After I received my MFA in the early ’90s, this country was in the midst of a serious economic downturn and alternative gallery spaces were beginning to crop up here and there. They opened in garages, storefronts and artists’ homes. They were places where artists could showcase their art even when no one was buying. Viewed as an alternative to the diminishing commercial gallery scene, in...
Nearly all of Chris Burden’s numerous and generally laudatory obituaries include in the title or first line, “...the artist who had himself shot.” Beyond the immediate and not so subtle insinuation of craziness—“People thought he was nuts,” an admiring Ed Moses told the LA Times—lies an acknowledgement of the power of Shoot. Performed 44 years ago, for only a handful of invited viewers, Shoot...
Of late, I have been selling various valuable paper collectibles online. First to go were the early punk flyers and fanzines. Now it’s time to part with a collection of Raymond Pettibon limited edition “art zines,” as they are sometimes called on eBay. Despite being depreciated by coffee stains, spilled by a girlfriend way back in the 1990s, they fetch prices in the low three-figure range. Not...
A trip to New Orleans is a voyage through time, through a history thick with contradictory layers, heated by much tragedy and some absurdity. Hurricane Katrina wasn’t the first tragedy that disrupted the city, and it won’t be the last. It’s no accident that Tennessee Williams was repeatedly drawn here, with two of his most famous plays—A Streetcar Named Desire and Suddenly Last Summer—set in the...
Los Angeles has lost one of its most important and influential artists: Rachel Rosenthal. A pioneer of avant-garde theater and performance art, Rosenthal inspired several generations of actors, artists and activists. She was also a good friend and spiritual mother to many of us.Rosenthal was mesmerizing in performance, brilliant and articulate as a public speaker, and—perhaps most importantly—a...
Michael Govan has given a lot of thought to Los Angeles’ identity as a center for culture. While it may go without saying the opportunity to reshape an institution brought him to LA in 2006, if he is successful in revitalizing the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he will by extension elevate the city's reputation as an international draw for art and culture. In his nine years as director, Govan...
After dodging the reporters and cameramen that were shooting footage of Leonard Nimoy’s star for memorial news coverage on Hollywood Boulevard, I was buzzed into Glenn Kaino’s studio and escorted up to the second floor by an assistant. Once face to face with the artist it became immediately apparent that this product of the UC system (UC Irvine, BFA and UCSD, MFA) is not only an intellectual,...
For 11 years, Cliff Benjamin and Erin Kermanikian have co-owned Western Project in Culver City. Together they exhibit work that’s consistently challenging and boundary-breaking, representing artists like Tom of Finland (before he was MOCA-acceptable), Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose (whose work is the best kind of shocking), and Ron Athey (who Benjamin accurately describes as “Promethean”)....
“I understand and appreciate clean-made art, but what I’m mostly attracted to is something raw and more guttural. That’s what brought me to the outsider art world. Plus there’s no other gallery in LA that’s showcasing outsider art,” says Paige Wery, erstwhile golfer, art school dropout and part-time painter.Since opening The Good Luck Gallery in March 2014, Wery, a statuesque brunette, has...
Historically, art and politics have often been intertwined. In Dada, Futurism and Russian Constructivism, as well as in some Conceptual art practices and works by individual artists such as Sister Corita Kent, text and image have emblazoned artworks with calls to...
Considering the breadth of the work of Judy Baca—a muralist, painter, sculptor and art activist—a comprehensive installation of her work is long past due. The current exhibition contains approximately 120 pieces from the 40-plus-year oeuvre of the LA Chicana artist....
Known for her works made of laser-cut marquetry, Alison Elizabeth Taylor captivates viewers with her skill and close consideration of minute details. Combining the medium more commonly seen in decorative arts with painted wood and photographic prints, Taylor has...
The centuries-old practice of Kintsugi, a Japanese technique of mending broken pottery with gold, honors the flaws in the ceramic piece. The artist Jim Melchert, who taught English in Japan for four years, has long appreciated and employed that aesthetic. For more...
Nothing really happens in Sun & Sea, an opera set during a time in which we may expect ‘things’ will more or less stop happening altogether; or in any case, when things only happen to us—excepting possibly those wealthy enough to have provided themselves...
Robin F. Williams’ latest solo show Out Lookers at P·P·O·W teeters between dream and nightmare. It’s unnerving and off-putting with witches, ghosts and trolls whose eyes burn like balls of fire. At the same time, it’s exciting, inviting and challenges us to embrace...
In his essay on photography entitled “The Decisive Moment,” Henri Cartier Bresson describes the intricacies of portraiture and the subject. He writes that the ideal portrait is a “true reflection of a person’s world – which is as much outside him as inside him.” We...
The two dozen or so paintings Bronx-based artist Tiffany Alfonseca made during a summer residency at the Mistake Room not only represent a kind of reimagined family photo album, but are intentionally rendered with fidelity to those source materials and their awkward...
Who is apologizing, and to whom? A large light installation on Victoria Square in Athens states: “We apologize for the discontent and stress that this may have caused you.” Who is included in—or excluded by—the ‘we’ and the ‘you’, respectively? What is ‘this’? Victoria is a heavily policed area, as it is home to many refugees, sex workers and substance users. It isn’t clear from the work itself if it’s apologizing to or for these populations, but the material consequence of the installation is an even heavier police presence in the area, resulting in increased harassment of the Square’s locals. On the official website for the artwork, a footnote reads: “Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that may arise from the presence of the installation in Victoria Square. We understand that even a small shift from our everyday itinerary and routine may be annoying…”. Brushing off increased policing as an “inconvenience” and a “small shift” demonstrates the disconnectedness of this supposedly socially engaged work of art, that’s based on research made “in collaboration with old and new residents from the Victoria Square neighborhood”. The piece is co-commissioned by Counterpoints Arts who, despite a focus on “arts, migration and cultural change,” evidently failed to recognize the threat that police violence poses to people within and beyond Victoria.
The Korean Peninsula is a region rooted in duality. It is a land both literally and ideologically split down the middle, a lasting result of Cold War-era proxy wars, Western imperialist action, and an on-going brutal dictatorship. And even before the interventions...