Articles

SENSE OF WONDER
Innovation in the Islamic World

Centuries before Leonardo da Vinci lived and worked in Italy, a Persian astronomer, physician, geographer and writer was conducting research into the nature of the cosmos and man’s place in it. Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283) wrote and illustrated The Wonders of Creation and Rarities of Existence (1280), a remarkable 13th-century document cataloging the earth, the heavens and the many forms of...

DEATH OF A STAR
Directed by Jasmine Johnson New Theater Hollywood

by Gracie Hadland

The tedium of a particular self-consciousness ascribed to Generation Z was on full display in The Death of a Star, a performance and self-proclaimed “reality show,” directed by Jasmine Johnson, which had a sold-out four-day run at New Theater Hollywood (NTH) this June. The black-box theater, run by the artists Max Pitegoff and Calla Henkel, which has quickly made a name for itself as one of the...

NO REALER THAN OTHER THINGS
Focusing on the Positive at This Year's Whitney Biennial

by Sarah Sargent

The 2024 Whitney Biennial—“Even Better Than the Real Thing”—features artworks, films and performances by 71 artists and collectives. Within the show’s title is an obvious allusion to AI, but the Whitney suggests that it also raises the possibility of other ideas of “the real,” giving artists considerable latitude to explore the body, identity and precariousness of the natural world. Chrissie...

(BITTER) SWEET VIRGINIA
Navigating Monuments in the Cradle of the Confederacy

by Alexia Lewis

In March, an invitation to view ceramic work by New York–based artist Patrice Renee Washington brought me to Richmond, Virginia, for the very first time. A midsize Southern city often referred to being as far north as one can get until one is in the North, Richmond’s reputation preceded itself. When I informed friends about the impending trip, they were quick to remind me that it was once the...

LESSONS TO BE UNLEARNED
The 60th Venice Biennale is Less Art World and More Real World

by Patricia Watts

This year’s 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, titled “Foreigners Everywhere,” curated by Adriano Pedrosa from Brazil, takes an in-depth look at the work of more than 300 artists and collectives who have experienced exile and colonialism. Pedrosa’s thoughtful selections for the main exhibition and strong representation of immigrant artists in the pavilions resulted in an inspiring gathering of...

CALIFORNIA GOLD
Hilbert Museum Expands its Space and Collection

by Liz Goldner

Millard Sheets’ glass mural Pleasures Along the Beach (1969) adorns the façade of the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University in Orange, CA. Its brightly colored California scene, portraying sunbathers, birds and sailboats, beckons visitors to the newly expanded 22,000-square-foot museum. While the Hilbert Museum has many art pieces on display and in its collection, museum...

DYSTOPIAN FILTERS
Ethel Lilienfeld Considers the Nuances of our Virtual Selves

by Annabel Keenan

Technology cannot be separated from the world we live in today. Indeed, post-pandemic, we are experiencing even more of our daily lives virtually. This phenomenon lies at the core of French multidisciplinary artist Ethel Lilienfeld’s work. Using video, installation and photography, Lilienfeld examines our relationships with technology and the virtual body—avatars we create to engage in digital...

SHATTERED
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme Find Meaning in Remembrance and Resistance

by Tara Anne Dalbow

In the 18th century, when the Iranian elite heard rumors of the grand mirrored halls of Europe, they sent merchants to procure as many sheets of brilliant reflective glass as their boats could carry. Still, the mirrors cracked in their elaborate frames somewhere between Venice and Tehran. Rather than attempt to reassemble the shattered glass, artisans inlaid the thousands of pieces in sweeping...

AS THE WORLD TURNS
Deborah Stratman Gazes Into the Abyss of Time

by Natasha Boyd

“I’m not sure satisfaction is a thing I feel while making art. I get satisfied from stuff like getting my laundry done or digging a trench or putting away my books,” mused director Deborah Stratman in a recent interview with Documentary magazine. Perhaps this questing, open-ended relationship to her practice is why, at age 57, Stratman has nearly two dozen films to her name. An associate...

REALM OF THE SENSES
Jónsi’s “VOX” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

by Emma Christ

Jónsi, artist and frontman of Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós, masterfully crafted a recent show titled “Vox” which challenges the definitions of visual, sonic and olfactory art, merging the mediums to form a multi-sensory exhibition that plays on the viewer’s mind and body. The entry point to the show is Var (safespace) (2023), a tapestry of hundreds of micro speakers draped over a rope...

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Reviews

Walead Beshty
at Regen Projects

Walead Beshty brings five distinct bodies of work together in his exhibition “Profit and Loss” at Regen Projects. In each of these projects, Beshty recasts familiar urban materials (vinyl, newspaper, cement) to expose the undercurrent of suffering and desperation in...

PICCLE P
at Sunset Blvd., et al

It is a high season for Piccle P. People with no prior special interest in street art keep bringing him up on their stories and reels, asking about the work, and pointing out Piccles while driving—though they don’t know his name. “The heart guy,” they call him—because...

Tim Presley
at SADE

I know when it’s time to eat my words and admit that, perhaps, I was wrong. A few years ago, I proclaimed (often) that I hated portraiture. In my defense, this was a period of overabundance, when Chloe Wise reigned supreme, and I was sick of seeing beautiful, posed...

Richard Hawkins
at GAGA & Reena Spaulings

In typical Richard Hawkins fashion, his videos “Blood Everywhere” feature unclad male celebrities (Timothée Chalamet and Bill Skarsgård) slowly starting to rot, eyes blackening and blood gushing. Chalamet undergoes a literal “twink death,” while skipping over the...

Math Bass
at Vielmetter

Reminiscent of the visual languages of midcentury graphic design, children’s book illustrations, and corporate branding, Math Bass’s paintings are unnervingly poppy. The language consists of cartoonishly pared-down symbols (alligator, cloud, speech bubble, to name a...

Chase Hall
at David Kordansky

There is just something about Chase Hall’s mark-making. He covers the faces of his subjects in stylized patterns that resemble African masks before staining the cotton with coffee. The artist’s marks make a lifeguard’s flotation device resemble an African shield....

Haunting House
at Departure Lounge

The last time Jamison Edgar curated Matthew McGaughey was at Honor Fraser, where I had VR sex with the Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines. I wore goggles with Chip’s POV and had an unforgettable sexual experience with a creepily uncanny version of Joanna through...

Shiva Ahmadi
at Shoshana Wayne

A welcome break from hordes of contemporary painters retreading 60’s rear-guard aesthetics, Shiva Ahmadi is instead reminiscent of her near-contemporary Wangechi Mutu. Here are the same flowing watercolor lines radiating thick tendrils of hair, the same cosmic mother...

Sabine Moritz
at Gagosian

Staggeringly reactionary paintings for a staggeringly reactionary world, Sabine Moritz serves up “lyrical abstractions” (this is a genre, not an assessment) with the warm Crayola-explosion palette of early Jasper Johns and the paint handling of a tamer and more...

Elise Rasmussen
at Night Gallery

The history of photographers capturing the West is as storied as the mythos of manifest destiny. Elise Rasmussen steps knowingly into this lineage and subtly pushes the contemporary momentum of turning towards the sculptural, beginning to break photography’s physical...

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