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Adrian Piper: Concepts And Intuitions, 1965-2016

October 30, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (Through January 6, 2019)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Societal stereotypes and divisions are unfortunately ubiquitous in our culture. Which begs the question, how should we go about demolishing them? With the nearly 300 photographs, paintings, drawings, videos, and installations currently comprising her blockbuster Hammer Museum retrospective, Adrian Piper: Concepts and Intuitions, 1965-2016, this New York-born, Berlin-based conceptual artist and former philosophy professor obliterates these harmful ideas via self-expression and scholarly inquisition. This comprehensive, almost encyclopedic presentation not only documents fifty years of Piper’s experimental oeuvre but also investigates the genesis of prejudice and embraces a much looser, more liberated sense of self. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

One Day At A Time: Manny Farber And Termite Art

October 24, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at The Museum of Contemporary Art (Through March 11, 2019)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Life is messy. Art should be, too. In One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art, a sweeping group exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), curator Helen Molesworth, assembles Arizona-born carpenter, film critic, and painter Manny Farber’s most delightfully chaotic and cluttered still-lifes. Vibrantly colored and richly detailed, these monumental canvases elevate and celebrate the mundane through scattered flowers, ripe fruit, and handwritten notes. Presented alongside a slew of over 100 similarly-themed multimedia works from celebrated artists, including Josiah McElheny, Lorna Simpson, and Wolfgang Tillmans, these loose, jazz-like paintings reveal the anarchic yet alluring rhythm of daily life. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Ai Weiwei’s Fraught And Folkloric Life Cycle

October 22, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (through March 3, 2019)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

“Nationality is a Western concept. It was an invention of Western European scholars, who ever since have struggled to explain it.”  
— Joseph Roth, The Wandering Jews, 1927

How do we hold on to hope and humanity in times of upheaval and hardship? Celebrated Chinese conceptual artist Ai Weiwei addresses this very question in his current Marciano Art Foundation installation, Life Cycle (2018). This haunting meditation on the global refugee crisis presents countless figures packed onto an inflatable raft. Resembling a Zodiac boat commonly used in shuttling emigrants to the West, this vessel bursts with human-animal hybrids inspired by the Chinese zodiac. As Ai crafts both of the passengers and the ship here out of bamboo, a building material synonymous with buoyancy and strength, he addresses themes of transition, compassion, and the resilience of the human spirit. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Summer Wheat: Catch and Release

October 15, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch 1 Comment

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…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Lari Pittman’s Portraits Of Textiles & Portraits Of Humans

October 11, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch 1 Comment

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…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

The Moth Costume In Hammer Projects: Petrit Halilaj

October 3, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

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…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

David Lynch: I Was A Teenage Insect

September 28, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at Kayne Griffin Corcoran (Through November 10, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Disturbing yet mesmerizing depictions of death, decay, and deformity bestrew beloved neo-noir director David Lynch’s latest collection of multimedia paintings, watercolors, and drawings currently on display at Kayne Griffin Corcoran. This series of dark, violent, and surreal meditations on childhood and adolescence offers a rare and tantalizing peek into the celebrated film legend’s perplexing psyche. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Mike Kelley’s Day Will Not Be Done

September 25, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

At Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills (Through September 28, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

With its brilliant flashing lights and thunderously ecstatic melodies blasting through the speakers, late conceptualist icon Mike Kelley’s (1954-2012) eponymous installation currently on display at Gagosian Beverly Hills flawlessly replicates the jubilant atmosphere of a rock concert. However, upon noticing two screens projecting videos of gospel singers, an illuminated movie marquee, and a gargantuan phallic rocket pointed towards the visitor, one comes to realize that Kelley here is delving into issues of post-war Americana, the Space Age, and the corresponding meteoric rise of rock ‘n’ roll. He also reveals this beloved genre’s roots in gospel music and dissects the bizarre and beautiful relationship between the sexual and the spiritual, the sacred and the profane. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

I Don’t Like Fiction, I Like History

September 17, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills (Through September 28, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

