Honeyed Strings And Sanguine Pop To Boot: “In The Capital”

March 10, 2019 By CvH Leave a Comment

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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 […]

Knives and Skin Blends Teen-Noir, Dark Satire And ’80s Musical Numbers

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Have you seen Carolyn Harper? That’s the horrid question that thumps in the hearts of the characters in the trippy teen-noir Knives and Skin. It was another quiet night in a Midwest small town when band geek Carolyn Harper went missing. Her pom-pommed shako cap will be found near a river […]

Christoph Waltz’s Savagely Clever Directorial Debut In Georgetown

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko At 53, Austrian-German actor Christoph Waltz became an unlikely Hollywood star. After decades working in German film and television, he broke through with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Despite being an unknown stateside, despite starring opposite A-lister Brad Pitt, despite being tasked with playing a ruthless and giddily zealous Nazi, Waltz stole […]

An Interview With Activist Photographer Nick Brandt

by Cynthia Biret This Empty World, the latest exhibition by acclaimed photographer Nick Brandt (at Fahey/Klein, Los Angeles, through 27 April), is a captivating account of wildlife colliding hard against an endless tide of human encroachment and unchecked corporate development. Once roaming free upon endlessly expansive and entirely majestic lands, these now endangered animals find themselves […]

Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Braithwaite

at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles (through September 1) Reviewed by Nancy K. Turner If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform one million realities –Maya Angelou Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Braithwaite, is an intimate in scale, personal in scope, potent exhibit. It documents through photographs, ephemera, and fashion, Kwame […]

The Extraordinary Fast Color Breathes New Life Into The Superhero Genre

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Superhero origin stories typically center on a hero coming into their power and realizing the responsibilities therein. In studio-made films, this arc is accompanied by flashy costumes, super-villains, and elaborate action sequences. But as the superhero genre evolves, inventive indies are pushing their tropes into thrillingly unexpected new realms. In Fast […]

Awakening the Spirit in Motion: Christina Quarles

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. […]

Proxy Among the Spiders: An Imagined Louise Bourgeois In Now, Now, Louison

Reviewed by John Biscello Now, Now, Louison, by Jean Frémon New Directions Publishing, 112 pps. $13.95 There once was a little girl named Louise. Sweet, endangered, watchful and tragic, this little girl, who in her permeable nomenclature was also referred to as Lousion, bore the embryonic shadow of the son and heir that her father […]

Art At The Crossroads: Artists Addressing The U.S./Mexico Border

by Ellen C. Caldwell With the threat of closing the U.S./Mexico border looming, people whose lives do not intersect with the border on a regular basis are thinking more about the border than usual. But before this recent wave of attention, artists have been drawn to the border and have been drawing attention to the […]

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

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 […]

Matthew Shipp Trio’s Signature

on ESP-Disk’ Reviewed by John Payne The rather prolific Matthew Shipp is the most relevant jazz pianist of the last few decades. With more than 85 releases of bold ‘n’ brave music as a solo performer and in duo/ trio/quartet formats alongside the avantish jazz likes of the David S. Ware Quartet, Ivo Perelman, Sabir […]

Alice Neel: Freedom

at David Zwirner, NYC (through April 13) Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban In a sense, Alice Neel’s portraits are always naked, at least psychologically; Neel brilliantly stripped her subjects down to their bare essence. As Joseph Solman, a fellow artist and old friend from her Socialist Realist days, once put it, “She turned a person inside […]

Teen Spirit Has More Heart, Better Bangers Than A Star Is Born

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko The rise to fame story’s moves so familiar that audiences can dance it blindfolded. Enter the undiscovered talent, raw but passionate. Their circumstances are grim. There may be poverty, family tragedy, and/or abuse. Still, they cling to the hope that music might save them. They find that one person in the […]

Van Gogh and Britain

at Tate Britain, London (through 11 August) Reviewed by Christopher P Jones Judging from the crowds and the advanced ticket sales, the magnetism of Vincent Van Gogh shows no sign of diminishing. It’s hardly a surprise. We come to empathise with the optimism of a man whose dreams of an art colony in the south would […]

Technology Killed The City

by Barrett Martin “Technology Killed The City” is from Martin’s forthcoming book, The Way of the Zen Cowboy: Fireside Stories From A Globetrotting Rhythmatist on Sunyata Books “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to […]

Stuck Together Repurposes And Becomes Richly Subversive

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: […]

Kim Dingle: I Will Be Your Server (The Lost Supper Paintings)

at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects (through May 4) Reviewed by Lita Barrie Priss has captivated the artworld with her mischievous antics since she first appeared in Kim Dingle’s artwork thirty years ago, dressed in her Sunday Best and ready for battle. Dingle’s imaginary character split and replicated, like a Tribble on Star Trek, into a bi-racial […]

The Storm of History: Sergei Bundarchuk’s War and Peace

By Alci Rengifo The movies now give us an “epic” nearly every week of the year. Digital technology, corporate budgets and the public’s own current thirst for shallow escapism have paved the way for visions both ludicrous and wondrous. Chiseled, tattooed ruffians bestrode kraken-like monsters in Aquaman, cyborgs levitate from futuristic cities buried in trash […]

The Wind Is A Savage And Insightful Horror-Western

Reviewed by Kristy Puchko Tales of the Wild West often focus on cowboys who conquer tough terrains and ruthless foes with their glistening guns and macho bravado. Bucking convention with The Wind, screenwriter Teresa Sutherland and director Emma Tammi dust off a forgotten and frightening real-life phenomenon that terrorized the pioneering women of the west. […]

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