Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

  • Home
  • Riot Material Magazine
    • About RM / Subscribe
    • Entering The Mind
      • 3-Part Podcast
    • Contributors
    • Categories >
      • Art
      • Artist
      • Books
      • Thought
      • Film
      • Cinema Disordinaire
      • Riot Sounds
      • Records
      • Jazz
      • Interview
      • More   >
        • Architecture
        • Image
        • The Line
        • The New Word
        • That Evening Sun
        • The Natural World
        • Video
    • Contact
    • Masthead
  • Art
    • Art Reviews
  • Books
    • Book Reviews
  • Film
    • Film Reviews
  • Records
    • Jazz Reviews
    • All Reviews
  • Riot Sounds
  • Cinema Disordinaire
    • Riot Cinema

Martin Puryear and the Volumes Voiced From Within

March 8, 2023 By Lorraine Heitzman 1 Comment

at Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles (through 8 April 2023)
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

In the midst of the frenzy of Frieze week, the quiet of Martin Puryear’s show at Matthew Marks Gallery was practically deafening. Admittedly, Puryear’s art has always been somewhat monastic, even restrained, and the sculptures in this show are no less hushed. Over the course of his career the world has only become louder and more vitriolic, and the stillness that is his stock-in-trade is amplified against the atmospheric noise that is now so prevalent. Like an admonished child, Puryear has learned to use his inside voice, but he has also mastered the ability to make his voice heard above the din. Through impeccable craftsmanship and a minimalist sensibility, his sculptures speak louder than the clamoring voices of countless others. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Soul Of A Nation: Art In the Age of Black Power 1963-1983

April 12, 2019 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

at TheBroad Museum, Los Angeles (through September1)
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

There are many ways to look at the passionate and very earnest Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983, at The Broad Museum. It is foremost a show intended to be experienced in the context of American politics during the tumultuous decades of the sixties and seventies when, for the first time, many Black artists were emboldened to question and re-imagine their place in a society steeped in racism. The strongest of the overtly political works are rooted in a sense of urgency or despair yet reveal universal conditions that transcend their times. There is an arc to the exhibit that is somewhat like the five stages of grief. The show starts with awareness, moves toward anger, then acceptance, and ends with work that is largely unconcerned with the initial problem altogether. The focus moves from civil rights to questions of personal, artistic and cultural identity. Is that progress or the illusion of progress? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, The Line

Humor and Horror: A Tale of Two Satirists

November 2, 2018 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

IndigNATION: Political Drawings by Jim Carrey, 2016-2018, Maccarone, Los Angeles (through December 1, 2018)                                                             
Robbie Conal: Cabinet of Horrors, Track 16, Los Angeles (through December 10, 2018)           
Reviewed By Lorraine Heitzman

There are two political shows capturing the attention of Angelenos now, besides, of course, the very real drama playing out in Washington. IndigNATION: Political Drawings by Jim Carrey at the Maccarone Gallery is a series of political cartoons as freewheeling and expressive as Carrey himself, while Robbie Conal: Cabinet of Horrors at Track 16 continues the artist’s well-known practice of skewering those in power in brutal, satiric portraits. Both shows are entertaining and provocative in their use of humor to depict harsh realities. Like Edel Rodriguez, whose graphic and clever depictions of Trump have attained an international following, and the innumerable artists who feel compelled to express their political views, Carrey and Conal are calling attention to what they see as the hypocrisies stemming from the current administration. If art has become the new, preferred method of political persuasion, bring it on. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas

May 2, 2018 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

at the Seattle Art Museum
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

Figuring History, at The Seattle Art Museum, raises the question, “How do we perceive that which isn’t there?” For Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, and Mickalene Thomas, that is not a rhetorical question. For these three generations of African American painters, the absence of people of color in art was personal. Their ability to tell their stories with such verve and conviction and their choice to break through conventions about whom and what should be represented in art has transformed art history. Each artist faced the challenge differently but together their work shifts the paradigm of race and representation in museums towards a more inclusive record of what it means to be American. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Geta Brătescu: The Leaps of Aesop     

February 23, 2018 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles (through 20 May 2018)
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

