Christopher Miles

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  print May 1999

  Kurt Kauper

  Draped from head to toe in a feather-trimmed crimson cloak seemingly intended to raise speculation about what’s underneath, the cheeky figure of Diva Fiction #8, 1999, stands with her hair swept up and her head tilted back. Hands clasped low, she saucily glances at viewers as if trying to catch someone’s eye from across the room. The lone flirt of the group of finely rendered opera divas who occupy Kurt Kauper’s set of four oils, she flaunts what she’s got, though it’s unclear whether she has anything more than attitude to bring to the table. The more decorous figure of Diva Fiction #9, 1999,

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  print April 1999

  Mike Kelley

  Near the entrance to Mike Kelley's recent show hung what looked like a Brezhnevera poster in red, black, and yellow on which was printed a manifesto concerning the need to address the national problem of sexual frustration. Insisting our collective repression stems from a “mass culture industry” that relies on titillation without gratification to keep us coming back for more, Kelley proposes that celebrities—who profit off inflaming the national itch without scratching it—finally be called on to put out. He suggests that members of this “pantheon of fantasy figures of desire” should do

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  print March 1999

  Olafur Eliasson

  Our species’ relationship with nature is as long, awkward, and enigmatic as any we have known, and in his second solo Los Angeles show, Olafur Eliasson continues his ongoing meditation on the subject with works that, using culture and technology as an interface, deliver landscapes light, and even rainbows.
  
  Included in the exhibition are two photographic series featuring vividly green rivers in both urban and pastoral settings (in each case, the artist added a temporary, environment-safe dye to the water shortly before snapping the shutter). On one of the gallery walls, one notices the graceful