From Coloring Book
Archives for October 2018
Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters, NYC
Reviewed by Angelica Villa
The Met’s Heavenly Bodies is a dramatic turn in the museum’s history, a scene where fashion’s indulgence and religious gravity meet in resemblance. In the Costume Institute’s largest exhibition, set in three locations across the museum’s medieval wing, the Anna Wintour Costume Center and the Met Cloisters, darkly lit in stone austerity against opulent detail, walls and figures are adorned in iconic couture and religious relics. Placing modern design amid the Met’s collection of medieval and Byzantine reliquaries creates a variegation of sensory response. The resulting display is a prismatic concoction of the religious, the secular, and all of their conflictions and resonations. [Read more…]
The Active And Eloquent Stills In Out In The Street
at Muzeumm, Los Angeles (through October 21)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
We ain’t gonna take what they’re handing out
When I’m out in the street
I walk the way I want to walk
When I’m out in the street
I talk the way I want to talk
— Bruce Springsteen, “Out in the Street”
Thoughtfully, beautifully curated by Juri Koll, the group show Out in the Street, at Muzeumm through October 21st, is a presentation of both the gallery and The Venice Institute of Contemporary Art. The show features the photographic art of Asif Ahmed, Debe Arlook, Sunny Bak, Hasmik Bezirdzhyan, Nick Bradley, Rodrick Bradley, Larry Brownstein, Cosimo Cavallaro, Ray Carofano, Liz Chayes, Jeremiah Chechik, Diane Cockerill, Lynne Deutch, L. Aviva Diamond, Jenny Donaire, Doug Edge, Maureen Haldeman, Louis Jacinto, Josh “Bagel” Klassman, Juri Koll, Eric Kunsman, Stephen Levey, Lawrie Margrave, Leigh Marling, Alberto Mesirca, Stefanie Nafé, Ave Pildas, Osceola Refetoff, Dotan Saguy, Buku Sarkar, Lana Shmulevich, Carl Shubs, Jeffrey Sklan, Ted Soqui, Stephen Spiller, Stephanie Sydney, Edmund Teske, David Valera, and Jody Zellen. [Read more…]
Cloud Nine Soars at Torrance Art Museum
It would be difficult to imagine a more ethereal, haunting, and prescient exhibition than Cloud Nine. Danial Nord’s solo project contains elements that are both seemingly mystical and sci-fi; it’s wonderfully unique, a merging of technology and sculptural art that reflects both the exhibition’s meaning, and how it is shaped. [Read more…]
Prince’s Spare Yet Stirring “Why The Butterflies (Piano & a Microphone)”
Nicole Kidman Slays In The Gritty Thriller Destroyer
There are secret shames we tuck away, bury deep into the darkest corners of our souls in hopes of forgetting them. But that shame doesn’t disintegrate. It festers. It poisons. It twists us into horrible things. That is the dark lesson lying within of Destroyer, a challenging crime-drama from director Karyn Kusama. [Read more…]
Summer Wheat: Catch and Release
at Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (Through October 27, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch
Considering the disheartening, divisive nature of our current political reality, the mind often drifts, yearning for some feminist utopia teeming with independent, iron-willed women. This mythical matriarchy is precisely the type of society Oklahoma-born, Brooklyn-based figurative painter Summer Wheat presents in her delightful current Shulamit Nazarian exhibition, Catch and Release. Bathed in the age-old aesthetics of Ancient Egyptian relief sculptures and Native American textiles, Wheat’s idyllic, vibrant visions depict groups of modern women performing the traditionally male task of fishing. Through these ornate, arcadian paintings, the artist not only subverts traditional gender roles, but also rejects the male gaze, and elevates historically ignored “women’s crafts” to a position of power and prestige. [Read more…]
Urban Death at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre
Theme park horror nights are all the rage around Halloween. From Universal Studios to Knotts Berry Farm, the big corporate theme parks spare no expense to scare their customers, who flock to the events at this time of year. However, an underground theater company in North Hollywood has re-interpreted the “horror night” genre into an anti-theme park performance piece that has resonance far beyond simple scare tactics. [Read more…]
Too Soon Gone, New Work From The Late Richard Swift: “Broken Finger Blues”
From his final release, The Hex
on Secretly Canadian
The Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Offers Whimsy But No Risks
With No Country For Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen brought the Western into a brutal, modern territory. With their remake of True Grit, they dusted off an American classic and polished it with star power, a dash of whimsy, and a mean sheen of menace. Now, the Coen Brothers revel in their love of the genre with the ambitious anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. As a big admirer of both their previous Westerns, I anticipated I’d be an easy mark for loving their latest. But while it’s stuffed with charming stars, colorful characters, and tales of life in the Wild West, this cowboy collection is clunky, indulgent, and ultimately underwhelming. [Read more…]
Willard Hill: Untitled Works From 2016-2018
