In his essay “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” film theorist André Bazin observed that image-making was “no longer a question of survival after death, but of a larger concept, the creation of an ideal world in the likeness of the real, with its own temporal...
The individual works in Devin Troy Strother’s 2010 solo debut were tiny spectacles, collages full of frolicking figures and bright shards of colored paper that extended beyond the confines of the frames. In his current exhibition “They Should’ve Never Given You Niggas...
ROCK AND ROLL IS FOR THE BIRDSDear Babs, What do you think about using live animals in an artwork? I recently went to a museum in Montreal and witnessed an entire exhibition of finches playing guitars! The air conditioning was blasting and I thought they needed little...
Humor is often a neglected muse in the production of fine art. Seldom is it thought of as a legitimate field of cultural inquiry or a productive platform for the creation of an aesthetic. Los Angeles-based mixed media artist Marc Horowitz, known for his socially...
DANGEROUS TERRITORYLOCAL HOMIES ANSWER MACCARONE GALLERYSometimes gentrification can backfire, especially if you crow about it too loudly. Last September New York gallerist Michele Maccarone told The New York Times that Boyle Heights, where she was opening her LA...
While it would not be incorrect to say that Kenton Parker’s work primarily deals with nature, it would be rather misleading. There are no polite painted landscapes or photographs of waterfalls or mountain ranges. Cement, cars and trash are just as common as flowers...
With 40 expressive oils, Victor Hugo Zayas’ exhibition “The River Paintings,” responds to the ebb and flow of the Los Angeles River in its many moods and manifestations, with each piece flowing naturally to the next. Created from 2013 to 2015, these huge paintings,...
Stephen Cohen is the founder of photo l.a. and the Stephen Cohen Gallery, which is now the Cohen Gallery on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. In January the stalwart photo fair celebrates its 25th anniversary. Artillery: Why did you start photo l.a.? What made...
Playfully assaulting the construct of the rational, coherent, autonomous individual in his solo exhibition “You Have Nothing To Worry About,” Andy Fedak’s new stereoscopic (3D) film and virtual reality installation and three early “anxiety” videos explore his...
A recognizable figure or persona, which may or may not stand in for the artist but, regardless, bears on his relationship to the world and his painterly address of it, emerges in the Berlin-based painter Ulrich Wulff’s most recent show, “Preparations.” Call it the...
Human beings are genetically programmed to respond positively to the face, no doubt a survival instinct, as babies bond with their nurturing parents. Perhaps not coincidentally a fairly recent dad himself, Boston-based Josh Jefferson has tapped into this universal...
Every year explorers, wanderers and artists gather at “The Playa,” or, as it is more commonly known, Burning Man. They convene in the desert with the desire to connect with others and experience a genuinely altruistic life, especially through art. Laura Kimpton, an...
The Irish artist Dorothy Cross’ explorations of the links between human activity and the natural world often possess great lyricism and poetic insight. Born in Cork in 1956, she represented Ireland in the 1993 Venice Biennale.In 2001 she went to live on the edge of...
Happy New Year, dear reader(s). I know I was living up to the blog title just a bit excessively in the last month of this just past year; but I wasn’t just staying at home. First of all, there was Norma – the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Bellini’s classic tale of...
Artist Derrick Adams curates Something I Can Feel, the debut Curated Section at VOLTA NY. Watch this 2 min video as he discusses his creative intent in assembling the participating artists in this thematic exhibition exploring elements of provocation.
The New Objectivity was an art movement in Germany established between the end of World War I and the Nazi rise to power. Artists like Otto Dix, Christian Schad and Aenne Biermann among others recognized the darkness of the times in which they lived and celebrated it...
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