The Magazine

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RIOT MATERIAL is the premier Los Angeles literary-cultural magazine with an eye on art, word and forward-aiming thought. Our vision, much in the spirit of this great city, is ever-global, working as we do with the best writers, artists, critical and imaginative thinkers from around the world.

We welcome your ideas for reviewing art, literature, music and film, and will consider interviews, profiles of interesting personalities and scenes, social and political commentary, and illustrations entering the public discourse from angles preferably humorous, satirical or of lacerating wit.

If pursuing the review, we encourage you to lean toward an era not long passed when reviews themselves were of an art, a distillation of blood and breath. To that end, let your literary heart, which is adverse to formula, lead.

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Proposals can be sent to submissions(at)riotmaterial.com, with subject lines such as Review, Interview, Illustration, etc — designations adding considerably to our timeliness in response.

Thank you in advance!
RM
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RIOT MATERIAL

Publisher | Editor-in-Chief
C von Hassett

Co-Publisher
Rachel Reid Wilkie

Web Master | aka The Fixer
Mark Lindsey @ California Web Design

Marnie: An Opera In Two Acts

at the Metropolitan Opera, New York Reviewed by Donald Lindeman Nico Muhly, Composer; Nicholas Wright, Librettist; Directed by Michael Mayer; Conductor, Robert Spano. The Metropolitan Opera in New York, to its credit, has become a steadfast supporter of new operas, engaging in patronage and risk in the name of the advancement of young composers […]

The Perfection Is A Masterful And ‘Deeply Fucked Up’ Thriller

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Things are not what they seem in Richard Shepard’s sharp and sinister thriller The Perfection. Get Out’s Allison Williams stars as Charlotte Willmore, who was a child prodigy on the cello until her path to greatness was thwarted by a family tragedy. Ten years later, Charlotte is finally free. And the first […]

Running Toward Nothing: A Journey Through The Evocatively Feminine

Reviewed by Genie Davis Closing May 25th at Night Gallery, U.K.-based artist Laura Lancaster’s Running Toward Nothing is absolutely heading toward a highly fluid “something.” Perhaps it is the passage into a void we cannot control or fathom, perhaps it is the way through or into a dream, or just possibly, it is the outcome of memory […]

Stirring And Explosive, Wild Rose Has A Softness That Stings

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Country music comes alive in the poignant coming-of-age drama Wild Rose. Irish ingénue Jessie Buckley stars as Rose-Lynn Harlan, a Scottish singer with dreams of being the next Nashville star. With an outlaw’s heart and an angel’s voice, Rose-Lynn strides down the streets of Glasgow in white cowboy boots and a […]

Bereavement Of The Felled: New Works By Trisha Donnelly

at The Shed, NYC (through May 19) Reviewed by John Haber If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound? At the very least, it can make art. For Trisha Donnelly, it must make a sound as well, for art is always listening, even […]

Don’t Call Me A Person of Color: I’m Black

by Seren Sensei A strange thing happens when you say the word “Black” as it pertains to race. People will often curl their lips up, as if you’ve said something distasteful or inappropriate; the color might drain from their faces in an expression akin to dread. The phrase “Black Lives Matter” triggers the knee jerk […]

Breadcrumbs For The Disenchanted: Peg Alford Pursell’s A Girl Goes Into The Forest

Reviewed by John Biscello A Girl Goes Into the Forest by Peg Alford Pursell Dzanc, 200pp., $16.95 In the dream I was sitting with my mother in a restaurant lobby, waiting to be seated for dinner. The hostess came over, asked me my name, which I confirmed, then told me to follow her — I […]

Mythological Jazz Asteroids in the Afro Futurist Space Belt

Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery: The Comet is Coming on Impulse! Reviewed by Henry Cherry Experience by itself, the phenomenological philosopher Edmund Husserl said, is not science. In the hands of London band The Comet is Coming, experience is a strict adherence to improvisation and exploration that filters the scientific process into […]

