It’s quiz times once again, savvy readers! Look at these photos. Is this a Home Depot or an art museum? If you said art museum, you are correct. The third photo in this post is the giveaway and the wall placard in the first photo is a clue that thisContinue Reading
“Now I’m Going to Tell You Everything” is the title of this site-mural at the recently opened Institute of Contemporary Art, or ICA, in Los Angeles. The painting is by L.A.-based artist Sarah Cain, and it fills what otherwise might be an unremarkable empty dead space in an exterior courtyardContinue Reading
These paintings by artist Ellen Gallagher speak to us in deep, immediate, profound ways. The black abstractions of these canvases are beguiling in their darkness and textures. They change hue and tone as the viewer inches closer to the artwork and the reflection of light off the surface of oilContinue Reading
Street art often provides many unanswered questions, not only about the artwork itself, but also who created it. There’s seldom clear authorship for most street art and usually no contextual information about the artwork or artist in the way there is for in a museum of gallery. That can make itContinue Reading
A funny thing about “art.” Sometimes the happiest of aesthetic accidents happen as a consequence of totally non-artistic impulses. Take as prima facie example the case of the roller-shutter pictured above. It’s on a warehouse-factory building in the rapidly gentrifying Downtown Los Angeles neighborhood dubbed the Arts District. It’s aContinue Reading
Look, savvy reader! Look at the photo above! See that tiny wheat-pasted street artwork of a poodle-like canine waltzing down the pavement seeming to give zero fucks but in a totally oblivious, entitled way? Ahhhhh …. cuuuuuuuuute, right?!?!? Look again, look carefully. Is that a dollop of poop nonchalantlyContinue Reading
We were were recently walking down the street in the Arts District near Downtown Los Angeles (a.k.a., DTLA). We were upbeat, bright-eyed, walking with a spring in our step, as one might say, practically skipping along the pavement and doing this all while scrolling through the email inbox onContinue Reading
Art can do many things. It can provoke, teach, offend, inform, comfort, inspire, scare, stimulate and bond us. Street art, can possibly do even more things. Its public nature — in “the streets” — gives it more reach and exposure to a much larger, broader audience than most of theContinue Reading
The “Judith” in question here is artist Judith Bernstein. The roller shutter with her name painted on it in a rough handwritten style is at the influential art gallery the Box in the Art District of Los Angeles, where Bernstein has had many exhibitions.
There’s a pattern of tell-tale signs that indicate that a once-undesireable neighborhood is undergoing gentrification. One of these signs is the changing nature of street art, and, more tellingly, the arrival of public art. Although street art is kind of constant throughout the gentrification process, it’s usually in abundance inContinue Reading
On the surface, the sentiment seems straightforward, sensible and pleasantly righteous enough: “Stop making stupid people famous.” That sounds like a great idea. After almost two decades of Hiltons, Karadashians, a Richie, assorted “House Wives of …” and bearded redneck dynasties AND Honey Boo Boo, as well as countless reality showsContinue Reading
German artist Isa Genzken’s “Rose III” giant rose sculpture at the Los Angeles outpost of the Hauser & Wirth gallery in the Arts District in Downtown LA. Another version of “Rose” was for a while installed on the exterior of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.
The post-industrial urban landscape of the Arts District near Downtown Los Angeles is full of wide walls practically begging to be covered with epic street art. The photo-realistic mural pictured here is one of many in the neighborhood that take full advantage of large, empty wall space.
The ever-gentrifying Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles is home to lots of large-scale street art, including this classic Shepard Fairey politically-tinged mural on Alameda Street behind the Angel City Brewery. The artwork depicts the late U.S. president Ronald Reagan holding a sign that says “Legislative influence for sale.” ItsContinue Reading
We’re not religious. But museums are our cathedrals, our churches and temples, our shrines. MoMA may be the modern art world’s Vatican, but in terms of pure open space, MoCA’s Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles comes closest to a giant cathedral like Notre Dame with its massive, cavernous structure. We’reContinue Reading
This glowing, LED-illuminated sculpture of an old-school pay phone is by artist Doug Aitken. It’s titled “Twilight,” and it’s absolutely sublime. The artwork is one of dozens upon dozens of works by Aitken currently on view as part of his “Electric Earth” retrospective at MOCA Los Angeles. The exhibition is aContinue Reading
Black-and-white photo-realistic portraits on the exterior wall of Zinc Cafe, near Willow and Mateo streets in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District. These artworks are part of a series that run along the entire wall. The area has become a bit of a mecca for street art — and artContinue Reading
This wheat-pasted stenciled artwork by the artist who goes by the moniker “Esoteric Truth” can be found near the corner of Mateo and Willow streets in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District.