Est. 1992
Two giants of art, two great Modernists, Richard Serra and Frank Stella passed within a few weeks of each other in the Spring of 2024. There were many parallels in their careers but in this most hectic, political year, these passings give pause. Can art, considering the current climate, ever be apolitical again? Triumphantly apolitical? … Read more
The press release for Songs in the Key of Mard – the solo show of Nathaniel Mellors at The Box in Downtown L.A.’s Arts District – was a musical track, accessible through a QR code. Nathaniel Mellors plays with the words “press release,” repurposing the term into a call to action. The creative license taken … Read more
Some artists leave without a trace. Some artists meticulously trace their source material. Some cultures vanish without a trace. Some people trace their past to preserve it. Perhaps they trace the path they made last night to find something they lost or maybe they trace their roots or look back for a trace of some … Read more
Julia Rooney takes lyrical modernist painting into the 21st century with a meditation on pictorial depth in her BLUEPRINT solo show at Band of Vices.
It is a quirk, really, that oil on canvas is the gold standard of where the billionaires park their money to beat inflation. Paintings have a proven track record of lasting centuries when they are just left alone on a wall or in an attic. But the elemental truths that great paintings tell are not … Read more
The artist Robert Irwin, a colossal figure in reductive Modernism, died today at the age of 95. His list of accomplishments is almost as long as the demonstrable influence he had on how art itself is fabricated, displayed and revered. Here is one second-hand story of the man and a first-hand anecdote of my own. … Read more
A five-person panel at the los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art discussed the bygone days of the 1960s, 70s and 80s in the L.A. art scene.
One of the more frustrating fabulists to ever cross my path, Brady Westwater (born Ross Shockley) has died, reportedly after a lingering illness. He helped me out a few times in the 1990s, bought advertisements for friends in Coagula Art Journal as a way of lending me money and being “the good guy” in his … Read more
For five years I’ve painted private commissions, figured out what I have to say in my art now, kept a low profile and worked on recovering my physical health after adverse reactions to all the psych’ meds during my hospital years. It has felt like a long metamorphosis within the cocoon of the studio. But over … Read more
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RENOWNED ART COLLECTIVE CALIFORNIA LOCOS RELEASE BOOK RENAISSANCE AND REBELLION BY DRAGO PUBLISHER IN ROME The CALIFORNIA LOCOS, five Los Angeles artists whose work epitomizes West Coast culture, announce their final art events in L.A. for the foreseeable future ahead of a European tour that will take their exhibition schedule beyond the … Read more