Is fashion the medium of the moment? I’m not talking about haute couture or luxury ready-to-wear fashion design. Since the ascendance of Conceptualism, the means of fabrication have been more or less beside the point in fine art; and so it would be here. This isn’t about elevating design, or even architecture—and all the materials, craft and engineering that sustain it—to the status of art. It’s...
“I’m a hypocrite,” Linda Vallejo says, referring to her latest series “Make ’Em All Mexican.” “I grew up on Fred Flintstone and Frank Sinatra. I’m all American.” She adds, “I think we are all hypocrites in one way or another. We all have our prejudices and judge each other needlessly based on color, class, education, et cetera. If we pretend that we don’t have these thoughts and feelings we’re...
Ross Rudel’s art has haunted my consciousness for a few years now. Encountering occasional works of his in group shows throughout Los Angeles, I would find myself consistently drawn in and hypnotized by what felt like a quiet, faraway presence filled with hidden potency. The LA–based artist’s sculptures and performances, carefully crafted and often employing found objects, exude deep mystery and deep purpose. Why does this work—sometimes so slight and minimal as to be barely noticeable in the gallery—have so much resonance? Where does this strange energy come from?
“There is no one authentic way to present Asian art and culture,” according to Christina Yu Yu, who was recently appointed as director of the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. “Once you take a piece of art and place it in a case with a spotlight,” she explains, “you remove it from its original context.” Yu well understands the importance of context. Born in Wuhan in China’s Hubei province, she came to the United States as a student and trained in Asian art history here in the West. It was while in the U.S. that she began to appreciate the art of her own culture. “Sometimes it takes distance” she admits, “to learn about where you are really from.” Her point of view, both Eastern and Western, as well as her academic and professional background place her in a unique position to lead a museum of Asian art in the greater Los Angeles area, where, despite a growing population of transplanted Asians like herself, the art of the East is not widely appreciated.
When I arrive at Night Gallery to meet gallerists Mieke Marple and Davida Nemeroff, behind the front desk are champagne bottles and other artifacts leftover from “Sexy Beast,” the Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) benefit/art auction. The event, which took place at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, was chaired by the two women. I meander twice through the gallery’s current show, “Trains,” and then...
Elizabeth Turk transforms huge blocks of marble into refined sculptures, pieces that display classical beauty and technical virtuosity. Observing the graceful artist at work in her studio in a Santa Ana marble yard—wearing ear protectors, safety glasses and padded cycling gloves, surrounded by dust and the ear-splitting sounds from the drilling of the stone—is to witness the magic of turning raw...
When Kai Loebach emigrated to Los Angeles 27 years ago, after a brief vacation during which he was blown away by the friendliness of the people and the “visual orgasm” of a clean-as-new supermarket in the San Fernando Valley, he knew no one, had no place to stay and didn’t know the language. Studying of any kind, especially English, was not on the top of his list. As a young man, he was...
Once a city on the margins of the art world, Hong Kong now sits center stage, boasting the world’s third-largest art market. A wealth of galleries, museums and art centers can be found on either side of Victoria Harbor, which separates the commercial center, Hong Kong Island, from the Kowloon Peninsula, notable for its colorful open-air markets. Exploring the city’s diverse art offerings, I’m...
If you have been in any number of major cities this summer across the U.S., you might have seen a billboard with the hashtag caption #ArtEveryWhere alongside a reproduction of a famous work of art. According to the tagline on the #ArtEveryWhereUS website, this is “A Very Very Big Art Exhibition.” Apparently, what looks to the uneducated eye like lackluster museum advertisements are actually art:...
One artist who is returning to his roots after spending the last several years working on massive projects is sculptor Charles Long. For his next major exhibition “Up Land,” at his gallery Tanya Bonakdar in Chelsea, Long is embracing his personal style of hands-on production, which made him popular years before any of HIS major projects.Working as Long’s studio manager through many of those...
Andy Kolar’s new show at Walter Maciel Gallery, “Head in the Clouds/Left Hanging,” is a play in three acts. Like any good play, and more so than most solo exhibitions, there is a vital rhythm and active plot – a cadence. And for good reason: Kolar’s exploration of...
We observe this unfolding in Packer’s paintings: intimate, cozy scenes of home life turn into majestic statements of Blackness, power, and vulnerability. There is something political about how dynamic these paintings are and how they challenge the conventions of portraiture painting. The paintings actively diverge from the authority and rigidness associated with classical portraiture.
Fans of Los Angeles' Craft Contemporary museum will enjoy Above & Below at Shoshana Wayne Gallery. The exhibition features twelve artists working in textile art, ranging from ethnic craft traditions to the wildly unconventional. The show marks the Los Angeles...
This month, Shulamit Nazarian is putting on two shows. The larger group show, “Intersecting Selves,” is an exploration of the overlap and tension between body, identity, and art. Many of the works are notable, particularly Life (2021) by Amir H. Fallah, …for souls…for...
The garage has a long and glorious history as a place where inspiration happens—the site of tools, tinkering, rehearsing, inventing and restoring from rock bands to classic cars to scientific discovery. In Gary Simmons’ new exhibition “The Engine Room” at the Henry...
One of the most uncanny things about the photographs in Vera Lutter's exhibition Museum in the Camera, is the fact that many of the galleries depicted, as well as the buildings themselves are no longer there. Lutter shot on site at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art...
The pair of shows on view at Gagosian, Frank Gehry’s “Spinning Tales” and Nancy Rubins’ “Fluid Space,” are as dissimilar as they are masterful. Two artists, whose works are to be found in the halls of major museums and on city...
During the last year, proximity became a defining characteristic of our daily lives. Geographic proximity limited our access to family, friends and resources, and ideological proximity determined the news we consumed, the information we shared and the concepts we...
The act of self-disclosure is an intentional revelation of one’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings to another individual; it is part confession and part declaration. The 11th Biennial Ontario Open Art Exhibition at the Ontario Museum of History and Art was an aesthetic...
“Sugar Houses” is another production that was stopped in its tracks last year by COVID, but fortunately REDCAT has managed to stage it as their first live production since the pandemic shutdown, if only for a week (July 8 -11). This kinetic piece of dance-theater is...