Contributors

Into the Abyss With Jonathan Glazer’s Feral Short: The Fall

Reviewed by Alci Rengifo Jonathan Glazer emerges every so often with work that above all is constructed by a powerful aesthetic. More than narratives, what Glazer crafts are images combined with soundscapes which immerse the viewer in moments of dread, hallucination and discovery. Moments which could have the feel of a common day action suddenly […]

Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet The Sun Again

at The Broad, Los Angeles (through February 16) Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” —Edward Said “To […]

A Portrait Of Bolivian Heartbreak

By Alci Rengifo An Associated Press photo by Natasha Pisarenko shows an indigenous Bolivian woman standing amid clouds of tear gas, holding the national flag and at its tip, the Wiphala flag of the nation’s indigenous peoples. Her society is again a victim of history. Its dreams vanished in acrid smoke. The photo’s aesthetic is […]

The Breathless Charm Of Tina Brooks’s Minor Move

on Blue Note Records Reviewed by Henry Cherry Soulster James Brown was known as the godfather of soul for a reason. His syncopated music had the sound of a crisp, rehearsed band that could stop on a dime. In live shows, the singer demanded that same precision found on his studio recordings. Brown regularly fined […]

Sarah Sze, Poet Of Clutter

at Tanya Bonadkar Gallery, NYC and MoMa, NYC Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban For several decades, Sarah Sze has artfully transformed detritus into art, whether it’s the corner of Central Park at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, where she submerged a mini-replica of the white brick apartment complex across the street, filling it with objects from […]

Coyote Leaves The Res: The Art Of Harry Fonseca

at Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles (through January 5, 2020) Reviewed by Genie Davis I looked a coyote right in the face On the road to Baljennie near my old hometown He went running thru the whisker wheat Chasing some prize down And a hawk was playing with him Coyote was jumping straight […]

John Coltrane’s Cat In The Bag: Blue World

on Impulse! Reviewed by Henry Cherry John Coltrane died from liver cancer 52 years ago. Nevertheless, in the last two years, he has released two new recordings. Both were lost, one forgotten in the attack of a relative, the other hidden in a Canadian film archive, protected from the devastating Universal Studios Fire of 2008 […]

How the Frenzy Feeds: Affect and Delusion

by Johanna Drucker The only thing puzzling about the tweet-stream smear-campaign bullying tactics that keep Trump’s popularity going is the inability of mainstream analysts to understand their success. These baffled experts keep bringing reasoned arguments to bear, like people debating the flammability of materials while standing in a house that is burning down. The sheer […]

MORPH: Transformation In Technicolor

at Mash Gallery, Los Angeles (through December 21) Reviewed by Genie Davis The group exhibition MORPH is thematically about transformation, boundary pushing, and serves as an exhilarating tour de force by the artists as they explore edgy, surreal and transitory forms. But more striking perhaps than its theme is its color. Vibrant, dazzling, surprising and […]

Errol Morris On Sitting Down With Alt-Right Nationalist Steve Bannon In American Dharma

By Alci Rengifo Errol Morris, one of the great documentary filmmakers, has sat down with men from the halls of power for years. In his new film, American Dharma, Morris faces Steve Bannon, one of the darker lingering figures of our very recent collective history. If some of the world’s major publications were a bit more […]

Cross Colours: Black Fashion In The 20th Century

at California African American Museum, Los Angeles (through March 1, 2020) Reviewed by Seren Sensei Everything old is new again. This motto has held steady for years in the world of fashion, with it’s here-today-gone-tomorrow trends, and nowhere has it rung more true than in the waves of 1990’s urban culture that are currently enjoying […]

Elizabeth Peyton: Aire and Angels

at National Portrait Gallery, London, through 5 January 2020 Reviewed by Christopher P Jones In her new solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in London, New York artist Elizabeth Peyton offers a procession of glistening vignettes, portraits of famous and not-so-famous faces, whose cool freshness leaves the visitor with an excited, if slightly outmoded […]

David S. Ware New Quartet’s Théâtre Garonne, 2008

Out November 15 on Aum Fidelity Reviewed by John Payne When David S. Ware passed away in October of 2012, the world lost a sound it’s never getting back again. That sound was revolutionary, it was a tough sound, a punk-jazz sound that asks a lot of questions and can’t wait around for answers. Ware’s sax […]

Joker Resurrectus: Pop Iconography Fills The Nihilist Void

By Alci Rengifo As these words are written the streets of Santiago, Chile and Beirut, Lebanon are ablaze with the fury of thousands of voices raging against an irrational economic system. It is a world of tremors at the moment, with riots serving as a conduit for the general mood of vast communities. Significant is […]

Mary Corse: A Survey in Light

at LACMA (through November 11) Reviewed by Lita Barrie Mary Corse is finally having her moment in a breakout role as the luminary of “light painting.” Although Corse has received critical acclaim since the sixties she has been overshadowed by male SoCal Light and Space artists. Interestingly, it took New York women curators to revise the […]

A Love Letter to LA Offers a Haunting Magic

at Launch Gallery, Los Angeles (through November 16) Reviewed by Genie Davis Magic is the word that first comes to mind when describing the two-artist exhibition currently at Launch Gallery. A Love Letter is an exhibition of landscapes — quintessentially Los Angeles landscapes — that serve as landmarks for both the city’s, and the artists’, zeitgeist.

Wangari Methenge’s Aura of Quiet

at Roberts Projects (through November 16) Reviewed by Eve Wood How do artists convey silence within two-dimensional space? I would argue that it is difficult to create an authentic connection between the subject and the viewer, and it is even more difficult to create a space of quietude and self-reflection even as the artist is […]

CUP’s Hydra-Headed Spinning Creature

on Northern Spy Reviewed by John Payne Wherein the husband and wife team up to rinse and shine the aural punchbowl, no squabbling. Nels Cline & Yuka Honda are Cup, co-cookers of rich, musically nutritious stuff packed with savory, skewed nuance that reflects their artistic differences and affinities. Guitar visionary Cline’s scope, skills and, yes, taste, […]

Enrique Martínez Celaya’s The Tears of Things

at Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles ( through November 2) Reviewed by Lita Barrie Enrique Martínez Celaya’s haunting exhibition at Kohn Gallery is conceived as visual poetry predicated upon Virgil’s phrase “the tears of things,” from Aeneid ( Book 1, line 462), about an encounter with a mural of the battle of Troy which made the […]

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