Jonathan Griffin

Criticism and essays on art and culture

Month: November, 2017

November 15, 2017

Ricky Swallow and Lesley Vance

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Lesley Vance, Untitled, 2016, oil on linen, 29 x 22 x 1 inches, Courtesy David Kordansky Gallery

Step out the door of Ricky Swallow and Lesley Vance’s new studio in Burbank, California, and you come face to face with the largest Ikea store in the United States. The blue and yellow behemoth was not there in October 2015, when the artists bought the former green screen manufacturing facility, but today, as they finish the renovation of the building and begin to unpack boxes of tools, materials and artworks, the store has been drawing crowds of shoppers since February. Read the rest of this entry »

November 7, 2017

Dysfunctional Formulas of Love

The Box, Los Angeles"Dysfunctional Formulas of Love", Curated with Corazón Del Sol and Víctor Albarracín Llanos, at The Box Gallery, Los Angeles, 18 September, 2017

If your first associations with Colombia are cocaine, paramilitary violence, and the rapacious plunder of natural resources by neo-colonialist corporations, then you are only half right, according to this spirited, unkempt, and organizationally flawed exhibition of Colombian artists at The Box, Los Angeles. Along with all these clichés (eagerly resold to Western audiences through film and television), Colombia is a society of familial warmth and communal resilience, a place where humor, love, and magic play important roles in the survival of its people. Read the rest of this entry »