 Realism is best suited to convey the frightening idiosyncrasies of our time. — Duane Hanson

What is reality and how should an artist explore this concept in his or her work? Rejecting art history’s long-standing predilection for idealism, the five hyperrealistic photographers and sculptors on currently on display in I Don’t Like Fiction, I Like History, at Gagosian Beverly Hills present a refreshingly authentic and unvarnished viewing experience. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, The Line

Forgotten Roots: How Los Angeles Shaped Robert Rauschenberg

September 12, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

At LACMA (Through February 10, 2019)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Revealing the divine in the forsaken and the sublime in the mundane, beloved late Neo-Dadaist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) pens his love letter to Los Angeles in LACMA’s current retrospective Rauschenberg: In And About L.A. Although typically associated with the New York art scene of the 1950s and 60s, this iconic collagist actually derived a great deal of creative inspiration from this sprawling metropolis and its sun-drenched shores. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Spotlight—Selections from Kehinde Wiley’s The World Stage: Israel

July 31, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch 1 Comment

at Skirball Cultural Center (Through 2 September 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Replete with royal, religious, and luscious floral imagery, Los Angeles-born painter Kehinde Wiley’s Old Master-inspired portraits not only subvert art historical tradition but also notions of power and cultural identity. Renowned for depicting traditionally underrepresented figures, typically African and African-American men, the artist envelopes these empowered subjects in Eurocentric symbols of status and wealth. With the unveiling of Wiley’s noble yet vibrant portrait of former President Barack Obama earlier this year, the timing of the Skirball Center’s Spotlight—Selections from Kehinde Wiley’s The World Stage: Israel could not feel more apropos. This intimate presentation delves into the artist’s photorealistic oeuvre through two monumental paintings, each depicting young Ethiopian men living in Israel. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

David Leggett and Ryan Richey: Mixed Emotions

July 31, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at Various Small Fires (Through August 25, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

What is the role of humor in art? For most of human history, both fine and folk art firmly resided in the realm of the serious. It is only in the past century that artists have begun to experiment with the idea of comedy in their work. We can trace this revolutionary notion back to Dadaist Marcel Duchamp’s landmark creation, Fountain (1917). Rather than sculpt a whimsical, enchanting depiction of some goddess or river nymph, the artist simply displayed a mass-produced porcelain urinal and labeled it art. Two years later, this celebrated conceptual artist further flirted with this facetious tone in L.H.O.O.Q., a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503) complete with a penciled-on mustache. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Passing Through Time, Memory, Decay: A Journey That Wasn’t

July 16, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at the Broad Museum (through February 2019)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Time. It can be both friend and foe. It eludes us, slips through our fingers and yet also seemingly extends ad infinitum. The fourth dimension in all of its frustratingly enigmatic glory serves as spellbinding subject matter for the Broad Museum’s current group showcase, A Journey That Wasn’t. Rather than focus on a particular artist, movement, or epoch, co-curators Ed Schad and Sarah Loyer instead chose to delve into this abstract, multifaceted concept. Comprised of 55 rarely seen works, all from the Broad’s vast collection, this sweeping exhibition acts as a philosophical treatise on the passage of time, memory, and decay. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, The Line

Judy Chicago’s Birth Project: Born Again

July 3, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at the Pasadena Museum of California Art
through October 7 (upon which time the museum will permanently close)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

“If men had babies, there would be thousands of images of the crowning.” – Judy Chicago, 1982

Since 2002, East Union Street’s illustrious Pasadena Museum of California Art has reliably showcased some of the city’s most vibrant, eclectic, and socially-conscious exhibitions, including 2018’s The Feminine Sublime and Testament of the Spirit: Paintings by Eduardo Carrillo. As a modern and contemporary art hub renowned for presenting Southern California’s finest art and artists, this progressive artspace has undoubtedly elevated Los Angeles’s cultural discourse over the course of its 16-year run. With the recent news that the PMCA board has decided to close this beloved museum following the conclusion of its current exhibition, Judy Chicago’s Birth Project: Born Again, in October due to fundraising issues, witnessing this exquisite collection of Chicago’s rarely-seen feminist tapestries from the early 1980s in this transcendent, sublime location is now all the more important. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Made In L.A. Is A Tapestry Of Diversity, And A Golden One

