art keeps me awake, thinking, and alive. It’s a rush for me. The emotions it evokes for me are some of the most visceral feelings I have experienced. When a piece stirs something in me, curiosity, joy, or even discomfort, it has to come home with me. Collecting is less about ownership and more about living alongside energy that keeps me awake and...
DINNER AND A SHOW Fernberger and Cafe Telegrama
Dinner and a Show offers vehicle-bound and spatially-perplexed Angelenos the plan for a complete night out in LA. I go see an exhibition and tell you where to eat within walking distance of the venue, offering a few thoughts on the show and even more on the restaurant. THE SHOW: LIORAH TCHIPROUT The world-building possibilities of dolls, the projections they dutifully absorb, the romantic and...
Reviews
FLORIAN KREWER Michael Werner
There’s an easy attractiveness to Florian Krewer’s paintings that obscures the complex formations of desire within them. At times they seem stripped of everything but their earnestness, but then at others, they are scattered with bold and reckless impulses. There is...
IT SMELLS LIKE GIRL at Jeffrey Deitch
“It Smells Like Girl,” at Jeffrey Deitch, in conjunction with Company Gallery, shares its title with a Tala Madani painting depicting a suspiciously phallic object, a lone actor against a cloudless blue sky. Stark and funny, the phallus is the main character, but its...
JASMINE JOHNSON at New Theater Hollywood
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Thus begins the most (and perhaps only) captivating scene from Jasmine Johnson’s film PCH & Heroin, which premiered recently alongside her film Tweakernam at New Theater Hollywood. The line, from...
MARINA WEINER at The Hermitage
In a backyard in Glendale, Marina Weiner’s solo exhibition, “Stripe Machine,” cleverly redefines the term “public art.” The art is not shown in public; the gallery, Hermitage Los Angeles, is a small, beautifully built shed behind a private home. Rather, Weiner’s...
AMERICAN ARTIST at California African American Museum
In a small gallery of the California African American Museum, a wooden table hosting just short of two dozen drawings and a life-size sculptural replica of a chicken coop invoke a perplexing story about institutional partnerships in the contemporary arts. In “Shaper...