Articles
The Julia Stoschek Foundation Asks: What if a lot of videos were in one place and it was spooky? "What a Wonderful World" at the Variety Arts Theater
The Renaissance Revival-style Variety Arts Theater normally sits dormant at the chaotic corner of Figueroa and Olympic. However, for six weeks, from February 6th to March 20th, the theater hosted “What A Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem,” a presentation from the collection of the Dusseldorf-based Julia Stoschek Foundation. The exhibition spanned everything from contemporary video art to...
BRAD NEELY HAS A BOOK OUT AND THAT IS GOOD On Brand Neely's Creased Comics
In Spanish, the term feísmo is used to denote ugly technique in the pursuit of ugly truth. In its canonical expressions, it pairs the slapdash with a luxuriant emphasis on the grotesque. It’s a useful concept for the art of Brad Neely: looking at it closely, you can see a developed understanding of figure, perspective, and composition, but the immediate impression it gives is of a person picking...
How does an entire family of artists work? Essay
When Liv, my middle sister, was three years old, she drew a perfect still life in sidewalk chalk. She rendered a side table and vase of flowers with a consistent perspective as if second nature, like a spider spinning a web. My dad loves this story and has told it so much that the anecdote is shaped by his own narrative flavor. Even though I was there with Liv, when I try to remember the event,...
Why art week LA is more fashionable than fashion week NY
At New York Fashion Week this February, the biggest story wasn’t any of the actual clothes (although Rachel Scott had a banger of a debut collection for Proenza Schouler. I was particularly impressed with Look 9). It was looksmaxxing freak Clavicular walking in MAGA provocateur Elena Velez‘s show, then getting his ass beat at an after party. The street fashion also underwhelmed. Looking at...
Reviews
KEN KAGAMI at Misako & Rosen at Post-Fair
In the March/April issue of Artillery, I argued that the subversion of cutesy cartoon aesthetics is almost always compelling, since the notion of a visual language with the power to connote primal emotions through ancient, universal strokes remains resonant despite...
MAGDALENA SUAREZ FRIMKESS at David Zwirner
You recognize it before you know what to do with it. A cartoon, a flower, a line that feels like it’s been there before. Kitsch comes to mind, maybe, but it doesn’t quite stick. Or it sticks and then loosens. The image doesn’t hold you where you expect. It keeps...
GOING GONDALA AT THE VENICE ROOM a review of a place
I parked my car on a random street in the nearby neighborhood, and as I was walking to the Venice Room, I passed by a place matter-of-factly called BREW. I had to peep the menu, because that bold, straightforward name simply struck me — naturally, they serve beer,...
DUELING REVIEWS: ALAKE SHILLING Two takes on Alake Shilling’s Buggy Bear at the Hammer Museum
MARINA STERN at Bel Ami & CW American Modernism
All of Marina Stern’s work is weighty. The objects in her intensely matte, sleek oil paintings and densely packed graphite drawings receive an egalitarian touch. In contrast to often airy and delicate subjects—paper, string, and flowers—Stern’s quality of paint is...