June 27, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch 3 Comments

at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Like an intricately woven tapestry, Made in L.A. 2018 stitches together a diverse sampling of some of the most dynamic and noteworthy artists working in Los Angeles today. Presently on display at the UCLA Hammer Museum, this sweeping biennial exhibition boasts 32 textile, performance, painting, video, sculpture, assemblage, photography, and installation artists hailing from a total of 13 states and seven countries. Together they weave a grand and gripping narrative highlighting critical socio-political issues, including representation and marginalization. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, The Line

A Love Letter In Sprays: LA’s BEYOND THE STREETS

May 23, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

At Werkartz, Los Angeles (through 6 July)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Wandering through the cavernous, labyrinthine yet thoroughly modern galleries of BEYOND THE STREETS — graffiti and street art historian Roger Gastman’s love letter to the genre — the viewer stumbles upon a modest and intimate installation resembling an ancient Roman temple. Closer inspection, however, reveals references to a myriad of other religious traditions, including Buddhist prayer wheels and a relief sculpture of the Biblical serpent tempting Eve. It is this blending of worlds, this juxtaposition of old and new, East and West, and high and low-brow art that defines this  extravaganza of an exhibition [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, The Line

Rashid Johnson: The Rainbow Sign

May 14, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

at David Kordansky Gallery (Through May 19, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Viscous black liquids cascade down the picture planes as scrawled drawings of agonized grimaces and anxious eyes confront the viewer at every turn. Indeed, Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rashid Johnson’s current David Kordansky exhibition, The Rainbow Sign is a masterclass in haunting and subtly violent imagery. Extracting its title from an often-cited passage in James Baldwin’s 1963 bestseller, The Fire Next Time, this eclectic collection of wall sculptures, ceramic cups, mosaic portraits, and psychedelic collages presents a poignant reflection on notions of cultural identity and protest. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life

April 26, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch 2 Comments

at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Through July 29, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

What is the value of community? For David Hockney, one of Britain’s most prominent living painters, the circle of friends, fellow artists, and employees joyfully and intimately rendered in his current Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) exhibition, 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life reveal the invigorating and inspirational power of camaraderie. While portraiture has historically been a tool for the elite to showcase their wealth and status, this egalitarian collection portrays individuals from all walks of life, including the artist’s dentist and housekeeper. Also, as none of these portraits are commissions, Hockney here is instead driven by the desire to honor and celebrate the people in his life. Much like a mosaic or network of unique yet interconnected cells, these exuberant, vibrantly-hued acrylic paintings all combine to form a harmonious and cohesive body of work. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Fay Ray: I AM THE HOUSE

April 23, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

At Shulamit Nazarian (Through May 26, 2016)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Teeming with traditionally feminine objects and symbols, including eggs, diamonds, chalices, flowers, feathers, and seashells, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Fay Ray’s current Shulamit Nazarian exhibition, I AM THE HOUSE, investigates issues of bodily objectification and the meaning of womanhood. The surrealism-inspired photo collages, dye-sublimation prints, and suspended sculptures seen here reveal the female form to be a vessel, carrying not only biological offspring but also memory, melancholy, joy, and the divine. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Robert Colescott: The Art Of Caricature

April 17, 2018 By Emily Nimptsch Leave a Comment

At Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (Through April 28, 2018)
Reviewed by Emily Nimptsch

Honoring the life and legacy of beloved American figurative artist Robert Colescott (1925 – 2009), Blum & Poe, Los Angeles is currently exhibiting a sweeping retrospective of this satirical painter and draughtsman’s most celebrated works. Bristling with saturated tangerine, crimson, and aquamarine hues, these scathing yet sanguine images brilliantly satirize American race and gender dynamics while fusing surrealist, pop art, and abstract expressionist aesthetics. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

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The Line

A poetic interpretation of Anselm Kiefer's Exodus, at Los Angeles Marciano Art Foundation, is at Riot Material.

