Richard Hawkins, Sue Williams, “Tantra Song: Contemporary Paintings from Rajasthan”

December 2011

This year thirty-nine mesmeric abstract paintings from Rajasthan in “Tantra Song” at the Santa Monica Museum reminded me of how two Los Angeles–based artists’ seemingly disparate works about desire and physical intimacy bear real … READ ON

PICKS

Niagara

Niagara reflects on Destroy All Monsters

November 2011

Curated by PictureBox’s Dan Nadel and artist Mike Kelley, the first retrospective of work by the original members of Destroy All Monsters, the Ann Arbor, Michigan–based collective comprising Kelley, Carey Loren, Niagara, and Jim Shaw, … READ ON

500 WORDS

Pearl Hsiung

November 2011

This exhibition showcases the metaphoric breadth Pearl Hsiung achieves through a spectacularly narrow visual vocabulary that is biomorphic, geological, and deliciously raunchy. Hsiung’s explosive lexicon in these roughly thirty-five paintings,… READ ON

PICKS

Elliott Hundley

June 2011

“Semele,” Elliott Hundley’s latest exhibition and his second interpretation of the themes and interpersonal dramas in Euripedes’s The Bacchae, again showcases his characteristic conflation of collage with painting and sculpture, and… READ ON

PICKS

Henry Taylor

April 2011

While Henry Taylor’s works are packed with references to African-American pop culture, their bric-a-brac aesthetic and homage to the annals of art history conjure a peculiarly ancient feeling. In large part this is due to the so-called … READ ON

PICKS

Justin Lowe

March 2011

Given that Justin Lowe is well known for the grand-scale installations he’s made with Jonah Freeman, Lowe’s latest solo exhibition, “Hair of the Dog,” might be read as a microscopic glimpse into the duo’s source material; one leaves… READ ON

PICKS

Road to the Oscars

Oscar weekend art in Los Angeles

March 2011 LOS ANGELES

PRE-OSCAR WEEKEND and its attendant art events always amplifies rifts in the Los Angeles art community. There are those who think mixing art and Hollywood is a terrible idea, and there are those who find the whole procedure enticing. For the… READ ON

DIARY

Eric Yahnker

February 2011

“Cracks of Dawn,” Angeleno Eric Yahnker’s first LA solo exhibition (he has shown in several other cities, recently Seattle and Paris), is the funniest show I’ve seen here in years, and not simply because its coup de grâce, Cheese … READ ON

PICKS