With today's digital era so rich in explicit displays of virtually every aspect of the human experience — including amateur exhibitions of bodily functions beamed to us live via webcam — the idea of museum exhibits raising hell in America may seem, well, passé? But a generation ago a handful of works by artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano ignited a national pissing match (if you will)...
This article originally appeared in our November/December 2008 issue on Everyday Politics: In a text written for this show and displayed on one of the gallery walls, Kerry James Marshall says “I am working on paintings that address the theme of LOVE.” “Love” is less a theme than a pretext for Marshall’s real subject, which is history. There is nothing of the “idyll” in any of these...
It all started with a dream. "I was in a small library, and she opened the door. She put her file folders down and pinned me to the wall, kissing me," recalls painter Sarah Ferguson. "She was so, so forthright. I found it very refreshing." The woman in the dream was Hillary Clinton. From that day in 2007 forward, the former presidential candidate has been the primary focus of Ferguson's work. In...
Mike Kelley’s first feature length movie takes place mainly at a high school. Cheery bright classrooms are full of 30-year-old sloppy students. Auditoriums stage assemblies with campy musicals and pageants. Gleaming lockers line the polished hallways. It’s a regular Sadie Hawkins Day, where white trash meets Goth.The opening credits roll against the backdrop of a bleached out sunset over the...
California is known as the land of fruits and nuts. And it’s true, we’ve got wacky environmentalists, kooky lefty liberals and fruity homosexuals. And artist Catherine Opie actually fits all three categories, sans the loaded adjectives. Nothing wacky about Cathy, and nothing kooky about her politics, and certainly nothing fruity about her sexuality. But why does California attract such a...
In her solo show “Your Words in My Mouth,” Camilla Taylor has created a body of work which, beautiful as it is, aches with bitterness and sorrow. While the sculptural works are ebony, white and gray standouts, the exhibit’s opening salvo includes a series of 10 x 8”...
In the world of appointment-only gallery visits, many have bemoaned the more restricted experience, and galleries themselves have completely reinvented the way that they conduct themselves. They are no longer able to attract visitors off the street nor draw large...
Colleen Hargaden’s latest exhibition at Hunter Shaw Fine Art is many things: a tool kit to survivalism and self-reliance in reaction to the ever-intensifying symptoms of a dying planet, and a prompt to question what the future of art-making may look like by combining...
Hometown Proud, the debut documentary by Tyler Stallings and Naida Osline, speaks volumes to our current political and cultural environment. The project grew out of their interest in exploring social issues through their individual practices, for Stallings, as a...
It’s not that difficult to be contemporary. Be it through art, or writing, or simply conversation, we’re almost always discussing what’s right in front of us. It’s another thing all together to create something which takes on an entirely new meaning decades after...
What stories do monuments tell? Is there more than one story, more than one point of view? Can monuments be moved from one location and placed in another? Confederate statues taken away from the Kentucky capital go where? How can they be recontextualized? During the...
Careening from a blotted and splattered background into what almost appeared to be real objects floating on the surface, the paintings cavort around a plethora of meanings in Max Presneill's latest body of work titled "In Case of Emergency." The overall sense is that...
The two shows currently on view at the Night Gallery – Wanda Koop’s “Heartbeat Bots” and Michelle Rawlings’ “In the Garden” – represent opposite ends of the spectrum of contemporary art. The larger show, “Heartbeat Bots,” introduces us to a fantastically vibrant and...
There are many stories that we have told ourselves in order to make our world make sense. These modern myths range from Columbus’ “discovery” of this continent to the very idea of the American Dream. These stories are taught to us from birth, intrinsically attached to...
Ed Clark "Expanding The Image" marks the first time Hauser & Wirth has shown the abstract painter's work at their Los Angeles location. The exhibition consists of Clark's formative work from the 1960s and 1970s, and complements an exhibition Hauser & Wirth...