On Wing With Word Through Anselm Kiefer’s Exodus

Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (through 25 March 2023) by Rachel Reid Wilkie Los Angeles poet Rachel Reid Wilkie was given the task of walking into Anselm Kiefer’s Exodus — a literally monumental exhibition, in that each of these paintings are upwards of 30’ tall — and addressing the colossal artworks “cold,” as in […]

Detail of Henry Taylor, "Warning shots not required," 2011. At Riot Material magazine.

Henry Taylor’s B Side: Where Mind Shapes Itself to Canvas

Henry Taylor: B Side at MOCA Grand, Los Angeles (through 30 April 2023) Reviewed by Eve Wood Ages ago when there were LP records and 45s, the B side of a popular single made allowances for experimentation and could be counted on as an alternative vision to the more mainstream and compulsory hit single. B […]

Songbook of a Bygone Dead: Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song

Reviewed by Dan Chiasson The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan Simon & Schuster, 352pp., $28.93 NYR Bob Dylan’s new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, is a kind of music-appreciation course open to auditors and members of the general public. It is best savored one chapter, one song, at a time, while listening to the […]

Smoking the Bible by Chris Abani

Words To Wrap Around A Dying Brother

Smoking the Bible Reviewed by Rhony Bhopla Smoking the Bible by Chris Abani Copper Canyon Press, 96pp., $15.99 HR Chris Abani’s autobiographical book of poems, Smoking the Bible, centers on the relationship of two brothers growing up in Nigeria with an Igbo father and an English mother. The poems, which incorporate the Igbo language along […]

Grant Wallace, “Through Evolution Comes Revelation.” at Riot Material magazine.

Communication Breakdown: Grant Wallace, His Heirs & the Legacy of a Forgotten Genius

Grant Wallace: Over the Psychic Radio at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC (through 3 December 2022) By Michael Bonesteel Freelance writer and editor Deborah Coffin of Albany, California, was in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley in 1997 when she first encountered street musician Brian Wallace at a party. “I had a friend who knew Brian,” […]

The Joshua Tree Talk

A Conversation on Dzogchen C von Hassett & Rachel Reid Wilkie at Joshua Tree Retreat Center 

Louise Bourgeois: What Is The Shape of This Problem?

at University of Southern California, Fisher Museum of Art. (through 3 December 3, 2022) Reviewed by Margaret Lazzari Louise Bourgeois is widely recognized for her sculptures and installations, but Louise Bourgeois: What is The Shape of This Problem is a wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself in her perhaps-lesser-known prints, fabric work and writings. This exhibit contains over […]

Moonage Daydream Conveys More Myth Than Man

Moonage Daydream Dir. Brett Morgan Reviewed by Nicholas Goldwin As one of the greatest shapeshifters in the expansive history of rock music, it seems only fitting that the documentary with David Bowie as its subject never seems content to express the trials, tribulations and artistic triumphs of Bowie in any one fixed way. This is […]

Carnación di Rocío Molina, at Riot Material Magazine.

On Binding: Notes from Venice

Bienalle Arte and Bienalle Danza, Venice 2022 By Allyn Aglaïa Chest bound, lips sealed, I walked through Venice alone, quiet, and: thought about narratives that bind us to erotic binds

Mohammad Barrangi's Guardians of Eden (Dreamscape #8), at Riot Material magazine.

Transcendence Beyond Erasure in Mohammad Barrangi’s Dreamscape

at Advocartsy, Los Angeles (thru 5 November 2022) Reviewed by Christopher Ian Lutz Fantasy requires a symbolic vehicle to transport a character from the real world into the imaginary realm, where the laws of reality are subverted or obscured to justify an otherwise absurd event. The artist might depict the vehicle as a real object […]

Soul Crash: Our Slow, Inexorable Release Into the Metaverse

by Sue Halpern The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball Liveright 352pp., $18.89 NYR In October 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would now be called Meta and its business interests would be pivoting to the metaverse, there was almost universal confusion: most observers had no idea what he was […]

green tara

Pointing the Staff at the Old Man

A wisdom transmission by Samaneri Jayasāra Excerpted from —  Advice from the Lotus Born  from the chapter “Pointing the Staff at the Old Man” Translated by Eric Pema Kunsang Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 184pp., $21.95 . .

