The word he kept returning to was “conversation,” which, under less pressing circumstances, might have described our interview, except that Philippe Vergne, MOCA’s new director, was on a something of a treadmill. He had scarcely been on the job 10 days, and had already weathered a flurry of interviews and media inquiries on top of a dense schedule of meetings with staff, board members, artists...
Mike Kelley said for years that he would agree to be profiled in Artillery. That was practically a running joke when we would see each other at art events. Finally, in early November 2011, I contacted him to make it happen. He emailed to say he was very busy but he “decided to make some time to do the interview.”I only found out later that our meeting was one of the last loose ends he attended...
While most people half his age are searching for their car keys, Wayne Thiebaud, now 93, peppers conversations with literary references and recalls in vivid, sensual detail the coat that Hans Hoffman wore at an art reception 50 years ago—“it was so thick that it looked like pressed horse manure; it was about that color.” Thiebaud’s memory represents an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of...
When I first read about Beatriz da Costa’s exhibition last year in Southern California, it sounded intense; I was intrigued and determined to see the show at the Laguna Art Museum. It featured da Costa’s most recent work drawing on the practice of engaging the personal, technological, environmental, and social—in this case, through the lens of breast cancer. An advanced stage of the disease took...
Who knew? Who knew that Andy Warhol would become an angel, full of love and the love of God and the beauty that surrounds him in the heavens above? Last night, at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles, artist Jeffrey Vallance conducted a séance with psychic medium Joseph Ross. Vallance held forth in the balmy night air at a backyard gathering complete with candles and flowers. He was seated with...
William Kentridge's dazzling "The Refusal of Time," at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, marries science and art in an installation that comprises a 30-minute, 5-channel video featuring live stop-action animation, the spoken word and music projected on three walls of a distinctly un-Met Museum-like room. The piece is a collaboration between Kentridge and Peter Galison, professor of History of...
The desert is a surprising place, and we see it anew when artists are drawn there by site-specific projects such as “Spectacular Subdivision,” which took place recently in Wonder Valley over the weekend of April 4 through 6. About 35 artists made work for two sites, one at the IronAge Road tract of desert owned by artist Andrea Zittel, the other in and around a house a few miles away. Curated by...
When I was just out of school and began my first regular daily commute of the Southern California freeways, I remember stealing glances to either side of the road. I caught brief glimpses of the fleeting vistas, noting how with every quarter mile, my vantage point changed. On an extended road trip up through the Northwest and across the northern plains, I began taking pictures from the car....
The subject matter of several of my recent paintings derives from screwed-up iPhone panorama photographs. For centuries art linear perspective has ordered the space of paintings, determining how we look at an image. In panorama mode my iPhone-5 liberates the mind from this order, stitching together the world in a way similar to how humans actually conceptualize everyday scenes. In active viewing...
When I drove up to Zackary Drucker’s home off San Fernando Road, the front door was wide open—a startling sight since most of the surrounding houses have metal bars over the windows and doors. The Los Angeles video and performance artist lives in Glassell Park, an industrial strip in Northeast Los Angeles. Besides the open door, the house also stood apart with its manicured lawn and the polished...
Guy Yanai is irreplaceable. Not simply his vibrant, structured style (though that too is unique,) each of Yanai’s paintings carries an air of individuality and transience. Seeing them for the first time is a new wave crashing on the shore of your subconscious, dousing...
Takis is no exception. His sculptures necessitate a venue with high ceilings, and some level of separation as many of them flicker, vibrate, or spin. One sculpture consisting of two lime green and black half-spheres and an iron pole, Aeolian (1983), requires wind energy to operate, and thus can only be displayed outdoors. When exhibited together, these sculptures resemble parts of an eccentric assembly line, leaving viewers agape at their inventive mechanics. Takis uses a wide range of materials, as wires, poles, electric circuits, and electromagnets abound alongside lamps and found objects.
Outsider art is on display in full force in SoHo with a special exhibition hosted by the Outsider Art Fair and curated by Takashi Murakami. Focusing solely on sculpture, the exhibition brings together works by nearly 60 Outsider artists, a term that generally refers...
The radiant and complex paintings in Rebecca Campbell's exhibition “Infinite Density, Infinite Light” draw from the past, yet are very much about the present. They explore the nature of family, the freedom of being a child and the fragile nature of memory. Using found...
Art is a reflection of the artist. The culmination of personal experiences, years of study, and distinct perspectives that comprise their life emerge in their works. But none of us are infinitely unique – which is good, for if we were, we’d have no way to relate to...
Like Schrödinger’s cat, the figures populating the canvases of Italian painter Patrizio Di Massimo’s paintings exist in two potential states at once. In his newest exhibition, Close at Hand at François Ghebaly Gallery, time/space freezes in each of the five paintings...
Julie Curtiss has finally made her artistic debut in the UK with “Monads and Dyads” at White Cube Mason’s Yard. This is the Parisian-born, New York-based artist’s first exhibition in London, where she presents 29 artworks across the gallery’s two floors including new...
Emil Alzamora’s “Waymaker” is like journeying through a series of time warps. Cement, steel and wood figures loom in various states of decay like Greco-Roman relics in a museum. Yet a modern sensibility invites the sculptures into a surrealist dream conjuring a...
Los Angeles is coming back to life. That’s a sentiment that somehow simultaneously feels cliché and unexpected all at once. But just look around: concerts are being promoted, theaters are rescheduling shows, and bar hoppers are, once again, singing far too loud at far...
Hujar’s portraits reveal how closely linked the creative networks of NYC’s downtown scene were at the time. Backstage offers a glimpse of Hujar’s personal and professional relationships with prominent figures of the subculture. The main gallery features the portrait images of two queer icons, Divine and John Waters, more or less striking the same pose. Both of them lie down sideways, with their left arms supporting their heads. Divine is, of course, John Water’s number one actor, as the two have collaborated in numerous films including Pink Flamingos (1979) and Hairspray (1988). By replicating the same pose, the two friends diverge from the asymmetric power dynamics of director-muse relationships.