LA’s rise as a major architectural center, chronicled by the Getty Research Institute in Pacific Standard Time’s ongoing and extensive set of shows, is difficult to reconstruct despite the copious evidence. The architectural history of Los Angeles is multifaceted and heterogeneous; each of the historical strands that make up that complexity forms a complicated set of relationships with a larger,...
Like its Himalayan literary counterpart, Joshua Tree’s Shangrila is a utopian vision; part dream, part tourist destination. Concretely, it’s a one-bedroom residence on Shangrila Lane, overlooking a seemingly endless expanse of undeveloped, government-owned desert. It’s remote enough to seem completely isolated, yet close enough to civilization that you can feel the earthquake-like blasts from...
I often feel the need to escape the insincerity of Los Angeles for the non-ironic nature of the desert. Hollywood’s slapstick tradition seems to have similar desires. A rock, maybe a bit browner than his companions, sits at the bottom of a boulder-pile. We watch the video—wind tapping the mic, sage swaying—for nearly 30 seconds thinking: This is one of the most boring Discovery channel shows...
During a studio visit, Jim Skuldt points out that milk crates around the world don’t come in a single standard size and shape, as one might have thought. He points to a few of his that are filled and stacked beneath a large desk and loaded onto roadie carts that came from the purchase of Neil Diamond’s well-worn touring stage, which he has repurposed in the service of art. Such mundane things...
Kim Stringfellow’s photographs of derelict cabins that sit within the high-desert landscape of the Mojave provide a necessarily familiar entry point into “Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape.” This, the artist’s most recent project, is a bit like an iceberg with mass mostly hidden beneath the ocean’s surface: the research, digital media,...
It’s been a productive year for Farrah Karapetian, a participant in “The Black Mirror” group show at the Diane Rosenstein Gallery, L.A. Louver’s 2013 “Rogue Wave” survey, and the 2013 California-Pacific Triennial at the Orange County Museum of Art. She has also been writing a Tumblr blog, Housing Projects, concerning the house “in and as contemporary art.” Although the blog at first seems not so...
“Insights into Architecture,” inspired by architectural photographer Ezra Stoller (1915–2004), who is known for chronicling modernist architecture from the late 1930s to the 1970s was on display at the Palm Springs Art Museum from May 25 to October 6. To comment on Stoller’s photographs, his ability to capture the life and lines of a building is like witnessing a green flash. There is a moment...
The Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum beneath it, is a marvelous place to visit if just for the archeology and history. Now a viewer can see how contemporary artists interact with these ruins on a large scale. The exhibition “Post Classici,” curated by Vincenzo Trione, places site specific work or re-contextualizes existing works by artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto,...
The traveling art bash “Station to Station” concluded its nationwide tour in Oakland last week and it just goes to show: There’s nothing like a road trip fueled by a cool million in corporate donations for having a good time.
From the shaded parking lot, a stark beam of light shines through the loosely shut double doors of a nondescript white brick building. It is late morning, and the sun is already beginning to assert its presence as I approach the now-defunct Regen Projects gallery. It looks eerily empty; I wonder if I have the wrong time for our meeting. I knock softly on the door and loudly whisper, “Lari?” Los...
Johanna Breiding’s show of photography and ceramics at Ochi Projects defied singular characterization in favor of an enveloping tsunami of empathic correspondence—a tidal progression of images both intimate yet nothing less than oceanic. The exhibition’s slightly coy...
Tarik Garrett’s compelling show addresses how the past intersects with the present. This minimal, mixed-media installation brings together appropriated documents, Polaroid photographs, junked wood, metal fragments, a partial tree trunk equipped with speakers and a...
Artists Vonn Sumner and Holly Elander each offer astonishing exhibitions of intensely personal artworks, that coupled with intimacy also present a prescient commentary on current socio-political times. Sumner’s solo show, “Burning Down the House,” features oil...
“Beginnings,” the new show from Spanish artist Paco Pomet, is funny. Hard-hitting criticism, I know, but humor can be a rarity in the world of contemporary art. Most art that one could even remotely consider funny is usually of the ironic, intellectual variety, like...
“Jungerman’s materials and reference points present a postcolonial approach to the minimalist form: he visits visual references the viewer may associate with famed 20th century minimalist painters and reconsiders these forms with his own reference points. His geometric lines refer to grids seen in his childhood printed on Maroon tribal clothing, and in books of Western art that he consumed. The syncopated rhythm of the Agida Drum—a 2.5m long drum played in Maroon tribes’ rituals—are felt in the works, palpable in the rhythmic and fragmented movements of the lines.”
Tim Simonds explores the whimsical and political dimensions of pedagogy in his sparse installation of sculptures and drawings at Cathouse Proper. With large trays of bleached-out collard greens on top of semicircular children’s tables, the main room of the gallery...
Belief – whether you call it religion, spirituality, or anything else – is as vital to our lives as shelter or sustenance. Myth-making is how lessons are passed down, how mysteries are explored, and how home is remembered. These...
Stanley Whitney’s first major solo exhibition in Los Angeles, "How Black is That Blue," reads like poetry. Utilizing his consistent style of painting “top to bottom,” Whitney’s colorful square works reveal several paintings within each piece. Favoring the...
Ochi Projects’ current exhibition, “an exit from this room and others like it,” features the latest painting and ceramic work of artist Hana Ward. In this show (all works 2021) both objects and paintings reflect on themes of time and isolation; feelings we are all too...
Katya Grokhovsky is an artist and curator who explores the expectations of the American dream and the lived experiences of immigration to the US. Originally from Ukraine, Grokhovsky founded The Immigrant Artist Biennial, which launched last year despite many...