Margaret Lazzari’s "Shimmer." From the exhibition "Breathing Space."

Margaret Lazzari’s Luminous Breathing Space

at George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles (through 8 October 2022) Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner “Things are not what they seem: nor are they otherwise.” –Buddha Margaret Lazzari’s luminous solo exhibition of paintings, entitled Breathing Space, were painted during the pandemic, and the exhibition title is indeed significant. It’s defined as a respite, a hiatus, or an […]

From Phil Tippet's Mad God, reviewed at Riot Material magazine.

Nihilism Births Its Own Interminable Hell

Mad God Dir. Phil Tippett Reviewed by Nicholas Goldwin Technically astonishing and immersive to a fault, director Phil Tippett successfully demonstrates that thirty years of relentless dedication to your craft can lead to cinematic innovations even his old stomping grounds – the sets of Star Wars and Jurassic Park – have yet to catch up. […]

A Look Back on an Iconoclast: Art Critic Dave Hickey

by Jarrett Earnest Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art by Daniel Oppenheimer University of Texas Press, 141 pp., $24.95 The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded by Dave Hickey University of Chicago Press, 123 pp., $15.00 (paper) Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy by Dave Hickey Art Issues Press, 215 […]

John Lurie’s The History of Bones

Reviewed by Cintra Wilson The History of Bones: A Memoir by John Lurie Random House, 435 pp., $28.00 NYRB It was 1989 when I saw John Lurie on TV in a late-night advertisement for the new Lounge Lizards album, Voice of Chunk, which was “not available in stores” and selling exclusively through an 800 number. Operators were standing […]

Marlene Dumas, "Losing (Her Meaning)," 1988. At Riot Material magazine.

Marlene Dumas’ Masks of Inborn Gods

open-end, at Palazzo Grassi, Venice (through 8 January 2023) Reviewed by Arabella Hutter von Arx Four relatively small artworks greet the visitor in the first room of the Marlene Dumas exhibit, open-end, at Palazzo Grassi. D-rection shows a young man contemplating his rather large and purple erection. A bluish white face and a brown face unite […]

Clarice Lispector

Baffling the Sphinx: The Enigmatic World of Clarice Lispector

Reviewed by John Biscello Água Viva by Clarice Lispector New Directions Publishing 88pp., $14.95 Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas by Clarice Lispector New Directions Publishing 864pp., $29.95 The word is my fourth dimension –Clarice Lispector And on the eighth and endless day, where the bottomless hallelujah meets Ouroboros, God created Clarice Lispector. Maybe. […]

Donna Ferrato "Diamond, Minneapolis, MN 1987." At Riot Material magazine

Donna Ferrato’s Magnificent Holy

at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, NYC (through July 29 2022) Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban The small scale of Donna Ferrato’s snapshot-like black-and-white photographs belies their personal and political power. Whether they document the medical sinks and shelves in a now-shuttered Texas abortion clinic, or hone in on the badly bruised face of a domestic violence […]

Darcilio Lima Unknown Lithograph, 1972. At Riot Material magazine.

Magia Protetora: The Art of Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos and Darcilio Lima

at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, Cleveland OH (through 30 September 2022) Curated by Stephen Romano Gallery Reviewed by Christopher Ian Lutz The extension of a lineage occurs not merely by the repetition of form, but by the intersection of conservation and revolution. Transformation is fundamental to preserving the essence of a given tradition’s rituals and […]

Eve Wood's A Cadence for Redemption, written in the fictive voice of Abraham Lincoln, is excerpted at Riot Material magazine.

