Yikes! That’s it? I can’t believe that In Appropriation at HCP is closing already. I’ve been thinking about the show quite a bit. And while I’ve been thinking, the clock’s been ticking. The show ends this weekend, and I still don’t have a rock solid angle. Here are some tentative thoughts in the hopes [...]
Alvin Baltrop’s photographs, most of them taken at the Hudson River pier between the 70s and 90s constitute the CAMH’ s latest Perspectives exhibition: Dreams Into Glass. They form a rich text that was sadly overlooked at the time of its making. The photographs depict, among other things, the cruising scene of the 70s, daily [...]
Can I admit that I get a major kick out of this image? That I am thankful for it? Can I say this without losing a significant portion of the readership? I hope so. Yes, it is a racist caricature, and I implore you to believe me when I tell you that my thrill is [...]
Two months ago, The Station Museum’s Artifactual Realities closed. Unfortunately, I first visited the exhibition a couple weeks before the end and only had a short time to really absorb and enjoy the show’s strongest piece: Mel Chin’s The Funk and Wag From A to Z. If you missed it, Chin’s website gives you a [...]
Lawndale, I ain’t mad at ya. I love the opportunity that is your residency program, your open submission process is truly open and makes possible a dizzyingly diverse range of shows, you’re not afraid of straight up painting, or straight up anything for that matter. Please understand that what follows is about the Big Show [...]
It’s almost July, and perhaps you have no interest in losing yourself in the waves of insect din and the swampy stickiness, even though it feels like swimming through music. It is quite possible that you don’t want to walk a few miles along the Bayou and find out what your sweat smells like by [...]
“You talking to who?” They heard me fine, yet each time I told a friend that I was calling Ed Hardy for a quick interview, I got the same incredulous utterance. It was usually followed by less than kind comments about Hardy and his legacy; the name Thomas Kinkade was mentioned a couple of times. [...]
Tumbleweeds We don’t have New York’s density, or Chicago’s architecture, or Los Angeles’ mythologized spaces. We don’t have San Francisco’s prices, Aspen’s lack of oxygen, Austin’s lack of pigment, and San Diego’s pact with the weather gods. We should not understand as deficiencies what is simply not part of the city’s make-up. This sprawling, congested [...]
Let’s talk Deadwood. David Milch’s superlative television show was quite good at putting his audience just outside of a given situation. The characters often spoke and behaved in ways that were perfectly crystal within their world, but may have seemed murky to the audience. That is, until the code was broken. It’s an [...]
