There are some artists you know are great immediately because they provoke such disparate and conflicting emotions simultaneously that they practically throw you physically off balance. John Altoon is one such artist. The most feral of the Ferus Gallery Cool School,...
Gary Lang's circle paintings, perhaps the most monumental of his oeuvre, might be the most intimate, too. “Rising,” his current exhibition at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills, includes a number of these pieces, as well as other works from the past 10 years, and a group of...
Let me just start by applauding Liz Gordon and her team for the bravado and sheer celebration of mounting a show titled, Guns, in the current political environment. I was about to say ‘contentious’ – but there’s really nothing contentious (or new) about it. Guns are...
The most emblematic of the ‘trophy’ moments in Ry Rocklen’s current show may be the perforated vertical standing locker cabinet, titled Ricky. With its exposed interior copper plating and cross-illuminated by the gallery light, it’s a handsome object that might serve...
During a Cabinet Council meeting three years into her mourning of the death of her husband, the still distraught Queen Victoria “rose from the table declaring that she could come to no decision without consulting with Prince Albert.” That display moved one of her...
As the West Hollywood clubs began to bump, we marched to our first destination of Saturday evening, M+B gallery. Tonight this minimalist gallery featured the digital, Albers-inspired work of Jessica Eaton. Each piece is a headache of colors and circles interrupted by...
In his 2011 book Normal Life, law professor and trans-activist Dean Spade writes of the wide-ranging goals of trans-resistance, a political awakening that fights against such manifold systems of domination that its practitioners cannot focus unilaterally on sex,...
Last Saturday we tackled Round 2 of the fall LA art season openings, starting in Downtown LA. Taking a lesson from our previous weekend in Culver City, this time we arrived earlier than 30 minutes before galleries were closing.The Box showing Barbara T. Smith was...
The great thing about keeping some distance from the dominant trends in the art world is that you stand a reasonable chance of remaining true to what is most unique about your own art-making: your own eye, ear, voice or hand (all are involved in what flows from the...
Walking down the lengthy corridor from the street to Hollywood’s Various Small Fires Gallery for the opening reception of mixed media artist Jeff Zilm’s latest exhibition, “Relics of the Epoch,” a slightly alienating, yet familiar droning sound cascades down the...
The beginning of another arts and culture season also marks a point where we really start to feel the impact of everything we’ve been experiencing over the preceding orbital/calendar year and start to take its measure. Events move swiftly; you can feel as if you’re...
This coming Friday, September 23, at 9 P.M. ET, PBS will air an hour-long Los Angeles-themed episode, the third installment of a four-episode block called Season 8 of its series Art in the Twenty-First Century.The series specializes in charismatic, broad-brush but...
LIVE ARTILLERY Presents: Marnie Weber's The Day of Forevermore, feature-length film debut screening including a Q&A afterwards with Ann Magnuson and daughter Colette Weber Shaw who is the lead actress in the film. It was truly a magical evening crowded with even...
We have abandonment issues lately/forever – desolate, disconsolate and a bit fragile. In Henry Taylor’s painting, that fragility coexists with an incongruous durability – a hard thing that cracks against identity or classification or simply swallows it up. Taylor’s...
Last weekend, as the new fall art season had officially commenced in Los Angeles, we found ourselves debating the most efficient way to make several openings; Culver City seemed the most doable. We had two terribly bourgey friends visiting from France in tow, ready to...
If Rebeca Puga's paintings could speak, they might quote, in their collective voice, the Socratic paradox, "I only know that I know nothing." Instead of formulating bold statements, they suggest ineffable speculations.In pencil lines, thin washes, and wobbly...
Last Sunday we attended an opening that required bathing suits, sunglasses and a heavy dose of SPF 15 almost exclusively. I suppose we should mention we were on the beach and no not the Venice boardwalk variety of hippie beach side art openings. We were in San Diego,...
It’s the first post-Labor Day week-end and we’re approaching mid-September, which means one thing in Los Angeles (and New York, too, I guess – as we head into Fashion Week) – the start of the new arts and entertainment season. LACMA just unveiled an elegant exhibition...
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