Est. 1992
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
There was an Anselm Keifer solo show entitled EXODUS at Gagosian Gallery on Wilshire in Los Angeles. The expansive space was once a private museum owned by two sleezy union-busting pieces of trash but is now this commercial gallery. As overwhelmed by the spectacle of fabrication as one might get, my attempts to write about … Read more
We went by Randi’s studio in downtown LA. Right in the heart of it. Seventh and Main, where U2 played on the roof in 1987. She had been working in her garage across town for a few years and the work she made there, painting and drawing, was on small and medium surfaces – but … Read more
Transgressive at Roswell Space presents two different visions of the natural world, creating wonderful dynamics between Susan Joseph’s sensuous, immersive paintings, and the almost clinical ink and watercolor studies by Andrea Bersaglieri. The evocative tension of the two bodies of work call to mind Northern European botanical studies of the last several hundred years, particularly … Read more
“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey Inevitably, an artist is described in a few words. Male artists who are unconventional or controversial are enfant terribles. They can be handsome, like Marlon Brando. Or conventionally unattractive – think Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Paul … Read more