It’s been a tumultuous week in Los Angeles; and for a change, we can’t blame it entirely on the Putin-wannabe currently installed in The White House or his cronies and GOP enablers – notwithstanding the fact that he happened to blow into town this same week to pick a...
Something Resembling Meaning: Revisiting Jasper Johns
It was interesting to walk through the Jasper Johns exhibition, Something Resembling Truth, only a couple of days after my first look at Mark Bradford’s new paintings at Hauser & Wirth. Bradford’s paintings marked something of a departure for him – continuing to...
The Broad Museum: Creature
"Creature" springs from the same Latin root as creation, yet the two conjure polarities. The former suggests a beast, a lower animal, or if human then a distinctly lower form of human; a savage, a bestial Mr. Hyde. The latter implies a divine force, a desire or idea...
My Favorite Nazi
They gaze at us with supreme confidence. They are gods after all, aren’t they? Or leaders certainly – leaders of men. That is to say, soldiers – and they are all men, though anatomical details beyond the head are concealed beneath those often strikingly well-tailored...
Karen Finley’s “The Jackie Look”
There are probably as many words written about the ‘Jackie look’ by now as there are actual images documenting it. A quick scan of just a few of these images taken over the roughly 40 years of her public life reveals quite a range: the young equestrienne, the...
Making the “Un-Private” Public – and Urban
In many ways, Monday evening’s “Un-Private Collection” panel/conversation at Disney Hall, featuring The Broad Museum’s principal architect, Elizabeth Diller, of the Diller, Scofidio + Renfro firm of architects, and moderated by the distinguished architecture critic,...