There are many versions of “space” in the art world, from the high gloss of a pristine museum exhibition to the cozy confines of a pop-up gallery hosted in a rented living room. Somewhere in between, catering to the general public but sustained by the upper echelon of the art audience, stand the nonprofit art spaces. Nonprofit art spaces are an established practice in New York and some of the...
The artistic landscape behind the orange curtain—aka the Orange County line—is vastly different from that of Los Angeles with its numerous galleries, studios, co-ops and art neighborhoods. The OC art scene is large but intimate, with a handful of key players operating in different forms and styles. Since much about OC is tied to real estate, money and politics, galleries have a high overhead,...
“People come and can’t find the building.” Skira Martinez smiles. “‘There’s no sign! Where does it say CIELO?’ They have an image in their mind of what it’s supposed to look like… but it’s low-key and nondescript.” Martinez props temporary, hand-lettered signs in her planters along 32nd Street to direct audiences to her South Central Los Angeles warehouse, a space defined not only by a location...
Alongside Los Angeles’ mainstream exhibition spaces, an eddy of alternative art venues swirl for a time, submerge and disappear, enjoying varying degrees of notice. A few of these combine entrepreneurial efforts along with more altruistic programming, reflecting the difficult financial realities of opening a space. Some venues rent out their facility for private parties, charity galas or other...
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...
LA-based multimedia artist Michael C. McMillen is known for his immersive, meticulous, set-like installations that make you feel like you’re trespassing on all-too-familiar scenes from the recent past. Life-like props and details, some fabricated and some found––a...
Sean Raspet’s debut at VSF-LA is both an invitation to critically examine anthropogenic climate change—and how we are all implicated—and a series of proposed bio- and geo-engineering solutions for ameliorating the effects of the escalating climate crisis. Raspet’s...
While technically strictly paintings, a new suite of large-scale portraits by YoYo Lander involve extensive collage—crucially, collage executed not from spliced photographs or culled ephemera, but from an endless trove of her own watercolor washes on paper. While in a...
A full moon hangs demurely in the upper left of Serena Potter’s painting Nighttiming (2019) like a wheel of Babybel cheese. Beneath it, on the crest of a forested hill, a scene of lunar revelry: a man and woman in office attire, and another woman in striped pajamas...
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...