The first iteration of Documenta, curated by Arnold Bode, took place in 1955. Since then, every five years for 100 days, Documenta occupies the city of Kassel, Germany. More often than not, it is an international showcase of current trends and ideas in contemporary...
OUTSIDE LA: Documenta 15
GALLERY ROUNDS: Robert G. Achtel Marshall Gallery
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...
OUTSIDE LA: Natalie Strait NY: Charles Moffett
In "Monsoon Season," her first ever New York solo show, on view at Charles Moffett, Natalie Strait presents new paintings of women that explore climate change, gender, queer culture and the experience of being a woman today. The women in Strait’s paintings are all...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Life By Design Gresham Gallery at San Bernardino Valley College
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...
Bring the Pain Gary Simmons at Hauser & Wirth
The progress of his career has been a methodical march; carefully scripted, stubbornly stage-managed, and precisely choreographed—each subsequent exhibition enhancing the shudder of an already disconcerting thrum. The result of such a steady and painstaking pace has...
PICK OF THE WEEK: The Condition of Being Addressable Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
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...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Nathan Redwood and Senon Williams PRJCTLA
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...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Patrick Nickell Rory Devine Fine Art
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...
Remarks on Color: Hallelujah Hot Pink! June's Hue
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...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Luis De Jesus Los Angeles Evita Tezeno; Laura Krifka; Nancy Evans
Three fine solo shows of paintings offer personal perspectives as unique as the artists who created them: Laura Krifka, Evita Tezeno, and Nancy Evans. Krifka’s “Still Point,” is a beautiful tribute to light, the human body, and the human heart. With domestic settings...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Mark Dion Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Mark Dion is best known for his conceptual artworks that riff on traditional historical or scientific presentations. He begins by collecting objects and researching a specific subject or locale, then merges his findings into evocative artworks that have an air of...
FORT WORTH, TEXAS: Hector A. Ramirez SENSE AND NONSENSE
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...
KANSAS CITY, MO: Linda Lighton PSYCHO CERAMICS
With their blend of surreal retro glamor, sociopolitical and personal commentary, Linda Lighton’s ceramic sculptures command a double take. This veteran artist can make clay do just about anything, and her art has unabashed palpable appeal. But Lighton is also...
SIGHTS UNSCENE Fashion at Frieze Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, 2022
COMICS Where the Wild Beasts Are
Remarks on Color: Ukrainian Blue and Gold May's Hue
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...
GALLERY ROUNDS: Barbara Kruger Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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...
Remarks on Color: Raven’s Tail Black April's Hue
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...