John Giorno seems like a fun guy to have been around. Lively, ready for hijinks. I mean, anyone who’d turn his slumbering nakedness over to Andy Warhol’s camera for six hours must be pretty game.
In an unsurprising, though nonetheless upsetting, move, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has rescinded funding for arts organizations across the United States. The decision follows the Trump administration’s publication of the 2026 Discretionary Budget...
In the early years of cinema, actors were treated as crew members working the conveyor belt of industrialized studio systems. But by the silent-film era of the 1910s, the star system had begun to take hold, with close-ups articulating a visual language of desire...
In 1987, Cindy Sherman interviewed Gretchen Bender for BOMB Magazine, discussing the influence of her work on mass media. Bender denied the relationship between the two and instead described media as a ‘cannibalistic river without a conscience,’ invoking the image of...
“Before You Now” features work by 56 artists who employ photography, prints, drawings, installations and video to depict themselves, their identities and, especially, their artistic perspectives. Rather than creating traditional self-portraits, these symbolic,...
Mary Woronov, Chelsea Girl, writer, actress and painter, is currently displaying her luscious punk-rock paintings in a Pop-up exhibition at an old Land Rover/Jaguar dealership in West Hollywood. This is a rare opportunity to see this extraordinary survey of her unique...
The Converge 45 biennial initiative exists to forge a regional, national, and international artistic discourse, and to intentionally center certain aspects of those conversations within the Pacific Northwest arts ecosystem. Showcasing some 50 local, national, and...
The 2022–23 term has been a disaster for the US Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. disgraced himself by spurning demands from Congress and the public that the Court adopt a code of ethics similar to the one covering all other federal jurists. If such...
After three years of experiencing artwork, exhibitions, podcasts, and news reports related to Covid-19, it seemed there could be nothing left to consume that is new, inspiring or even interesting. Enter Susan Chen. In a surprisingly refreshing and engaging solo show,...
The Hermès Birkin handbag is the stuff of legend. Named for actress Jane Birkin, each bag is hand-tooled in the finest leather or crocodile. The bags are highly sought out by the nouveau riche. Customers for new releases are placed on a waiting list and there is a...
At the entrance to “Global Asias: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art from the Collection of Jordan D. Schnizter and His Family Foundation” at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, stand two giant ceramic heads. One features a black-and-white striped neck, red crown and...
One of my favorite paintings is a portrait of myself at the age of five or so, composed by my father. Along with my siblings’ pictures and beyond the sentimentality, these portraits have become distinctive family emblems and historical markers, wrought at a time of...
The late-morning crowd lining up under the sports-car replicas on the wall of the old Paley Center was in a buzzy mood. Patiently waiting to gain access to the “Mr. Brainwash Museum” were an assortment of retirees, matrons and members of the spray-tanned classes—a...
In the late winter of 2019, I became enamored with Joan Didion. I and my then partner were driving the backroads of Tennessee and North Carolina as a leg of a cross country move from Portland to Philadelphia. Somewhere along our trip I picked up a copy of South and...
Jean-Michel Basquiat, some say, was an artistic genius. His paintings’ auction values now equal or exceed those of his friend and mentor, Andy Warhol. A couple of top-notch Basquiat shows wowed New York City this past summer, including a major exhibition sponsored by...
My early impressions of Claes Oldenburg and his work were shaped largely by mass media. I tended to think of his work in association with Pop artists like Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist—though also artists like Allan Kaprow and to a lesser extent, George Segal.
In a planet crowded with polarizing paradigms, is it possible to contribute aesthetically to larger conversations about culture and existence? Life by Design, a group show currently at the Gresham Gallery at San Bernardino Valley College (SBVC), masterfully...
Portrait of an Artist By Hugo Huerta Marin 424 pages Prestel What exactly is a portrait? In art, “portrait” is generally understood to mean a visual likeness or representation. One could argue that a photographic portrait captures this visual likeness more closely...
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