Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

Fuller On Fuller

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Samantha Fuller Speaks to the Life and Legacy of Her Father, Director Sam Fuller

by Cynthia Biret

A Fuller Life is a special tribute to maverick filmmaker Samuel Fuller, directed by his daughter Samantha. Fuller was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. His raw and unbridled stories favored the underdog and dared to question and highlight the grim reality of war, racism and manipulation from experiences that he had lived first hand. Starting as a crime reporter, he enrolled himself in the infantry during World War II, exposed the horrors of concentration camps, and was awarded the Purple Heart for his bravery. His persona was bigger than life. He was known for smoking a large cigar and calling action by firing a Colt .45 into the air. From The Big Red One to Shock Corridor and White Dog, his indelible mark influenced countless directors. Scorsese once said of him, “If you don’t like the films of Samuel Fuller, then you just don’t like cinema. Or at least you don’t understand it.” [Read more…]

Lynn Tejada’s Green Galactic Sees Its Silver Reign

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By Steven Mirkin

Twenty-five years is a long time for any business to survive. Many marriages don’t make it to their Silver Anniversary, much less businesses. Throw in a rapidly changing media marketplace, and the idea that Green Galactic, a boutique publicity firm owned by Lynn Tejada and devoted to some of the most adventurous and experimental artists out there, made it to 25 is even more impressive.

Think about it: When Tejada started Green Galactic, dial-up modems were the norm and CDs were the future of the music industry. Few people had an email address, and most of those ended in “@aol.com.” Social media was unknown, Mark Zuckerberg was nine years old, and the words “blog,” “vlog” and “website” were yet to be coined; you’d be more likely to come across the word “streaming” in a copy of Outside than Rolling Stone. A large part of a publicist’s job was rolling calls, working the phones, and they were judged by the size of their Rolodexes.    [Read more…]

Death By Streaming: Is Cult Cinema At An End?

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by Judy Berman
Courtesy of The Baffler

The defining cult film of the Twenty-First Century is neither a mirror held up to nature or a hammer used to shape reality. The Room, released in 2003, is like a ninety-nine-minute episode of The Real World as performed by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton under the direction of no one. It is an incoherent broadside against evil women (or all women) and a backwards vindication of all-American male breadwinners who buy their girls roses and befriend at-risk teens. It’s a tragedy not just because it ends with a suicide, but also because sitting through it requires a robust Dionysian death drive. The Room is so bad that when you point out its idiocy, the idiocy of stating the obvious bounces back and sticks to you. [Read more…]

Factory Farming, Though Vile, Does Not Equate To Chattel Slavery

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by Seren Sensei

A quiet wave of veganism has tacked its roots in pop culture. Veganism, vegetarianism and to a lesser extent, pescetarianism — existing for so long on the fringe — are finally having their moment in the mainstream, with many adopting the practices of eating solely vegetables and/or cutting out red meat, pork, poultry and dairy. Celebrity chefs, actors, athletes and musicians extoll the virtues of going vegan. Vegan challenges, wherein participants attempt to go entirely vegan for an allotted amount of time, are wildly popular. Smoothie bowls run rampant on social media; vegan options have crept onto menus everywhere from five star restaurants to fast food restaurants. (The popular California hamburger chain Fatburger, was recently the first fast food chain to introduce The Impossible Burger, made entirely of plant protein.) [Read more…]

Hung Viet Nguyen’s Artistic and Spiritual Alchemy

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by Genie Davis

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…]

Tomas Saraceno’s Literally Uplifting Solar Rhythms

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at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NYC
Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban

As much a visionary as he is an artist, Tomas Saraceno, a visionary artist, clearly follows in the footsteps of such innovators as Buckminster Fuller, Paolo Soleri, and others whose aesthetic brilliance parallels their deep desire to sustain humanity on this planet. The influence of his friend, the great Olafur Eliasson, for whom he briefly worked as a studio assistant, is obvious. But Saraceno goes beyond flexing the muscles of his considerable technical flair to invent designs that are or can be implemented as part of his Aerocene project, started in 2015, the stated goal of which “proposes a new epoch, one of atmospherical [sic] and ecological consciousness, where we together earn how to float and live in the air, and to achieve an ethical collaboration with the environment.” [Read more…]

Rage And Grace In Paul Schrader’s First Reformed

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by Alci Rengifo

There can be nothing more dangerous than an awakened consciousness. Paul Schrader’s new and fierce work, First Reformed, is a portrait of a man connecting with a world in crisis, even as he is silently torn by his own scars. Beautifully composed, it is a film that reaches well beyond the surface of its story. It is about the very condition and mood of our times, and the palpable sense of some oncoming cataclysm.