Of the three artists currently showing at Hauser & Wirth it is fair to assume that Geta Brătescu, the 92 year-old Romanian Conceptualist, is the least familiar to American audiences. Though her work has neither the heady bombast of Mark Bradford’s paintings nor the sinewy lyricism of Louise Bourgeois’ work, Brătescu brings her curiosity and playfulness to an encyclopedic body of work that spans seven decades. Her drawings, films, performances, animations, collages, and sculptures defy a single descriptor as they are based on her wide-ranging visual and literary interests and vary according to the medium but what Brătescu seeks to address in all of her work is the idea of transformation and multiplicity, especially in relationship to the role of the artist. While the exhibit will undoubtedly invite comparisons to Louise Bourgeois’ work because they were both active at the same time and because each gained recognition in a male dominated field, they have very different sensibilities. Where Bourgeois is so poetically expressive about her interior life through paintings, text and sculptures, Brătescu chooses conceptual and experimental genres to create imaginative narratives, her literary references and studio almost always present. Hauser & Wirth provides an opportunity to contrast both artists while introducing a new voice, albeit one that has flourished outside of our orbit for some time. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Rico Lebrun In Mexico

February 12, 2018 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles (through March 17, 2018)
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

Discovering Rico Lebrun in Mexico at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts is a thrilling experience in the way that the best introductions are: eye-opening and ultimately rewarding. At the same time it is a little confounding too because the work is unfamiliar and it shouldn’t be. These are large paintings of tremendous, muscular force that are as passionate as they are perfectly constructed. That the work was made over sixty years ago and largely overlooked is bewildering. To paraphrase Jack Rutberg, “Only in L.A.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Visionary Artist And Statesman Of The Street, William Hall

November 15, 2017 By Lorraine Heitzman 1 Comment

by Lorraine Heitzman

This is a sort of Cinderella story, if Cinderella was a 74 year-old man with a penchant for drawing fantastical landscapes, imaginary cars, trains and figures. William Hall may look like a character actor with Santa Claus on his resume, but he harbors an interior life that is far more unique than his appearance suggests. Outwardly there are no clues to imply the fullness of his imagination, nor his impressive talents, yet like the kernel of truth buried within any fable, his story reveals the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, Interview, The Line

Stories of Desolation, Dystopia And Joyous Dance

September 22, 2017 By Lorraine Heitzman 3 Comments

Simphiwe Ndzube’s Bhabharosi 
at Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (through October 14, 2017)
By Lorraine Heitzman

Simphiwe Ndzube, in his bold debut at the Nicodim Gallery, has produced a personal and political tragicomedy that is an insightful commentary on the human condition. Set against the backdrop of South Africa where Ndzube was born, Bhabharosi tells the timely story of the hero’s journey that is steeped in the colors and customs of his birthplace but speaks to universal themes. His fresh perspective resonates with a vocabulary that is both witty and visually stunning. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Press Your Space Face Close to Mine

July 7, 2017 By Lorraine Heitzman Leave a Comment

A Group Exhibition at The Pit, Los Angeles
Curated by Aaron Curry
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

Born in San Antonio, Texas, and schooled in Chicago and Los Angeles, the multi-hyphenated artist, musician, and publisher Aaron Curry is an amalgam of diverse but cohesive geographic and aesthetic influences. The selected works in his curated show, Press Your Space Face Close To Mine, at The Pit, reflect the impact of each place on his art practice, including teachers, artists and musicians. In addition to his own installation, there are works by Sadie Benning, Richard Hawkins & Elijah Burgher, Gary Panter, AR Penck, Barbara Rossi, Dieter Roth, Don Van Vliet, John Wesley, Robert Williams, and Karl Wirsum. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, The Line

Belkis Ayón’s Nkame, A Remarkable Retrospective

March 10, 2017 By Lorraine Heitzman 1 Comment

Fowler Museum, Los Angeles
Reviewed by Lorraine Heitzman

The recent show at The Fowler Museum, Nkame: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón, was the first major retrospective of Ayón’s powerful and emotional work in the United States and inarguably one of the most significant exhibitions that opened in Los Angeles last year. Nkame, meaning “greeting” or “praise” in the language of Abakuá, was a welcome homage to Ayón’s signature black and white prints and featured a comprehensive selection of her work never-before shown together outside of Cuba. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Artist, The Line

Riot Sounds

Sleaford Mods, "Force 10 From Navarone," featuring Florence Shaw, can be listened to at Riot Material magazine -- in the exclusive Riot Sounds.

New From the Mods: “Force 10 From Navarone”

Sleaford Mods
feat. Florence Shaw (of Dry Cleaning)
from UK Grim

on Rough Trade

Dean Blunt's "The Rot." Listen at Riot Material under the exclusive Riot Sounds.

