In the four-page press release for his show at Blum & Poe, the artist Mark Grotjahn lets us in on the little secret he “knew” as a young man: “Art could be whatever (he) wanted it to be.” That tenet would prove to save his ass when he decided to abandon the human...
“Please recall the name Medea,” asks the narrator in the opening minutes of Cara Benedetto’s video currently on view at Night Gallery. While conjuring the Greek mythological character who avenges her husband’s betrayal by killing their children, the video pans down...
We Americans live in interesting times. The old Chinese curse has come home to roost long before the country itself has supplanted our economic and cultural hegemony. We have more freedom, more choices generally – but we’re not equally informed or empowered to sort...
It’s Halloween and it’s about time I finished my walk-through of Guillermo del Toro’s reconfigured ‘Bleak House’ home/office/inspiration space in the Art of the Americas Building at LACMA. What, after all, could have been keeping me so long? Maybe I simply needed a...
NYC VISUAL & PERFORMANCE ARTIST GUY RICHARDS SMIT The Grossmalerman! Show November 11, FRIDAY, 8 p.m. Ace Hotel Downtown LA 929 S Broadway, LA 90015 This is a free event held at Segovia Hall featuring Jibz Cameron (Dynasty Handbag) The contemporary art...
“The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, / I’m getting used to it now….” The words are from a 1979 Talking Heads song, “Life During Wartime,” which inspired the title and concept for this group show of five artists – Sadie Barnette, Aaron Fowler, Farrah Karapetian,...
Sunday night was a wild one with the rare Los Angeles rain. This adventurous ride into Chinatown Sunday evening to watch Southland Ensemble presents John Cage: 1975-77 at Human Resources offered promise. The performance was a straightforward one-hour affair. Bedecked...
Constructed in a labyrinthine series of rooms, each claustrophobic space arranged around a faux fireplace and punctuated by cardboard forms that resemble felled trees, Stand-alone, Thomas Hirschhorn’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, intentionally overwhelms with...
The event invitation to the art performance piqued my interest; after all, who wouldn’t want to see an artist and a porn-star dominatrix in a motel room “presidential debate” smackdown? Plus, there was the added attraction of an older, established “grande daminatrix”...
You probably know Brian Rea’s work even if you’re not familiar with his name. In fact, it’s probable that you do know his name by now because his illustrations seem to be almost everywhere from book jackets and frontispieces to half the magazines you pick up, and even...
There was no need to take drugs last weekend at Desert Daze—a three-day music festival with camping, yoga, and cacao ceremonies—because trust me, you already felt high. Whether you took the yellow acid or not, you were feeling the cosmic vibrations be it the full...
It is almost an existential question – of art, creation, medium – the ‘still point of the turning world … (w)here the dance is,’ to paraphrase Eliot’s “Burnt Norton.” Helen Frankenthaler was already well into her early maturity by 1962, which is where this 25 year...
A long banner of colorful flowers fills the second floor window of 1301PE. Seen from the outside, it functions as a precursor to the works inside the gallery. It is also serves as a memory trace; upon entering the second floor space one is thrown into a quandary—...
As our planet is gradually warmed and transformed into landscapes and environments once conceivable only in nightmare fantasy, we find ourselves preoccupied with our apprehension and perception of a world we’ve effectively made over – so bound up with our physical...
The event was called “Vincent Van Jokes.” Stand-up comedy at an art gallery? This is exactly the kind of grandiose LA narcissism comedians spill jokes about in their sets. What could possibly go down at 101/Exhibit tonight? The irony was the enticement.The crowd was a...
Brian Bress’ amalgam of drawings, paintings, masks, sculpture and videos, brought together for “Make Your Own Friends,” a survey of the last ten years of Bress’ output, elicits a range of feelings, from poignancy and surprise, to disconcertion and compassion. The...
If MOCA’s "Art in the Streets" (2011) exhibition was Disneyland, Jeff Hamilton Studios’ "Street Art Fair" was… not the Vegas Strip… Downtown Vegas? Fremont Street? Whereas the Museum of Contemporary Art’s graffiti and urban art extravaganza felt controlled and safe...
Jibz Cameron, the performance artist and poet of female panic who goes by the moniker Dynasty Handbag, is trying to make more user-friendly work. Cameron has made her name by staging wild and incandescent actions that make you feel excitedly deranged. In her 2015 show...
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