Amon Tobin’s Fear in a Handful of Dust

on Nomark Reviewed by John Payne On the occasions when he drops a new platter, the veteran producer/DJ-composer Amon Tobin can always be counted on to raise the sonic-magic bar several notches. From his early found-sounds ‘n’ beats productions such as Bricolage (1997), Permutation (1998), the magnificent Supermodified (2000) and Out From Out Where (2002), he progressed to things […]

Artists As Keepers Of Radical Thought In The Weight of Matter

at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles (through June 15) Reviewed by Eve Wood The Weight of Matter, on view at Roberts Projects in Culver City, takes as it central premise the idea that artists are the keepers of radical thought, of dreams and incongruities, of nightmares and deepening schisms, and that these ideas are worth each and […]

Head-Spinning Intrigue And Landmark Cinema In Zhang Yimou’s Shadow

Reviewed by Glenn Kenny After the limp 2017 film The Great Wall, the director Zhang Yimou was clearly looking to enact a return to form. With Shadow (2019), Zhang has done more than that: he’s created a martial-arts movie landmark, as strong in its performances as it is spectacularly novel in its violence.

Nari Ward: We The People

at The New Museum, NYC (through May 26) Reviewed by John Haber When it comes to Nari Ward, it can take a long time to hear so many voices. They are everywhere in his retrospective at the New Museum, fleshing out the sonic landscape amid (and from) the multiple installations. A tanning bed, for instance, […]

London’s Jazz Scene Is Burning

Theon Cross’s Fyah on Gearbox Records Reviewed by Henry Cherry Theon Cross’s new album, Fyah, is a monument to the importance of the London Jazz Scene and, by proxy, that scene’s reliance on Tomorrow’s Warriors. Tomorrow’s Warriors is a musical education program Cross took part in that primarily focuses on youth of the city’s African […]

Kristen Roupenian’s You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories

Reviewed by Ruth Franklin You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories by Kristen Roupenian Scout, 225 pp., $24.99 Courtesy of The New York Review of Books It has happened only twice in nearly seventy years: a short story appears in The New Yorker and goes viral, setting off an avalanche of responses. Some […]

Olivier Assayas’s Non-Fiction: A Cinematic Essay About The Digital Onslaught

Reviewed by Alci Rengifo Few can deny that we are currently passing through a historical epoch in terms of technological evolution. Like the generation that endured the Industrial Revolution, we are faced with new machines and inventions which promise both a leisurely future but the dismantling of modern industries. The world is changing fast for […]

Radiant Poetic Shadows And The Timeless Framings Of Roy DeCarava

Roy DeCarava: The Work of Art, at The Underground Museum, Los Angeles (through June 30) Reviewed by Henry Cherry Despite a couple of career retrospectives and a small handful of books, the late photographer Roy DeCarava is one of the most overlooked photographers of his era. His photos are among the few photographic equivalents to […]

In Fabric Is A Decadent Horror About A Dress That Kills

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Glamorous. Daring. Sexy. A new dress can feel like a promise to yourself that you’ll become the woman fit to wear it. But in writer/director Peter Strickland’s twisted horror-comedy In Fabric, a dress becomes something sinister. With a knee length skirt with flowing long sleeves, the “Ambassadorial Function Dress” offers elegance […]

Gan Bi’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night Floats Along The Back Rivers Of Memory

Reviewed by Alci Rengifo It is difficult to describe the experience of watching Long Day’s Journey Into Night without sounding as if you are remembering a dream. The new film by China’s Gan Bi is more about ambiance than plot, more about the hazy feeling of attempting to travel back in time through the eye of […]

The Un-Man Falleth

by Barrett Martin “The Un-Man Falleth” is from Martin’s forthcoming book, The Way of the Zen Cowboy: Fireside Stories From A Globetrotting Rhythmatist Out May 10 on Sunyata Books “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln President Lincoln’s quote above is probably more […]

Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again

at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (May 19 – September 2) Reviewed by Jill Conner The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is set to open Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again, a stunning retrospective that presents the artist’s large-scale compositions, installations, portraits, sculptures and films. The title of this exhibition […]