We are but individuals operating within the larger panorama of societies and nations. Some of us are bond strong by belief systems; others despair within their beliefs at a world symbolically ready to burn. Paul Schrader has been a filmmaker of the latter ilk since his early days when he composed furious, violent works which, even when featuring traditional plots, displayed an artist grappling with the spirit and the flesh. [Read more…]

Iranian Art, Past and Present: In The Field Of Empty Days

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at Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner

“Lovers find secret places inside this violent world where they make transactions with beauty.”  Rumi, 13thcentury Persian Poet

The poetically entitled In The Field of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art is a dense yet sprawling exhibit that features compelling images from artists whom we may not have seen before. A hallmark of these modern and contemporary Iranian artists is their ingenious blending of images related to myth, history, social disruption, political upheaval and religious restriction in their work. They, like so many contemporary artists, are mining the past for re-presentation in the present. [Read more…]

Cultural Processes: A Quantum Approach

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An Interview with Artist and Theorist Johanna Drucker
by Broc Rossell

Johanna Drucker’s newly published work, The General Theory of Social Relativity, addresses the fundamental question of how we are to understand the forces at work in the social world, and presents a radically innovative framework for thinking about social processes. A century ago theories of quantum physics and general relativity exposed the limits of Newton’s classical, mechanical, approach to explaining the forces at work in the physical world. But the social sciences, including critical aesthetics rooted in 19th century political theory, remain caught in a mechanistic paradigm. Drucker’s formulation offers a non-mechanistic approach to the understanding workings of the social world and the affective forces at work in non-linear politics and aesthetics.* Broc Rossell, publisher of The Elephants, spoke with author Johanna Drucker in Vancouver and Los Angeles last month regarding her new book with The Elephants, The General Theory of Social Relativity. [Read more…]

Laurie Simmons: Avatar Artist For Our Age

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From two concurrent exhibitions:
Clothes Make The Man: Works from 1990-1994, at Mary Boone Gallery
2017: The Mess and Some New, at Salon 94, NYC
Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban

We live in the age of the avatar, and over the course of several decades, Laurie Simmons has proven herself to be the ultimate avatar artist for our age. (Think of her shocking 2015 “The Love Doll” series: sophisticated Japanese sex toys beautifully chronicled in suburban household settings, like Dare Star’s classic 1950s character “The Lonely Doll.”) [Read more…]

An Expansive, Boundary-Blurring Exhibition In David Bowie is

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at the Brooklyn Museum, NYC
Reviewed by Angelica Villa

Arranged in a matchless array of material from David Bowie’s archive, the Brooklyn Museum’s David Bowie is encapsulates the icon’s expansive complexity. The exhibition explores the breadth of visual and musical inventions and collaborations of the artist’s prolific career. Posing challenge to social convention and encouraging freedom of self-identification for several decades, the artist’s cultural relevance is beyond compare or distillation. Including 400 objects sourced from the musician’s archive, the interdisciplinary range of material showcasing album covers, drafts of handwritten lyrics, costumes, photographs, film and audio of Bowie’s career draw together a kaleidoscopic retrospective portrait of the artist’s many selves. [Read more…]

Amazon To Arctic, Part I: The Rainforest Is Burning

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by Barrett Martin

In just six months, between March and August, I spent time in three of the most important ecological zones in North and South America, those being: The Amazon Rainforest, the Mississippi Delta, and Alaska’s Arctic Wildlife Refuge. This is a two-part essay about the people, places, and environments I’ve seen in these parts of the world, and my observations on a warming, changing climate that is accelerating in its pace. The environment in these places is being severely impacted by oil exploration, and compounded by clear cutting in the Amazon Rainforest, confused caribou herds in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and the negative impact of heavy equipment and infrastructure on the natural flora and fauna in all three zones.  [Read more…]

