Riot Material

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Archives for August 2019

Embracing The (Untitled) Void In Lester Monzon’s Fail Better

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at Edward Cella Gallery, Los Angeles (through October 26)
Reviewed by Eve Wood

I’ve always been partial to exhibitions with oddly self-depreciating titles, and Lester Monzon’s Fail Better is definitely a doozie. A phrase from Samuel Beckett’s novella, Worstward Ho, the original quote reads “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” which is not a piece of inspirational writing at all but an absurdist’s response to the absurdity of the living world, i.e. a call to embrace the void. The title also brings to mind the angst and struggle inherent in the artistic process, as any creative person understands — each piece is not necessarily successful, but it is the endless process of transformation, not toward any specific conclusion but more in keeping with the steady work of a brick layer, plodding along year after year, slowly building a comprehensive vision of the world, that continues to inspire. Thus the title, as with the works themselves, reflect the intense and sometimes painful process of creating anything. [Read more…]

The Surreal Spirit Of Salvador Simo Busom’s Buñuel In The Labyrinth Of The Turtles

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Reviewed by Alci Rengifo

An animated movie by GKIDS Films about one of the great iconoclasts and rebels of the cinema is fittingly surreal when the subject in question is Luis Buñuel. The Spanish master has been conjured in numerous films about other people over the years, from his comic-light appearance in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris to Little Ashes, an altogether not uninteresting drama about Buñuel’s broken friendship with Salvador Dali. That, too, was a surreal experience in that Dali was interpreted no less by Robert Pattinson. I have to report, however, that this new animated feature, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, is till now the best dramatization of Buñuel’s early years, since it’s illustrated approach is free to imagine the master’s mind as a landscape of distorting dreams while still wisely interpreting the world around him. Director Salvador Simo also understands something elemental about Surrealism as a movement: that it was not simply about trippy images but, perhaps more so, about the revolutionary transformation of life and the world. [Read more…]

Terry Allen’s The Exact Moment It Happens in The West

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at LA Louver (through September 28)
Reviewed by Eve Wood

Entering into Terry Allen’s universe is not unlike the imagined sensation of standing on an egg as it rolls across a hard wood floor, never stopping long enough to crack. The process by which we come to understand and appreciate his work requires a level of commitment on the part of the viewer not unlike balancing on an egg in that there are so many nuances and brilliantly imaginative connections being made all at once, that you feel that if you look away — even for an instant, that egg could shatter beneath your feet and you would be left with nothing but egg on your face. [Read more…]

Lilly Bright’s American Standard: A Story of Enough

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at Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles (through September 28)
By Steven Mirkin

Although the Los Angeles premiere of her one-woman show, American Standard: A Story of Enough, is just a few weeks away, Lilly Bright sounds relaxed and self-possessed talking on the phone. It’s more impressive when you find out she’s working with a new director, Valerie Hager. This makes a bit more sense if you’ve seen the play. A wrenching story of bulimia, family secrets, addictions and cures, the show ends with Bright finding comfort and understanding in an unexpected manner and place, American Standard is unsparing in its self-examination, but leavened by Bright’s humor, sharp ear for detail, and arresting presence. The story is told through voice (she’s a wicked, precise mimic) and stylized movement (she studied in Tel Aviv with Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva Dance Company, learning his Gaga movement language). [Read more…]

On Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

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By Seren Sensei

Toni Morrison published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, when she was 39 years old. By this time she was a divorced single mother of two sons and a respected teacher with a master’s degree in English from Cornell. She was an established a senior editor at Random House, the only Black woman in that position at the publisher. She’d championed Black authors and emphasized Black literature in the mainstream, including developing and strategically bringing out autobiographies by such Black Power luminaries as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali.  [Read more…]

Waad And Hamza al-Kateab, Edward Watts, On Syria And Their New Film, For Sama

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By Cynthia Biret

For Sama is an extraordinary journey into war through the intimate lens of a woman who, in the course of five grueling years, also becomes a mother. From the 2011 uprisings in Aleppo, Syria, to her daily life in an area under never-ending siege, director Waad al-Kateab offers an unprecedented look into the lives of civilians held hostage under the oppression of what they refer to as “The Regime” — Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad regime — amid the shadows of global politics. [Read more…]

Narrative Painting In Los Angeles

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at Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica (through August 31)
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner

The streets were dark with something more than night.
–Raymond Chandler

We tell stories in order to live.
–Joan Didion

The City of Stars, sometimes known as “LaLaLand” — our often misunderstood Los Angeles — has always had a dark side. Too often it’s a place where dreams come to die. On the bright side, it is a place of endless sunlight and personal reinvention.  Here, reality and fiction, truth and lies intertwine as everyone waits for The Big One to rearrange the furniture. Home to the literary work of Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, and Nathaniel West, it is a tantalizing contradiction of place. Narrative Painting In Los Angeles brings together thirteen figurative painters who interrogate the history of art, the nature of identity, sexual politics and social justice through the lens of Southern California with enormous skill and elan. [Read more…]

Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale Is A Savagely Brilliant Masterpiece

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Reviewed by Kristy Puchko

It’s rare that a press screening comes with a warning. But in the wake of reported walkouts, invites to see Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale came with a warning. In red font, critics were alerted that the film would contain “sexual violence towards women, violence towards children, and violence motivated by racism.” Since the film’s Venice premiere last fall, some have criticized Kent for the brutality found in her much-anticipated follow-up to her breakthrough debut The Babadook. However, considering her sophomore effort is a revenge-thriller that explores the sins of colonialism, the brutality is essential to its message. To capture the merciless of this domineering mindset, Kent won’t look away from its violence and depravity. And she won’t let us look away either. [Read more…]

Reconsidering Content In Open Call Group 2

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at The Shed Bloomberg Building, NYC (through August 25)
Reviewed by Jill Conner

When The Shed opened in April, it was roundly panned by the cultural press, despite the fact that it is currently the most dynamic platform for emerging, contemporary art made by artists who live and work in New York City. The rough, daily endeavor of living and working here finds resonance throughout the monumental, rhomboid shape designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that is imbued with movement. This philanthropic effort to finally preserve and platform the city’s ever-growing, marginal, creative culture is not only epic, but long overdue. [Read more…]

Punch Surveys Sex, Celebrity, Religion And Self-Image

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at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (through August 17)
Reviewed by Genie Davis

Curated by artist Nina Chanel Abney, Punch, at Jeffrey Deitch in mid-city, beautifully assaults the viewer with color, exciting shapes, and vibrant figuration. The current exhibition is an expansion of one presented at Deitch’s New York outpost last year; here the focus is primarily on LA-based artists, thirty-three in all — contemporary artists creating figurative and abstract connections with culture, society, and humanity. [Read more…]

The Aesthetic Of Nostalgia In Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood

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By Alci Rengifo

Nostalgia has replaced epochs in the modern culture. There is the increasing feeling that while technology certainly races ahead in its advancement, culturally we are obsessively looking to the past. Vinyl is sought after by the kids who are convinced it sounds better than digitally remastered albums on CD or streaming. The look of videotape is being recreated for music videos and even entire film projects. Music scores are reviving the techno sheen of the 1980s. Millennials, having just missed out on the 80s and consuming art while growing up highly influenced by the 70s, are desperate to reach back. With consumer culture now defining the times and creating stagnation in any new art forms or styles, the past takes on a new glow. But few filmmakers can make art out of nostalgia quite like Quentin Tarantino. His new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, defines nostalgia itself. In its look and sound it feels like a brain working in overdrive to recall a specific moment in its archived history. [Read more…]