Art. Word. Thought.
But I Woke Jus’ Tha Same, at Regen Projects, Los Angeles (through May 9)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
Christina Quarles’ dazzling But I Woke Jus’ Tha Same transports viewers into a lush and seductive world, a world that takes viewers on a brilliantly motion filled ride with contorted figures that veer between narrative and abstract. We struggle to understand the image, yet we intuitively know the seemingly impossible, terrible and wonderful positions relationships thrust us into. [Read more…]
at Track 16 (through May 11)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
Stuck Together is a conjoining of images, all fascinating, most anthropomorphic. The visually rich exhibition re-purposes images through collage, assemblage, and a sometimes-surreal approach to turning the ordinary into extraordinary. There’s a touch of whimsy, however dark, in the work of all three LA-based artists exhibiting: Marsian De Lellis, Simone Gad, and Debra Broz. Each artist is reinventing the objects and images they present, bringing them new life, renewal, and a gloriously subversive yet redemptive turn. [Read more…]
at Coagular Curatorial, Los Angeles (through March 30)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’ into the future…
House the people / Livin’ in the street / oh, oh there’s a solution…
–Steve Miller Band
What do you see when you look into the future’s face? That is the question posited and replied-to at Future Gaze, a two-person exhibition at Coagula Curatorial. [Read more…]
at Launch LA (through March 23)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
If California is in many ways a state of mind, as well as a state in the western continental U.S., Paradox California exemplifies its mystique. The California dream depicted in this lush and burnished exhibition from photographic artist Osceola Refetoff and mixed-media artist Chelsea Dean is desiccated by desert heat, burnished gold and amber and brown by desert sun, and crested by dry blue skies as vivid as a Mojave wildflower. [Read more…]
at O-Town House, Los Angeles (through March 23)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
There are so many different elements that make Suzanne Jackson’s exhibition, holding on to a sound, aptly named. Regardless of the medium, her work has a kind of musical component to it, a lyricism that seems to radiate from the wall where they are hung, like a kind of cosmic tuning fork was at work. They are also hauntingly lovely images, and if you study them long enough, they evoke ideas of memory and mortality. There is a soft of netherworld quality to these works, vividly alive, yet floating in an ether between a dream-like state and waking, and between this world and the next. [Read more…]
at Quotidian, Los Angeles
Reviewed by Genie Davis
With Serpentine Fire, now at Quotidian, curator and gallerist Jill Moniz has assembled an astoundingly innovative, resonant show from artists who have pushed the limits of their materials and subjects. The title of the show is taken from an Earth, Wind, & Fire song, and just as the band offered a breath of exciting fresh air with its early music, so does this exhibition. [Read more…]
at William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica (through March 30)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
To say that the opening of Ed Moses Through the Looking Glass, was crowded with fans and art lovers is an understatement. Moses is an LA icon of art, and the collection of his recent works on display here underscore the reasons for that honorific. That he continues to draw and fascinate viewers is unsurprising; his works are a magnet, deeply attractive, alive and engaging. [Read more…]
Vivian Maier: Living Color
at KP Projects La Brea Gallery, Los Angeles (through December 29)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
Vivian Maier has been called a street photographer, although many of her photographic works are less about capturing the action around her and more about revealing a certain intimacy in her subjects. She was meticulous in her work; unedited and unculled, her images have an amazing range of power and depth. She has been called the nanny photographer, and while it is true that she spent forty years working as a nanny, she spent more time than that perfecting her craft. She has been called a mystery and an enigma, and to some extent, surely, she was that, having hidden her work from view, stored it in storage lockers, and then let those storage units fall into arears. Much speculation has been made as to whether or not Maier wanted her work discovered or cared little if it was lost. [Read more…]
at LACMA (through March 17, 2019)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
What is an outlier? Is it someone outside conventional norms, beyond the commonplace? In art, both are almost certain true, and among outlier artists are the seeds of innovation, change, and a fearless evocation of what constitutes art. Boundaries are pushed, both in terms of content and creation. We may love this art, be drawn to it, seek out individual artists, but it is rare to see a wide-ranging collection of these works in a major museum. With that in mind, the west coast presentation of the National Gallery of Art-curated Outliers and American Vanguard Art at LACMA is in and of itself an outlier of an exhibition. [Read more…]
at Durden and Ray, Los Angles (through December 1)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
If life is an ocean then art is a wave. The wave carrying this exhibition brings artists from Iceland and Los Angeles together in a dazzling exhibition that fuses elements of technology with images of sea and self. [Read more…]
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…]
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…]
at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles
Reviewed by Genie Davis
That the late Jack Whitten was an artist of great depth and perception is a given. But the truly fascinating thing, the haunting, resonant thing about the man’s work is its sense of timelessness and immortality. His mastery may not have been fully recognized in life, but with concurrent shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art and here in Los Angeles at Hauser & Wirth, Whitten is finally getting a bit of his due, and the timing scarcely matters. Physically he’s gone, but spiritually, his presence is stronger than ever. [Read more…]
Artist Hung Viet Nguyen is a magician and an alchemist. His paintings evoke the beauty of nature, its wonder and its spiritual quality. He takes the real and reconfigures it, shapes it into a mysterious, reverent space. With images that are both landscapes and stunning mosaic-like patterns, the Vietnamese-born, Los Angeles-based artist transports viewers into paintings that resemble an enchanted realm. [Read more…]
at Durden and Ray, Los Angeles (through 26 May)
Reviewed by Genie Davis
KAN, the group exhibition at Durden and Ray, is a subtle, poetic show that shines with both its intent and its artwork. Curated by Sijia Chen and Lydia Michelle Espinoza, the show features the work of Chen and artists Carl Berg, Gul Cagin, Hai-Biao Cai, Huang Cheng, Roni Feldman, Ed Gomez, Jenny Hager, Ruowan Li, Ty Pownall, and Zhengsai Xie.
Primarily abstract work, with some figurative pieces, KÀN in Chinese translates as “to look,” and that is what each piece encourages us to do remarkably well here. Viewers are invited to observe captured moments, to take-in even the most minute or quiet details with intention and purpose. Each piece in the exhibition is quietly contemplative. Regardless of mediums — which are varied — the works encourage the viewer to turn inward, to go beyond the casual glance and truly study a piece. Many, though by no means all, of these works have subdued palettes, in most cases the palettes chosen by the artist fall into a specific series of shades. [Read more…]
at the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster (through July 15) Opening Reception, Saturday, May 12 from 4-6PM by Genie Davis
A beautiful and evocative series of photographs form the centerpiece of a stunning exhibition at the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, which explores things left behind in the desert. These “things” are not just physical artifacts but the remnants of dreams, fragments of memories, and even splinters of passing light. Osceola Refetoff’s vivid, electrifying infrared photographs are joined by historical objects from MOAH’s permanent collection, and accompanied by lyrical writing from historian Christopher Langley. It is a multi-media exhibition in the best sense, approaching and exploring the desert it illuminates from all angles. [Read more…]