The Great Dick Dale, Dead At 81

March 18, 2019 By Riot Material Leave a Comment

RIP
1937 -2019

“Misirlou,” 1963, from the film A Swinging Affair

Dick Dale, 1941, on his WLD 45 Flathead Harley. See his 1963 performance of "Misirlou" at Riot Material.

Dick Dale on his 1941 WLD 45 Flathead Harley

Gerhard Richter’s Solemn Yet Miraculous Retrospective, Painting After All

at Met Breuer, NYC (through 5 July 2020) Reviewed by Peter Schjeldahl The New Yorker “Birkenau.” The dread name—of the main death facilities at Auschwitz—entitles four large abstract paintings and four full-sized digital reproductions of them in the last gallery of Painting After All, a peculiarly solemn Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Met Breuer. The […]

Cinema Disordinaire: A List Of Infectiously Strange Must-See Films For The End Times

Cinema Disordinaire, aka Riot Cinema, is a uniquely selective entry of films that showcase the singular in all of cinema, the seminal, and the utterly sublime come to screen this past half century. For these particularly disordinary times, where self-isolation is our newly mandated norm, we offer up a distilled list from Cinema Disordinaire’s five-decade accounting. […]

The LA Times And The Question Of Crisis Deliverance

by C von Hassett The LA Times, once a towering, globally respected newspaper, has become a click-bait web of invasive ads and circus-style barking for subscription servicing that, though intolerable even when things in our city were on the norm, now come across as shark-like and ravenous, a dubious entity profiteering its wares much in […]

On Lessons From August Wilson’s Jitney

at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles By Seren Sensei Jitney ran for a limited revival at the Mark Taper Forum prior to the quarantines that recently swept through L.A. County. A protective measure against global pandemic COVID-19, the lockdown effectively shut down bars, restaurants, movie theaters, plays and gatherings; while leaders felt this was […]

Dr. Cornel West Speaks Black Prophetic Fire

An always-welcomed dose of Cornel West, who is the focus of Arturo O’Farrill’s The Cornel West Concerto, a timely recording to be released this week. O’Farrill is onstage tonight with Jacques Lesure and His Soulful Cohorts here in Los Angeles, at Los Balcones, 9pm. Meantime, below is the Professor’s speech that inspired O’Farrill’s composition, which […]

Storytime With David Lynch

Today’s Topic: Accessing the Unified Field

In Memory of Genesis P-Orridge: “Hamburger Lady”

From Throbbing Gristle’s D.o.A: The Third and Final Report Hamburger Lady ♠ Genesis Breyer P-Orridge 1950 – 2020 Godspeed!

The Beguiling Desolations Of Trisha Donnelly

at Matthew Marks Gallery, NYC by Brian Block In this era of pervasive promotional storytelling, Trisha Donnelly consistently chooses to go the other way and expunge. Her works carry no titles, her exhibitions no names, and her press releases only a few facts. This calculated act of liberalizing the viewing field works to intensify the […]

Organized Anarchy in OOIOO’s Nijimusi

on Thrill Jockey Reviewed by John Payne What are we looking for when we listen to new music? What is most important? It’s not so much that each and every musical experience has to be formally groundbreaking and utterly unlike anything that has come before, though that rare occurrence certainly does help. Really, we’re talking about […]

Abandoned To The Voice In My Head: King Krule’s Man Alive!

on XL Recordings/Matador Records Reviewed by Henry Cherry Archy Ivan Marshall is a 25-year-old musician who performs under the nom de guerre King Krule. As Krule, he has delivered a stunning portrait of demonic exorcism across three full length releases and as many extended plays. As Archy Marshall, he’s added a book and another album, […]

In This Moment Of Collective Anxiety, New Images of Man Ponders The Human Condition, And Further Disquiets The Sense

at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles Reviewed by Genie Davis Curated by Alison M. Gingeras, the expansive exhibition New Images of Man is a both a revisiting of and expansion on a 1959 exhibition of the same name at MoMA in New York City. A tribute and comment on the human condition, the original exhibition, curated by […]

Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright

Reviewed by Christopher Benfey Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright Paul Hendrickson Knopf, 624 pp., $35.00 Harper’s Magazine Frank Lloyd Wright isn’t just the greatest of all American architects. He has so eclipsed the competition that he can sometimes seem the only one. Who are his potential rivals? Henry Hobson […]

Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular From The Permanent Collection

at California African American Museum, Los Angeles (through 15 March) Reviewed by Seren Sensei Folk art and folk artists tend to be an underserved discipline in the contemporary American art world. We gravitate towards fine artists with prestigious arts degrees over the more commonplace culture of folk art, and when we do discuss the importance […]

The Haunting, Half-Lit World Of Yelena Moskovich’s Virtuoso

Reviewed by John Biscello Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich Two Dollar Radio, 272 pp., $12.74 “But I see my mind’s asleep. Were it to remain wide awake from this point on, we should quickly arrive at the truth, which may well be all around us now (its angels weeping)!” — Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell […]

Tales Of The Unconfined: Alison Saar’s Defiant Women Warriors

Syncopation, at L.A Louver, Los Angeles (through 29 February) Chaos in the Kitchen, at Frieze Los Angeles Reviewed by Lita Barrie Alison Saar’s work combines the raw power of tribal art with the postmodern sophistication of complex cultural subtexts. Her work is made in a near devotional way, which infuses a rare emotional intensity into her new narratives […]

The Shaman’s Bride Lifts Her Veil In Lezley Saar’s A Conjuring of Conjurors

at Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles (through 22 February) Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner Born under a bad sign Been down since I began to crawl If it wasn’t for bad luck You know, I wouldn’t have no luck at all In the magical exhibition, A Conjuring of Conjurors, artist Lezley Saar herself becomes the […]

The Swirling Claustrophobias Of Félix Vallotton: Painter of Disquiet

at Met Fifth Avenue, NYC Reviewed by Lisa Zeiger “…the deepest and earliest secret of all: that just as we watch other life, other life watches us.” —Toni Morrison, “Memory, Creation, and Fiction” The superlative Félix Vallotton exhibition recently at the Metropolitan Museum, titled Painter of Disquiet, was an enthralling view of the tension between Vallotton’s […]

Triangulations Of The Black Cat: Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe Black Like Me

at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles (through March 7) Reviewed by Eve Wood Ghanian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe’s gorgeously rendered oil paintings, on view at Roberts Projects, are stunning both in terms of their visual content and the literal application of the paint. One can make obvious allusions to artists like Kehinde Wiley or Wangechi […]

Gathering No Moss, Toh-Kichi’s Baikamo Wanders Freely If Not Ferally Through The Avant-Garde

on Libra Records Reviewed by John Payne Since her 1996 duo set with Paul Bley on Something About Water (Libra), pianist-composer Satoko Fujii has led numerous groups in widely varied formats ranging from free jazz to avant-rock to new-music chamber works. The possessor of a most formidable set of playing chops, Fujii is an intellectually engaged […]

In Quiet Chorus: Mary Frank’s ¿Or Was It Like This? and Charles Burchfield’s Solitude

co-exhibiting at DC Moore Gallery, NYC (through February 8) Reviewed by John Haber Mary Frank is not just a visionary. Neither was Charles Burchfield, back when Modernism was just bringing art back to earth. Yet showing them together brings alive their most unearthly twentieth-century visions. Frank has always had an eye on planet earth. She studied […]

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