One of the performers—if “performer” is the right word—in The Mommy Leaks the Floor, a new work by Asher Hartman staged at New Theater Hollywood (May 16–25), is Pablo, a real-life infant, born earlier this year. Throughout the play, cradled in his mother’s arms on the...
Russian exile Lev Rukhin creates grand works of realism tinged with just enough peculiarity to suggest doubt. They are dreamlike—much of the imagery is suspended in a nimbus—and implies both memory and trickery. This device is quite intentional; the exhibition is...
The City of Namara is a fictitious place created by Robert G. Achtel. In the photographs that define this curious and digitally fabricated location, Achtel presents Namara as a place devoid of people and filled with modernist architecture. Each building is shot...
When we think about groundbreakers or early adopters, we think of the first, the biggest, the people that jump up and exemplify a movement. Some will stand the test of time, others will bring shock value in being the protagonists. Whether it be Bowie, Hendrix,...
Hallelujah! The queen of everything has finally arrived! Never before has the church social been abuzz with so much excitement and activity, and this year Hallelujah Hot Pink is in charge of the punch bowl, which she repeatedly spiked with Cristalino Tequila when no...
Since March I have edited Letters in Exile with Maria Agureeva. Artillery generously offered Maria and other artists who had fled Ukraine and Russia an important platform from which to express their feelings, voice their grief and protest, and to share stories of...
I was thoroughly bewildered when I first saw Hector A. Ramirez’ work as a member of his MFA committee at Texas Christian University in 2017. He handed me Carpet Shoes, a worn pair of men’s brown leather shoes with rectangles of yellowish carpet glued to their soles...
Collectively, we are so much more than colors. We are the beating, impregnable heart of our country – now brought to our knees in the fetid air, on the bloodied streets, yet if you look up, we are the cerulean sky and the golden amulet of the sun. Now we flee in dirty...
Love lingers in memories of past embraces, in y(our) shared moments of agony and affection. The pains of past love form bruises–tender and swollen kinks that excite and sting. Sophia Stevenson’s MFA thesis exhibition is personal, as is our relationship (she is a...
Artists are experiencing a sense of gratitude for the unexpected support and basic kindness shown to them. In the midst of exile and displacement, often the best of humanity reasserts itself. As Maria says in her fifth blog, “So many of my friends and colleagues who...
As Maria was working on Blog 4, I happened upon an article about photographer Edward Burtynksy, who is of Ukrainian descent and still has family there. He was scheduled to photograph in Ukraine this year for other reasons than the war. His work has been postponed. He...
Me You "Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You." is a classic Barbara Kruger experience. The exhibition serves as an introduction to those who may be unfamiliar with her work, yet also engages with seasoned viewers by re-presenting older works in grand, high tech and...
As famous architect Mies van der Rohe once said, “God is in the details!” So, when Raven’s Tail Black overheard a conversation between two unassuming strangers, describing her alternately as “Coal Black,” “Carbon Black,” “Midnight Black,” and by far the most...
Now that we are finally emerging from the stronghold of isolation in the wake of COVID-19, the familiar phrase “wish you were here,” takes on new meaning. In Roberts Projects second visual iteration of this phrase, the nine artists in this exhibition reassert the...
In her third blog, Maria considers the testimony of four artists from Ukraine and Russia. Each speaks powerfully about how the war is impacting them. We like to say artists speak truth to power. Courageous artists do this, yet often with severe consequences. Some of...
Consider the rhythm of poetry, the speaking voice and the eye moving across the page, the mathematics of strict iambic and hendecasyllabic verse pressed into the service of unruly love and nature. The pace and structure of power of three is eternal, the optical...
A series of precious objects rendered in oil paint requires your intimate proximity. Tiny tactile paintings of levitating furs, beaded coin purses, costume jewelry and sequin fabrics depict trompe-l'oeil images of feminine objects commonly associated with glam,...