“The Rot” — Though A Rose By Any Other Name

by Dean Blunt
feat. Joanne Robertson
from BLACK METAL 2

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/10-the-rot.m4a

on Rough Trade

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 […]

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 […]

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,” […]

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 […]

Yehonatan Koenig. "Shulamith" (2022). At Riot Material Magazine

Yehonatan Koenig’s Subversion of the Ordinary

Knowing Not Knowing, at Matt Drey Arts (presenting with the Kava Collective) by Mat Gleason The art of Yehonatan Koenig is a subatomic soiree, every mark-making molecule involved in contributing to a higher purpose along the way. There is form and structure revealed here, an elegant point in the digressions of a thousand or more […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Idris Khan's The Pattern of Landscape at Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Angeles. An interview with Idris is at Riot Material magazine.

An Interview with Idris Khan

The Pattern of Landscape, at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles (through 5 November 2022) by Ricky Amadour Opening on the corner of Highland and De Longpre Avenues in the heart of Hollywood, Idris Khan’s The Pattern of Landscape is the inaugural exhibition at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles. Khan investigates color theory, text, and musical concepts through […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

join our mailing list

Enter your email and click 'SUBSCRIBE' to receive our end-of-month recap of reviews, interviews, the latest in song, cinema, the state of Art and other cerebral musings. The last day of every month, from RIOT MATERIAL.
  • Instagram

Writers

  • Alci Rengifo
  • Allyn A. Aumand
  • Amadour
  • Ann Landi
  • Annabel Osberg
  • A. Hutter von Arx
  • Barrett Martin
  • C von Hassett
  • Christopher Lutz
  • Christopher Michno
  • Christopher P Jones
  • Cvon
  • Cynthia Biret
  • Donald Lindeman
  • Ellen C. Caldwell
  • Emily Nimptsch
  • Erik Hmiel
  • Erin Currier
  • Eve Wood
  • Genie Davis
  • Henry Cherry
  • Hoyt Hilsman
  • James McWilliams
  • Jill Conner
  • Johanna Drucker
  • John Biscello
  • John Haber
  • John Payne
  • Kristy Puchko
  • Lisa Zeiger
  • Lita Barrie
  • Lorraine Heitzman
  • Margaret Lazzari
  • Max King Cap
  • Michael Bonesteel
  • Nancy Kay Turner
  • Nicholas Goldwin
  • Pancho Lipschitz
  • Phoebe Hoban
  • Rachel Reid Wilkie
  • Riot Material
  • Seren Sensei
  • Shana Nys Dambrot

Community Links

  • Black Lives Matter
  • Black Radical Congress
  • Assata’s Daughters
  • Dream Defenders
  • EJI
  • NAACP
  • ACLU
  • BAMN
  • NUL
  • UNCF
  • HRC
  • NOW
  • AWID
  • Planned Parenthood
  • Reproductive Rights
  • Nonhuman Rights
  • PETA
  • LANAIC
  • NARF
  • AICF
  • IEN
  • MPV
  • NGLTF
  • GLAAD
  • NCLR
  • LULAC
  • MALDEF
  • Fight for $15
  • Working Families
  • Rendition Project
  • Amnesty Int.
  • Democracy Now
  • Critical Resistance
  • Progressive Change
  • Justice Democrats
  • Swing Left
  • Prison Policy Init.
  • Progressive Orgs

Museums

  • The Broad
  • MOCA
  • Geffen
  • LACMA
  • The Getty
  • Annenberg
  • Hammer
  • Marciano
  • CAFAM
  • CAAM
  • MAF
  • MOLAA
  • LBMA
  • MOMA
  • PS1
  • Whitney
  • The Met
  • Brooklyn
  • New
  • Neue
  • Guggenheim
  • El Museo Del Barrio
  • Tate Modern
  • White Cube
  • National Portrait

Categories

  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Artist
  • Books
  • Cinema Disordinaire
  • Entering the Mind
  • Fiction
  • Film
  • From The Shelf
  • Image
  • Inside The Image
  • Interview
  • Jazz
  • Mind
  • Opera
  • Profile
  • Records
  • Riot Material Presents
  • Riot Sounds
  • Short Film
  • sound
  • Subscribe
  • That Evening Sun
  • The Line
  • The Mother Tongue
  • The Natural World
  • The New Word
  • Theater
  • Thought
  • Twenty Que
  • Video

Archives

RIOT MATERIAL
art. word. thought.