Revisiting The Art-Life Balance In The Square

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by Timofei Gerber

The new film, The Square (2017) is not marked by a tight plot; quite on the contrary it can be said to be built on vignettes, or even more precisely, by performances. Now, ‘performance’, of course, recalls Performance Art, the ‘movement’ that started out in the 1960’s; and as The Square is dealing with the contemporary art world, this connection is in no way accidental. Yet, the movie’s protagonist also explicitly refers to the work of Nicolas Bourriaud, who wrote extensively on the art of the 1990’s, which he differentiated from the issues and problems that were raised by the art movements of the past (cf. Bourriaud 2002: 7f.). He distinguishes the two in as far as Performance Art is following in the footsteps of avant-garde modernism, with its attempts to disrupt the standardised flow of our daily lives and to sketch out bold utopias with its manifestos; while for the Art of the 1990’s, or as he calls it, Relational Art, “the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real” (ibid.: 13). The Square opens up a discussion between these two conceptions of the role of art within society, the one leading up to the 60’s/70’s and the other starting out in the 1990’s, which are based on two different interpretations of what modernity is. Let us look at them separately and see what different forms they take within the movie. [Read more…]

Hitler’s Hollywood Is A Lovely Veil Of Horrors

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Reviewed by Alci Rengifo

When a historical nightmare occurs it can distort every facet of society, in particular the arts. Artistic expression is molded by the tides of events. If a society goes completely mad, its artistic processes will be a reflection of the disease. This is ever so evident in the evolution of fascist societies. Rüdiger Suchsland’s brilliant, unnerving yet captivating new documentary, Hitler’s Hollywood, is a work of dark reverie and critical study. It challenges the viewer to ponder the very meaning of the word “beauty,” and to wonder in disturbed awe if fascism can indeed produce beautiful works. Moments in this documentary are indeed so luminous that the spectator cannot help but drink in the imagery, even if we are aware that it is all merely a veil for horrors. [Read more…]

Wajatta’s Wickedly Funky (And Fun!) Casual High Technology

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on Comedy Dynamics
Reviewed by John Payne

As a way of potentially creating something genuinely new, or at least surprising, the time-honored but perhaps neglected artistic scheme of melding or juxtaposing multiple dissimilar aesthetic beliefs or conceptual visions in order to birth a third entity, independent of its parents’ genetics, might be the best way to describe the resonant thrills encoded within the grooves of Wajatta’s debut album. [Read more…]

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

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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…]

John Cameron Mitchell’s Timid How To Talk To Girls At Parties

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Reviewed by Kristy Puchko

In 2001, John Cameron Mitchell roared onto the film scene like a bat out of hell with Hedwig And The Angry Inch. Based on his daring Off-Broadway show, this outrageous rock musical was celebrated for its poignant tale of self-love and the dynamic spectacle of its sensational song numbers. Remarkably, Mitchell brought the experience of the live show into the movie theater, creating a sense of enchanting spontaneity that transformed the audiences who saw it. And that included me. [Read more…]

KAN Offers Up A Fresh Way ‘To Look’

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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…]

The Aggressively Uncategorizable Roger Ballen

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Roger Ballen: Ballenesque
at Fahey/Klein Gallery (through June 16, 2018)
Reviewed by Shana Nys Dambrot

Ballenesque: Roger Ballen: A Retrospective
by Roger Ballen and Robert JC Young
Thames & Hudson, 336 pp., $80.00

Sometimes an artist’s style is so aggressively uncategorizable, so interdisciplinary and outside conventions, that it defies not only genre, but any meaningful comparisons to history or peer — and their name simply becomes its own adjective. Meet US/South African artist Roger Ballen, whose sui generis style of photography-based practices has been dubbed Ballenesque, because there’s literally no better way to describe it. Of course, in this case, Ballen himself began referring to his own work that way fairly early on, in the 1990s, and honestly he has a point. [Read more…]

Roger Ballen’s Visceral & Phantasmagorical Outland

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In her review of the Roger Ballen retrospective, “Ballenesque,” at Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles (through June 16, 2018), Shana Nys Dambrot tells us, “in the last three decades, Ballen’s instincts became more and more fantastical, his poetic and surrealist impulses gaining momentum and eventually taking over his storytelling impulse in the name of fiction and allegory.” 

The exhibition is a must see, and to double down on its delightfully troubling aesthetic — and to get a truly visceral sense of Ballen’s taste for the fantasitical, the grossly poetic and the apocalyptically surreal — check out his 2015 short, Outland: