Jonathan Griffin

Jonas Wood

Jungle Kitchen, 2017. Photo by Brian Forrest; courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky gallery.

In the art world I thought I knew, no one would publicly admit to an interest in golf, least of all a young painter who was just making his name. But that is exactly what Jonas Wood did, a decade ago, when he made a painting of the golf course in Glendale where he was learning to play. Now, 10 years later, he is revisiting the subject in his latest show at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, which will take over both spaces (and viewing room) of the imposing gallery in November. It does not matter to Wood that the subject of these paintings is the squarest, most buttoned-up, bourgeois weekend pastime going. Read the rest of this entry »

October 24, 2017

Jimmie Durham

Elements from the Actual World

Malinche, 1988–92, guava, pine branches, oak, snakeskin, polyester bra soaked in acrylic resin and painted gold, watercolor, cactus leaf, canvas, cotton cloth, metal, rope, feathers, plastic jewelry, glass eye, 70 by 23⅝ by 35 inches. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent. Photo Dirk Pauwels.

Hello! I’m Jimmie Durham. I want to explain a few basic things about myself: in 1986 I was 46 years old. As an artist I am confused about many things, but basically my health is good and I am willing and able to do a wide variety of jobs. I am actively seeking employment.¹

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October 21, 2017

Dear Martín Ramírez,

Untitled (Train and Tunnel), c. 1960–63 Gouache, colored pencil, and graphite on pieced paper, 13 × 32 ½ in. Collection of Mary Lee Copp and Peter Formanek. Copyright: Estate of Martín Ramírez/courtesy Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York

We never met – you died before I was born. We would have had little in common anyway, probably, except that we both ended up in California, far from where we were born. I choose to stay here. For you, held against your will in psychiatric hospitals that were no better than prisons, there was no choice. Read the rest of this entry »

October 20, 2017

Primordial Saber Tararear Proverbiales Sílabas Tonificantes Para Sublevar Tecnocracias Pero Seguir Tenazmente Produciendo Sociedades Tántricas – Pedro Salazar Torres (Partido Socialista Trabajador)

Regen Projects, Los Angeles

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In the large main gallery at Regen Projects, jam-packed with artworks large and small by 21 artists and pasted from floor to ceiling with colourful reproductions from an illustrated world map, the first thing likely to catch your eye on entering is a belch of orange flame at the back of the room. Indoors, especially, fire is hard to ignore. Read the rest of this entry »

October 20, 2017

Zarouhie Abdalian

LAXART, Los Angeles RVD_2903_v1_WEB

Where lies the distinction between the words ‘touch’ and ‘hit’? If you’re thinking that the difference is a question of impact, doesn’t it depend on the materials involved? Touching a butterfly’s wing with your finger is more damaging than hitting an elephant’s hide with your hand, for example. Are tactility and physical harm just two ends of a sliding sensorial scale? Read the rest of this entry »

September 25, 2017

Andrea Zittel

Photograph: Jonathan Griffin

Despite first appearances, the southern Mojave Desert is neither empty, nor still, nor quiet. I spent 24 hours in one of artist Andrea Zittel’s off-the-grid Experimental Living Cabins, in remote Wonder Valley east of Twentynine Palms, and I came to realize that the more you remove, the more the world brims with incident and activity. Read the rest of this entry »

September 24, 2017

Alessandro Pessoli

Alessandro Pessoli, A-P Backyard, 2017, Oil, acrylic, spray paint, soft pastels on canvas, 98 x 75 inches

It’s just the most meaningless title for a radio show. And don’t even get me started on Jason Bentley, the dreariest voice on KCRW and the presenter of the morning music program, Morning Becomes Eclectic. (Fine, I admit, I listen to it most days and, yes, I sometimes enjoy his music selections.) Alessandro Pessoli has taken Morning Becomes Eclectic as the title for his exhibition at Marc Foxx, which mercifully has none of the middle-of-the-road radio show’s milquetoast inclusivity. In four sculptures (two of them mobiles), four paintings, and two groups of drawings, Pessoli materializes a singularly piquant vision of his inner life.

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July 20, 2017

Jim Shaw

Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles

Jim Shaw, ‘The Wig Museum’, Installation view at Marciano Art Foundation, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Marciano Art Foundation. Photograph by Robert Wedemeyer

At the dark heart of Jim Shaw’s ‘The Wig Museum’ – an exhibition presented in a former Masonic Temple repurposed by brothers Maurice and Paul Marciano for their private art foundation, and incorporating myriad improbable Masonic artefacts salvaged directly from the bowels of the building – is a story about male ambition, authority, secrecy and repression. The narrative unfurls across a series of found drawings: coursework from ‘The Famous Artist’s Correspondence Course’, which Shaw discovered among his father’s belongings after he died. In red crayon on tracing paper overlays, instructors opine on Shaw Sr.’s drawings of animals, faces and women (lots of women). ‘Heads need to be longer, prettier,’ says one. Typewritten letters, dated 1955 to 1957, critique – in detail – the artist’s technical weaknesses. Apparently, Mark Shaw never gave up his day job doing package design for Dow Chemical. Read the rest of this entry »

July 19, 2017

Chadwick Rantanen

Team Bungalow, Los Angeles

Chadwick Rantanen, Deer Rear, 2017, installation view Team Bungalow, Los Angeles

The pall of death hangs over Chadwick Rantanen’s exhibition ‘Alarmer’. This is ironic because many of the constituent objects in his assemblage sculptures are expressly designed to simulate life. Battery-operated hunting decoys flap their wings and wag their tails in order to attract animals that are living (though soon to be dead). Read the rest of this entry »

June 13, 2017

Mark Bradford

Mark Bradford, Black Venus, 2005, mixed-media collage, 330 × 498 cm. Photo: Jason Dewey. © the artist. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, London & Los Angeles

It was a stupid question anyway. Something about having success and opportunity and yet continuing to experiment, still taking risks. Though he has made sculptures, videos and site-specific installations, Mark Bradford was first celebrated, early in his career, for his panoramic, expressively exhausted collage-paintings made from sanded strata of coloured paper, which were almost always understood as reflecting the gritty streetscape of South Central Los Angeles. A long Los Angeles Times profile from 2006, a decade after he graduated from art school, describes him as a ‘hometown boy made good on the international art scene’. His first solo show at a major commercial gallery was in 2001, at Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York, sassily titled I Don’t Think You Ready For This Jelly. Since then his work has climbed in value, shored up by solid institutional support – a professional status reflected this year in his representation of the United States at the Venice Biennale. Read the rest of this entry »