Songs For Our Higher Selves

A Cadence for Redemption: Conversations With Abraham Lincoln by Eve Wood Del Sol Press, 46pp., $5.99 Employing the fictive voice of a former president, Eve Wood shifts the perspective on the happenings of our times – where all indicators point to the slow, inexorable collapse of the American Experiment – to the one man who […]

The Clear, Crisp Taste of Cronenberg

Crimes of the Future Reviewed by Anna Shechtman and D.A. Miller Neon NYRB A line from Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg’s latest film, has been trailing it around with the campy insistence of an old-fashioned ad campaign: “Surgery is the new sex.” On receiving this information, a skeptical Saul Tenser, played by Viggo Mortensen, asks, “Does there have […]

Georganne Deen, How to prepare people for your weirdness (Painting for a gifted child) 2022

Conjuring a Divine Silence in Georganne Deen’s The Lyric Escape

at Rory Devine Fine Art, Los Angeles (through 6 August) Reviewed by Eve Wood Albert Camus once famously asked, “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” One can only hope that this was a rhetorical question, yet however ironic, it is still a sentiment worth pondering, especially considering today’s current socio-political climate […]

Pesticides in our foods inevitably enter the body and will have the intended effect of killing the organism. Which is to say you are certain to become diseased and evenutally die from the longterm ingestion of industrial pesticides.

A Strictly Organic Diet is Good Enough to Save Your Life

A chapter excerpt from Entering the Mind, the new book from C von Hassett which speaks to an ageless way of resting the mind in meditation to both recognize and stabilize in its already Awakened state. Yet to do this successfully, we must first cleanse the body of its myriad mind-fogging toxins taken in through […]

Milton’s Quotidian Paradise, Lost

By Catherine Nicholson Katie Kadue: Domestic Georgic: Labors of Preservation from Rabelais to Milton Timothy M. Harrison: Coming To: Consciousness and Natality in Early Modern England Nicholas McDowell: Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton Joe Moshenska: Making Darkness Light: A Life of John Milton NYRB Of the many liberties John Milton took in writing Paradise Lost, his 1667 epic […]

Foucault in Warsaw and the Shapeless, Shaping Gaze of the Surveillance State

Reviewed by Marcel Radosław Garboś Foucault in Warsaw by Remigiusz Ryziński  translated by Sean Gasper Bye Open Letter Books, 220pp., $15.95 Harvard Review Since Poland’s state socialist system collapsed in 1989, the records of its police agencies and security services have gone to a government commission entrusted with the “prosecution of crimes against the Polish […]

Noah Davis, Untitled (2015)

The Haunt of One Yet Faintly Present: Noah Davis, Still at Home

Noah Davis, at the Underground Museum, Los Angeles Reviewed by Ricky Amadour Directly across from the entrance, an opening statement to Noah Davis, at the Underground Museum, reads “many of the paintings you are about to see were painted in this space.” Smudges, dribbles, and droplets on the floor embody the physical notion of Davis […]

Julian Schnabel, The Chimes of Freedom Flashing (detail), 2022

The Supremely Humanistic Hand of Julian Schnabel

For Esmé – With Love and Squalor, at Pace Gallery, Los Angeles (through 21 May 2022) Reviewed by Eve Wood How does one represent, let alone quantify hope, hate, grief, love, joy, tragedy, or anything, for that matter, which stands in opposition to something else? Throughout his illustrious career, Julian Schnabel has always been one to […]

Rose Wylie, "I Like To Be" (2020)

In Full Surrender to the Wylie Eye

Rose Wylie: Which One, at David Zwirner, NYC (through 12 June) Reviewed by David Salle Rose Wylie: Which One by Rose Wylie; with Barry Schwabsky, Judith Bernstein, and Hans Ulrich Obrist David Zwirner Books, 196pp., $75.00 NYRB Rose Wylie, who is now eighty-seven, has been painting in the same rural studio in Kent, England, since […]

The Artful Construction of The ‘I’

by Merve Emre NYR The essay form…bears some responsibility for the fact that bad essays tell stories about people instead of elucidating the matter at hand. —Theodor Adorno The personal essay is a genre that is difficult to define but easy to denounce. The offending element is rarely the essay as a form, but its […]

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