Film and video artist Christopher Richmond has been interested in science fiction for as long as he can remember. When he was a kid, he rented videos based solely on the cover art; his favorites were sci-fi. “Any sort of surrealist landscape, I was sold,” he tells me during a conversation at his studio near MacArthur Park on a hot summer-like day in February. He was also fascinated by comic...
While there’s nothing new about teenagers making parody videos—which have been a part of popular viral culture since the existence of strap on-webcams, :NSYNC and the boredom of teen years—a recent parody clip has transcended the form. What began as a typical pop montage video, viewed across Russian social media, was transformed into a national political protest movement, a parody evolving...
The structure is made out of bamboo poles and stakes, secured with palm rope. It stretches from the side door leading out of the museum, crosses the small courtyard, and extends towards the street. The soft beige color of the Moso bamboo underscores the apparent simplicity of this tunnel/bridge, which was designed following the geometric and mathematical principles of the golden ratio and...
The photographic tableaux of Los Angeles–based Parisian transplant Reine Paradis evoke an ambiguity of place. The central focal point of each is a solo figure, played by Paradis, typically costumed in an A-line mini or similarly chic garment fashioned from transparent, tinted PVC; she is most often posed humorously or awkwardly—sometimes, heroically—in an iconic landscape, accompanied at times...
“Made in L.A.” has finally hits its stride—this fourth edition feels fresh with discoveries, both of artists you may know and many you may not. It features 32 artists, from emerging ones with promising talent to the exciting re-emergence of an artist who fell from the public eye for several decades—Luchita Hurtado, age 97. In the last two years, Hurtado has had two shows, but her last solo show...
In Laguna Art Museum’s 10 years of mounting its annual Art & Nature installations, a consistent theme has been the preservation of our planet. In this year’s version, the museum celebrates the beauty of nature while artfully addressing environmentalism and...
Forever enchanted by Francesca Woodman’s photographic realms, I trace her contorted, fluttering body in the passing shadows and opaque reflections of her self-portraits–I see a witch, a siren, a spirit, a saint, a veiled apparition. Woodman’s body is simultaneously...
The first word that comes to mind to describe "In Praise of Shadows" is ‘immense’. This may be what is expected from an artist’s thirty-year retrospective, but William Kentridge is not just any artist. The South African artist is prolific, and this show captures the...
For those already acquainted with Elaine Cameron-Weir’s practice, her recent exhibition “Exploded View / Dressing for Windows” at Hannah Hoffman Gallery feels familiarly sterile and sacred, mechanical and magical. Clusters of assemblage sculpture made of concrete,...
In her inaugural solo exhibition “All in Time” at Murmurs Gallery, sculptor and sound artist Maria Maea braids palm fronds, milkweed, rebar, chicken wire and—most importantly—radical community. One can hardly even call the show “solo,” although it deserves the same...