Communal openings do bring out the crowds. On an evening when frost warnings were posted, LA’s art world denizens came out in serious numbers to attend dozens of galleries in the La Cienega/Washington vortex. It must be said from the onset, openings are probably the worst possible time to actually view art. This malady was [...]
The concept of an exhibition being perfect for a summertime setting might too easily be misinterpreted as a slight. It is not. The paintings and drawings by Matthias Düwel currently on display at Martha Otero Gallery capture the high key color and sartorial swing that does indeed seem suited for the ratatattat of August. If [...]
Photography’s greatest Achilles heel may be that it’s too damn illustrative. How then to wrestle the poetry back into a medium which explains so much and leaves so little for interpretation? I was reminded of this re-occuring struggle when I saw, again, the emotive and evocational prints of James Fee at Craig Krull Gallery. Fee, [...]
The thing about group shows, especially in the long dog days of summer, is that they can drive you to distraction. While the art world in general has become a 365 days a year affair, many galleries still work on a “cultural season” of September through May. Summer group shows might not be the best [...]
Pick of the Week for July 25th, 2012 Granted, to write a rave review of a show closing in four days is regretable. But when the art work on display and the curatorial excellence is so remarkable, it would be more of a crime not to sing its praises. The exhibition in question is the [...]
I was a late-comer to Francesca Woodman‘s pictures but liked them right away. That was around 2003, and Woodman’s surrealism provided me with a lyrical counterpart to René Magritte’s poetically banal imagery. Wrong-headed, probably, but I seem to respond to the vaguely familiar at least as often as I do to the totally new. Reading a new book [...]
[This post originally appeared on Glasstire Texas.] The image above and those below were pasted in a document that opened with the following (loosely translated) text: “To all unmarried ones who would like to spend their life by my side and within all the beauties of my home. Please look below at all the magic [...]
Pick of the week for June 25th, 2012 Frank Stella has created distinct bodies of work every decade for the past 50 years. His working methodology has defined the template of the contemporary artist-variations on a theme. Whether by his artistic nature or by design, this approach has all but become de rigueur in MFA [...]
For decades now, a sure way for an artist to be irrelevant would be to become an abstract painter, the form having long gone the way of Existentialism, black turtlenecks and angst. At its height in the 1950s and early ‘60s, avant-gardism and abstraction were practically synonymous, but since then very few artists have attempted [...]
Dialogues between Fine Art and Architecture abound this month in Culver City. No less than three galleries opened June 2nd featuring Architecture driven work. The media harnessed are diverse, and the results are equally varied. Amy Park At Paul Kopeiken Gallery Amy Park’s Watercolor renditions/homages to the late great Julius Schulman are intoxicating. Anyone familiar [...]
