TERRIFYING: UN-COMMISSIONED STREET ART APPEARS IN OTHERWISE GRAFFITI-FREE SECTION OF AFFLUENT BEACH TOWN
Ocean Park is a relatively quiet, staid and beautiful neighborhood on the south side of Santa Monica, the iconic beach city and Los Angeles suburb. It’s an affluent part of town that lacks pretension. Showy displays of wealth or heavy glamour are rare. It’s clean and neat and has streetsContinue Reading
SPITEFUL COLORS: HOW ONE ARTIST THUMBED NOSE AT A MAJOR ART MUSEUM’S TRADITION
Artist Yunhee Min’s site-specific floor mural for Hammer Projects takes center stage at the Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles. Usually artists are commissioned for Hammer Projects to paint the walls along a grand staircase that connects the museum lobby to a mezzanine that leads to a courtyard and galleriesContinue Reading
SEX AND WAR: “UNKNOWN SOLDIER” EVOKES ANONYMOUS GOOD TIMES
Artist Sarah Lucas emerged in the 1990s as a so-called “YBA” (“Young British Artists”), one of a generation of British artists to capture the attention of the global art world. Her installation artwork pictured here is titled “Unknown Soldier” and is currently on view at the Hammer Museum of ArtContinue Reading
FOOD AS DECOR: THE “WALL OF DONUTS” MAKES US “HANGRY”
Do you ever see something really yummy when you’re hungry and get “hangry”? “Yes,” you say? Yes, you do? We knew it! Sometimes we do, too. Often times it’s while we’re hard at work at our office, super busy with barely a moment to spare between meetings to even thinkContinue Reading
GOING BIGGER: “LOVE BERTO” DOMINATES FAUX-URBAN LANDSCAPE IN L.A.
Here’s another one of these abstract, geometric murals by the artist Berto, who usually signs his work “LoveBerto.” His massive street-art works seem to be everywhere in Los Angeles, though his work can be found all over the world, including in New York, Berlin and in Sydney, Australia, where heContinue Reading
D.I.Y. A.F.: WHEN GRAFFITI SERVES THE PUBLIC GOOD
This dumpster at a popular beach in Southern California is covered with graffiti and stickers. The meaning of the graffiti is incomprehensible for most people, but for hardcore surfers familiar with this, it can be read as a signpost identifying a specific surf break amid the string of surf spotsContinue Reading
“OH, GREEN WORLD!”: THE TOWER OF PLANTS SHOCKS CITY DWELLERS WITH VISION OF VERDANT PARADISE
The plant-covered structure pictured here take the term “green building” to another level. The tower is one among several buildings that comprise The Row, a recent mixed-use, commercial urban re-development project that turned the former American Apparel factory and its surrounding area into a contemporary, walkable retail-dining-office complex on theContinue Reading
AMONG THE STELLAS, VOL. 3
We recently went to see a small but formidable collection of mostly paintings and some sculptural artwork by the iconic abstract-minimalist painter Frank Stella on view at the BCAM at LACMA in Los Angeles.
AMONG THE STELLAS, VOL. 2
And here’s another one, this one one of Frank Stella’s iconic minimal masterpieces.
AMONG THE STELLAS, VOL. 1
And here are some more Frank Stella paintings at LACMA in Los Angeles.
GUILTY PLEASURE: TERRACE HOUSE
We’ve stumbled upon a new obsession the past few months. This in addition to those our other obsessions regular readers may be familiar with: Surfing and espresso. What is this new vice? It’s a Japanese reality television show called Terrace House. You may have heard of Terrace House. If youContinue Reading
CATCHING THE “WAVE OF MATERIALS”: VIEWING ZHU JINSHI’S EPIC PAPER TUBE
Chinese artist Zhu Jinshi’s massive art installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (or LACMA) is a giant, imposing, vanilla-tinted wave. Made of traditional Chinese paper — about 8,000 sheets! – and suspended from the gallery ceiling with thicks string and weighted with ballast stones, Jinshi’s object possessesContinue Reading
MESMERIZING: SHORT-VIDEO “MULTIVERSE” CAPTURES THE SCOOTER-JAMMED TAIPEI
The short film “Multiverse” by Hiroshi Kondo is a mesmerizing visual document of the overwhelming scooter traffic in Taipei. The ubiquitous scooter is a staple, minimal and inexpensive mode of motorized transport in Taiwan’s capital. But the low-wattage aesthetic of a basic scooter becomes a deafening chorus when multiplied toContinue Reading
R.I.P. “ARCHITECTURE OF DENSITY” PHOTOGRAPHER MICHAEL WOLF
Rest In Peace, Michael Wolf. It was reported Monday that the Hong Kong-based German photographer had died at 65 years of age. His passing is a shock. Wolf was already an accomplished photojournalist living in China in the early 2000s when he started to turn his camera lens toward theContinue Reading
COLOR LOVER: THE SUPER-RAD MURALS OF ALBERONERO
We’ve never heard of Alberonero. Have you? No? We didn’t think so. But now we have, and you have, too. And we’re all the better for it. The artist’s building-scale abstract murals play with color palettes and geometric forms. These create the effect of colorful pixelation on the urban landscape.Continue Reading
DIGITALISM: LACMA LAUNCHES A NEW WEBSITE AND IT’S ABOUT F***ING TIME
Seriously, it took a while, but here it is, the new website of the esteemed Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a.k.a., LACMA, the crown jewel of the L.A. art world. It’s a much-improved site. The obvious biggest change is its design. Yhe user-interface ( UI ) design and itsContinue Reading