at The Good Luck Gallery, Los Angeles (through October 14)
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner
“Imagination is greater than knowledge.” –Albert Einstein
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” –Frank Zappa
Willard Hill exhibits his exuberant mixed- media (mostly painted masking taped figures and animals) sculptures at The Good Luck Gallery. Hill was a sixty-two year old cook and avid fisherman who suddenly started making his objects as a way to rehabilitate himself after a hospital stay. He just grabbed whatever materials were around, such as masking tape, garbage bags and toothpicks. That was twenty years ago. Then two years ago, the 82 year-old Hill had his first solo art show at The Good Luck Gallery. [Read more…]
Lari Pittman’s Portraits Of Textiles & Portraits Of Humans
at Regen Projects, Los Angeles (Through October 27, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch
Legendary Los Angeles-based graphic painter Lari Pittman’s kaleidoscopic bust portraits and textile-inspired abstracts currently on display at Hollywood’s Regen Projects plunge into the fabric of the subconscious mind. Marking the artist’s eighth solo exhibition at the gallery, these surreal, psychedelic images beg the viewer to consider the connection between the portrait and the still-life, the personal and the universal. [Read more…]
Reggae-Soul In Jerry Jones’ “Compared To What”
From Jerry Jones at the Hotel Kingston
on Studio One Records
Radiance, Indeed, in Radiant Children’s “Go Left”
From the recently released TRYIN’ Ep
On Radiant Children Records
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer’s The Chiefest Of Ten Thousand
at the new Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles (through November 3)
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner
My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.
—King James James Bible
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer’s exhibit, entitled The Chiefest of Ten Thousand, at the sparkling new Nino Mier Gallery is as complex and open to interpretation as the Bible passage that the title comes from. Dupuy-Spencer (who is half Jewish and half Catholic) explores the mysteriousness of religion, friendship, love and sex in her large-scale paintings. [Read more…]
Recovering Oscar Wilde: Rupert Everett on Making The Happy Prince
Rupert Everett has basked in the glow of fame and recognition, and known the sudden shadow of obscurity. It is not surprising to find out that he is a great admirer of Oscar Wilde, an artist who produced work acclaimed in its day and beyond, yet the revelation of his sexual identity became the truth that began to set him back. Everett still believes it was his coming out that suddenly ended his streak of hits which includes The Madness of King George, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Shakespeare in Love and Shrek 2. Little wonder he felt connected to an artist from long ago, yet so contemporary. [Read more…]
Yoko Ono’s Incomparable Warzone
A sort of a disclaimer here: I’ve known Yoko Ono for many years, or at least had the pleasure of interviewing her several times, as I have her son Sean. I like both of them very much. I’ve checked them out on different levels, tried to cut through any of the potential typical self-self-self-hyping showbiz bullshit or what have you, and they passed the tests with flying colors. They are real people, with good hearts and minds. (You’ll just have to trust me on that.) Thus my understanding of and sympathy for Yoko Ono colors my critical soul a little bit, I don’t mind saying it. I want to approve and feel enthusiasm about her music; this means I’m open to it. And I do feel that Ono’s latest and, one hopes, not final record,Warzone — a collection of 13 songs from her past work, spanning 1970-2009 — is the best album of her career. It is deep, and moving, unlike anything I’ve heard in a long time, and perhaps never have heard before. [Read more…]
Agnieszka Smoczynska’s Daring and Brilliant Fugue
at Fantastic Fest, Austin
Review by Kristy PuchkoIn 2016, Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska made a splash with her directorial debut The Lure, a heady horror-musical about man-eating mermaids. For her latest, Smoczynska has left behind the spectacle of blood, monsters, and burlesque numbers. But her biting brand of observational humor makes the daring drama Fugue a fitting and fantastic follow-up. [Read more…]
New Work From Jesika von Rabbit: “Going Down”
The Moth Costume In Hammer Projects: Petrit Halilaj
at Hammer Museum (Through January 20, 2019)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch
While butterflies dancing on a sunlit breeze may epitomize the ephemeral as well as beauty, hope, and transformation, for Kosovan installation artist Petrit Halilaj, the oft-forgotten moth is a far more resilient and tenacious totem. In his eponymous Los Angeles debut currently on display at the Hammer Museum, this celebrated conceptualist shines a light on these nocturnal insects and their many symbolic meanings. Here Halilaj collaborates with his mother to present a poignant collection of oversized moth costumes made with traditional Kosovar tapestries, including qilim and dyshek carpets. [Read more…]