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...
Here’s something different: I am going to talk about the Olympics that were opening in Paris as I wrote this column. Especially exciting were the athletes floating down the Seine in a series of boats—so improbable, but so original, and so picturesque against the...
Known for her life-sized stained-glass sculptures of intertwined lawn chairs, Kelly Wall uses sculpture and time to explore perspective in different ways, turning familiar objects into something uncanny and almost disorienting. In her recent outdoor show at Various...
There are few places on this earth where I have stood and felt humbled, in awe of the grandeur of human achievement, where art and architecture intentionally merge with consideration of form and function—and where sexy-ass aesthetics rule the day. These sites are what...
One of the places where art and science can interact as a powerful force is in outsider art. This is especially true when the outsider’s goal is motivated by a belief that what they are doing is scientific. Self-educated artists are often likely to follow their own...
Liam Young is an Australian-born speculative architect and world-builder who constructs digital models of potential futures. With a background in architecture, his designs are grounded in plausible science and technology. Young’s Planet City envisions a future where...
Dear Babs, Our daughter is starting a BFA program at a small, prestigious art college this fall. What are some things we can do to support her during her first semester? —Striving to Support in Seattle Dear Striving, When I was in college, my dad would mail me...
Licking Time There’s a fortune to be made thinking about licking the bare upper thigh of historical figures. The way the first person gave up all hope echoes in everyone everywhere forever. Wearing animal print, and writing poems one can get close to the world licking...
There is something inherently contentious about an exhibition juxtaposing the work of a contemporary artist with another whose work has some place within the art-historical canon, more particularly one of the most resonant antecedents of the late 19th- and early...
If you’ve read any of Bernard Cooper’s books, you know about the care with which he constructs his sentences, how he gives each detail its own breathing room. (If not, Maps to Anywhere [1990] and his 2006 memoir The Bill from My Father are especially recommended.)...
In The Head in the Tiger’s Mouth (2021), the first composition in Kyungmi Shin’s kaleidoscopic exhibition, my eyes immediately landed on the luminous collection of swirls and stripes suggesting the calligraphic form of a tiger before catching on the colorful tableau...
Incessant texts and social-media alerts are inescapable facets of contemporary life, and artist Chris Eckert attempts to make sense of this glut of seemingly endless data. Eckert has successfully melded backgrounds in the fields of mechanical engineering and...
A church is a grand gesture to the community it serves and sustains. At its best it’s a hub, as well as a display of worship, tradition, sacrament and humility. A chapel by contrast is a modest little space—distinguished from the former by its size more than anything...
As part of her career-spanning 2022–23 survey, “Peripheral Vision” at the Getty, and in honor of the museum’s 20th anniversary, the German-American photographer Uta Barth presented an expansive commission entitled “…from dawn to dusk” (2022). Twice a month for a year,...
California amusement parks like Disneyland are multi-layered entertainment fantasies, offering created environments for escapism and joy-filled distraction. These tourist sites entice visitors with adventurous rides, performances and tantalizing food. Similarly,...
The meeting of Covey Gong and Monique Mouton at Bel Ami is like watching the contact of two elements transforming one another. While their respective works are satisfying on their own, together, Mouton’s mixed media on paper and Gong’s tactful sculptures, spotlights a...
If—in the next couple days—you are keen on communing privately with melancholic beauty (or “tough joy,” as the artist might have it), visit Christopher Culver’s latest suite of charcoal and pastel drawings on paper at Michael Benevento Gallery. Never mind the...
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