Artists create in a bubble, a womb constructed with their hearts, minds and souls. This freedom-loving habitat is a protective space, a defense against the contrarian outside world. Influences might receive a wary invitation to enter. That beautiful bubble may float...
Upon entering Helen J Gallery, the electric sounds produced by the neon lights of Ahn Hyong Nam’s dynamic sculptures pour into visitors’ ears and plunges them into the artist's reimagined matrix. As the show's title implies, "Automatic Nature," Ahn's work investigates...
Amir Zaki's exhibition 'On Being Here' presents hyper-real, large-scale color photographs of piers in Southern California. In each image, Zaki divides the composition into two sections, juxtaposing a view on the pier looking towards the ocean with another from the...
These notes are for Dave Hickey, Paula Rego, and Annie Ross. "Let me be clear about this: I don't have a drug problem, I have a police problem." Keith Richards — flyleaf quotation for Dave Hickey's Air Guitar Just a moment...
At the ICA Los Angeles, curators Marcelle Joseph and Legacy Russell have assembled 25 artists whose practices engage with the construction of identity and the self as subject –or, as Judith Butler puts it, The Condition of Being Addressable. This international and...
CM: The other part of this exhibition (Empty Vessel – Amir Zaki, at the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion, Orange Coast College) are photographs of ceramic vessels. Are they in fact broken? AZ: You brought up the last body of work at ACME, which is important because that...
Kristopher Raos’ "No Escaping the Housework" is an eye-popping splash of vibrant color. His bold works are highly refined pop art which depict the packaging for a variety of different cleaning products. Technically untitled, each piece indicates a “product” name and...
A grotesque feeling of excitement and misery shivers through me whenever I encounter Mika Rottenberg’s work. Her stories of monstrous mechanisms of hypercapitalism are infused with a queasy comedy that reminds me of Julia Kristeva’s “laughter of the apocalypse”...
This interview with Amir Zaki was conducted on September 16, 2019, in advance of his exhibition "Empty Vessel" at Orange Coast College's Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion from Sept. 19–Dec. 5, 2019. Christopher Michno: "Formal Matter," the last body of work your exhibited...
A slew of movies has been pent up during the pandemic, either from delayed productions or distribution plans, or both. Now the floodgates are opening, and some of the films are very good. In this new column, I’m going to make recommendations for your movie-viewing...
A pair of exhibitions each in their own manner engage with formula and intuition. In Portraits: Invented Subjects and Divergent Styles, 90 works (all acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 inches, 2015-22) by Nathan Redwood form a tight procession flanking the walls in grids and...
Lethal Amounts in Downtown LA is well known in the underground scene for being a venue which supports alternative music and outsider artists. This unconventional venue is the locale for Emma Ruth Rundle’s first solo show entitled Dowsing Voice. Rundle is originally...
Octavia E. Butler's speculative fictional imagining of Los Angeles seems to inch closer and closer to nonfiction as our apocalyptic reality grows louder and hotter by the day. At REDCAT, the exhibition of new work by American Artist shows how Butler’s words are so...
Zachary Heath Stadel passed away on Thursday, April 22, 2022, in Alhambra, California; he was 43. A memorial exhibition on Saturday June 18, from 5-8:00 PM. at 530 North Western, Los Angeles, CA, 90004. Proceeds from the sales of Zack’s artwork will go to the JED...
Artist, critic, producer, writer and performer Jacki Apple, born in New York in 1941, died at her home in Culver City, CA on June 8, 2022, surrounded by white flowers and listening to the music of Meredith Monk, a friend and colleague. Her work encompassed multi-media...
Cold sheets of perforated metal gnaw quietly at severed plaster limbs inside Matthew Brown’s La Brea gallery. Despite the unsettling horrors this description might conjure, Jeffrey Meris’ exhibition, "be ever wonderful," is deceptively healing and hopeful. A series...
The tradition of organic and biomorphic form sculpture is one of the most singularly important in modern and contemporary art. Stretching all the way back to the undulating serpentine forms of the Läocoon, the tradition really took off in the early 20th century in the...
Every so often I make it a point to see plays that I’ve seen before – plays I thought terrific or felt could have been done better. In the latter case, when the play is done better, it’s an especial joy. This is the case with the current Sierra Madre Playhouse...
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