Well the axe has fallen once again on the magnificent American Folk Art building, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects. The structure is considered to be an architectural gem having won numerous awards including an American Institute of Architects National Honor Award (in 2003); the World Architecture Awards for Best Building in the World, Best Public/Cultural Building in the...
James Welling’s “Flowers” (2004–11) suggest backlit tree branches in bloom against a blank sky. A pure white light appears to pass through these elegant arrangements of shadowy stem, leaf and petal shapes, and in the process is refracted, as if by a prism, into otherworldly hues. These are photograms, camera-less images made by placing objects onto photosensitized material then exposing to...
Micol Hebron is an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Through photographic works, videos, installations, performance and writing, she has become known for critically engaging the tropes of art history and modernism, with a particular eye toward resurfacing and re-examining feminist activism. Recently, she launched a collaborative poster project called “(en)Gendered (in)Equity,” in...
Painted on a small particle board, screwed to a brick wall, above and behind which Berlin’s U-Bahn (here elevated) rumbles to and from its terminus, a figure of indeterminate sex holds a power drill to its head, the bit twirling out the opposite temple in a splash of red pigment. The agape mouth conveys a scream of pain—and perhaps a dollop of pleasure. In the upper left, the words, “You know...
Summer of 1965. The artist’s mother, Resia (also an artist), stands between her two daughters wearing a sleeveless shift with a bold daisy pattern. The horizon line of the Atlantic connects the heads of the three women, who pose, smiling and relaxed, in front of a long vista of open sea. That horizon, those daisies are among the leitmotifs in Mira Schor’s show of new paintings and drawings at...
There’s a scene early on in the film The Night of the Iguana (1964) where Richard Burton, playing a jaded ex-priest-turned-tour-guide in Mexico, asks the bus driver to stop on a bridge. The passengers—a group of American matrons—are puzzled. “What are we stopping for?” one asks. “A moment of beauty…” says Burton, gazing wistfully at the locals on the riverbanks below—women cheerfully washing...
“Chris Burden: Extreme Measures,” at New York’s New Museum is the artist’s first major exhibition in the U.S. in over 25 years. A legendary provocateur, Burden has challenged traditional concepts of art through his galvanizing performance pieces and later thought-provoking sculptural work, consistently questioning physical, moral and structural limitations over the course of his 40-year career....
As the Los Angeles Aqueduct celebrates its 100-year anniversary this month, many art institutions and organizations are showing support in their exhibition programming. Grand Central Art Center (GCAC) in downtown Santa Ana erected a monumental installation in commemoration of the centennial birthday. Matt Moore & Braden King's "Cumulus" from Creative Capital on Vimeo. The Art Center invited...
Lately, I've noticed mysterious islands along California freeways. The half circumferences of curving transition ramps from one freeway to the next form their perimeters. Many contain terraces of plants native to this arid region, large rock formations, and gravel pathways. The islands are part of a new freeway beautification strategy built by the state of California’s freeway management...
In the middle of the sitting there was a knock at the door. A beautiful woman entered the studio. She did not say a word but went straight to the bathroom. The Grand Painter followed the young woman. He would be back in a few minutes. Then, there was the sound of people having sex behind the bathroom door. After a bath, the painter returned naked to the studio and continued painting. Lucian...
Eric Nash’s latest collection of charcoal drawings is along the same vein as some of his previous series, with new signs, buildings and pools explored in different angles. These renderings stem from thousands of source photos that he takes around Los Angeles at any...
While the intersection of art and technology may be new for some, artist Rachel Rossin has been a pioneer in the field for nearly her whole life, having taught herself programming at a young age. Her practice includes painting, sculpture and digital art, as well as...
Frieze New York is back for the first major in-person art fair since the pandemic—and it felt shockingly and refreshingly normal. In a time when the success or failure of an event is often based on how COVID-safe it felt, Frieze did a remarkable job at emphasizing...
Almost exactly 10 years ago, one of my favorite (and certainly most improbable) curatorial projects was unleashed upon the world: Renee Fox, who was overseeing the development of the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood (at least its cultural aspect) invited me to do...
How we balance our individual experiences within the larger scope of our lives in many ways determines who we are, and how we understand and relate to the world around us. Reflecting on the dense and often traumatic events of the past year, which included a global...
Upon entering Stephen Neidich’s solo show, “five more minutes please,” everything is stock still, until the clattering begins. It immediately becomes clear that one’s movements cause the Venetian blinds—hanging from the ceiling or against the gallery walls—to raise or...
Painter Amy Sherald became a household name in 2018 when her portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama was unveiled at the National Gallery of Art. Sherald’s unique approach to studio portraiture and practice of universally rendering Black skin in grisaille (an...
There almost certainly are figures both human and animal, as well as a plenitude of botanical, arboreal, avian and possibly extraterrestrial apparitions inhabiting and defining the landscape-like spaces of Lucy Bull’s paintings. But closer contemplation makes it...
With a large grouping of esteemed photographers—Jo Ann Callis, Tania Franco Klein, Kennedi Carter, Graciela Iturbide, Katsumi Watanabe and others— it’s the curator, not the artists, who moderates the conversation. In a world defined by schisms and polarities, and a...
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman’s solo exhibition “Sighs and Leers and Crocodile Tears,” at first seems to be a curious series of clichés, but a story begins to unfold—through Silverman’s attention to detail—about the history of power, erasure, hierarchy and otherness that...