The malaise of our times is encapsulated and iterated over and over in this year’s Venice Biennale—whether racial conflict, gender redefinition, women’s rights, immigration, environmental threats, or any combination thereof. One begins to wonder, as one wanders through this sprawling extravaganza, whether there has ever been a more troubled era. The answer of course is yes, but the difference is...
On a narrow one-way street in San Miguel Chapultepec, it’s impossible to miss the disparate wood-paneled exterior of Kurimanzutto. Surrounded by modernist apartment buildings in a rich palette of burnt sienna, robin’s-egg blue and royal yellow, the gallery’s presence is pronounced—much like how it is positioned within the vibrant art scene of Mexico City. Kurimanzutto is one of the most...
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to spend a night in a gallery or a small museum, and wished you could walk down a motel hallway and see original murals on your way to the ice machine instead of prints that could have—and possibly did—come from a Walmart catalog, then staying in an art hotel is the perfect option. Art hotels exist in exotic locales from Paris to Israel, but there...
“I paint almost every day,” says Rich Untermann, owner of the Spanish Garden Inn in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara. “When I like a painting, I frame it, and hang it someplace in the hotel. I shift them around until they feel comfortable—it is in a constant shuffle.” Over the years, Untermann’s paintings have filled up most of the hangable places in the hotel’s public spaces and 24 rooms....
There are indeed ghost towns, despite the well-known edict by Daniel Burnham. Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing. While there remain among us visionary...
Geophysical reality and machine dreams meld together to often mesmerizing effect in Refik Anadol’s revelatory exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch. The show is at once an ode to the elemental forces shaping the earth’s outdoor spaces (and the human mind’s internal ones) and...
Vessels are shadowy shapeshifters—morphic geological bodies that contain ancient and imaginative geometries. A strange uncanniness is embedded in Masaomi Yasunaga’s ceramic vessels, evoking fossils and corporeal architecture. The sheen of some of their glazed surfaces...
The 1960s Black Arts Movement ignited an important cultural event among its participants. Visual artists addressed themes of Black pride, self-determination, and culture. Preceding it was the Harlem Renaissance (1920–29) with aesthetic architect, Alain Locke, the...
Njideka Akunyili Crosby's portraits feel static on the walls of the Huntington Library. Thomas Gainsborough's famous "Blue Boy" painting in the adjacent room suddenly feels stagnant and deflated. The Nigerian-born and Los Angeles-based artist's large-scale collages...
Linked by their common use of embroidery, the 13 artists featured in Craft Contemporary's exhibition "Strings of Desire" bring the beautiful intricacy of thread to life. It is imperative to see these works in person to appreciate the effect of threads, yarns and...