Los Angeles artist Diane Williams engages such historical hierarchies as male/female, human/animal, and self/other in works that focus on her identity as a non-binary immigrant woman. Born in the Philippines in 1973, Williams (nee Diane Doreen Briones) came to this country as a young teen. She attended high school and college here, graduating from Cal State Long Beach in 2013. Since that time,...
This year, the veteran LA gallery ltd los angeles marked the start of its 10th season. In some ways, the gallery’s program looks more like that of a nonprofit than a commercial gallery. They don’t represent artists, per se. Instead of having a roster of 12 to 20 artists who rotate solo exhibitions, with a few group shows sprinkled in between, ltd los angeles works with a broad range of artists,...
Outsider artists, or untrained artists, have been variously labeled Primitive, Naïve, Visionary and Self-Taught. One of the things I like most about such artists is their distinct and fully-imagined worldview, a consciousness that exists without being overly precious or self-conscious. After all, they did not produce art with a market or a collector in mind; they did so to please themselves or,...
By the time my studio visit with Francesca Gabbiani is winding up, the conversation has turned to Griffith Park. We talk about our respective walks, and various neglected areas of the Park—the depleted bird sanctuary and abandoned spaces and cages near the Zoo—and the spirits that haunt those spaces. Gabbiani became obsessed with the dark history of the Park’s benefactor, Griffith J. Griffith....
After experiencing Frieze LA at Paramount Studios, I've got some super exciting ideas for everyone to consider and some fun activities you might want to do to make your experience even better than mine. I would have done the following, but I was there as a member of the press and, well, this is not what press should do. BUT YOU CAN! 1) Sneak YOUR art INTO the fair. It's not a publicity stunt....
Using a swirl of varied mediums, “Re•Iterate” is a fiery, highly textural exhibition curated by Lorraine Heitzman and featuring works by Heitzman, Raghubir Kintisch and Monica Wyatt. The viewer’s eye darts between textures, colors and patterns, finding a focus both in...
A meandering sun-bleached trek forms the exterior presence of Wardell Milan’s exhibition adjacent to the recently completed art museum at the oldest of the seven Claremont Colleges—an academic plantation that sprawls over 500 acres and eagerly sends clever children...
Luis Garza was a dedicated artist and visionary who helped advance Chicano culture and activism in the 1960s and 70s through his compassionate photos. Born in 1943 in the South Bronx, he moved to Los Angeles in 1965, searching for a lifestyle more amenable to his...
At Geary Contemporary, an exhibition pairing Lizzie Gill and Kristen Jensen, shows how nuanced, elegant and powerful the two-person format can be. At first glance, Jensen and Gill’s work have seemingly little in common. Jensen’s Warms (2021) sculptures are visually...
It's been 30 years since Martin Puryear's last solo exhibition in Los Angeles—an exciting place to contextualize Puryear's work considering the city's history of burgeoning sculptural practices, especially those relating to assemblage and minimalism. The show includes...