|
Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
|
|
Interview with Parker Jones
by Michael Shaw
2009-04-07
ArtSlant’s Michael Shaw sat down with dealer Parker Jones in his new space in Chinatown –which was in the process of light renovation - just prior to Jones’ trip to New York for the Armory Show the following day.
Michael Shaw: So let’s start by tracing your gallery history going backwards - You’re now on the verge of opening your own gallery in Chinatown; your last position was director of Black Dragon Society [a half-block away from his own gallery, Parker Jones, in the former David... [more]
|
J & J Burger & Barbeque
by Ed Schad
Posted
4/5/09
J & J Burger & Barbecue
323-933-7366
5754 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Being Texan, I’ve struggled with Los Angeles bbq. I’ve become too devoted to the Memphis dry rub pork rib, the Chicago hot link, Carolina pulled pork, and of course, salt and pepper slow smoked Texas Brisket. The closest I’ve come to genuine L.A. bbq is Mr. Cecil’s California style rib (which is really, really good by the way). Mr. Cecil’s is good, a bit pricey, but it doesn’t feel like home. It is n... [more]
|
The Ballad That Becomes An Anthem
by Ed Schad
Mary Heilmann, Chris Martin, Rebecca Morris, Amy Sillman, Mary Weatherford, Stephen Westfall at ACME
March 21st, 2009 - April 18th, 2009
Posted
4/5/09
A word often used to describe Steven Westfall’s painting is “destabilization.” He often takes his understanding of various modernist tropes like the grid, the stripe, or the chevron and configures the shapes and colors to promote unsettling or slightly out of kilter effects. Westfall’s are jarring but visually exciting works. His curating, judging from his current effort at Acme, lives in the same world, drawn to painters known for their casual, rough and tumble, or at times jokey appr... [more]
|
Maureen Gallace at Michael Kohn Gallery
by Ed Schad
Maureen Gallace at Michael Kohn Gallery
March 21st, 2009 - May 23rd, 2009
Posted
4/5/09
People stumble all over themselves to explain Maureen Gallace. As Bruce Hainley put it in Frieze, with Gallace, we try to “yank her paintings away from any notion of the quaint.” Her canvases are tiny and her content is familiar – lonely Cape Cod houses, sunset beaches, and snowy landscapes. It seems almost perverse to like painting with such simple resonance and colloquial impulses. At the same time, however, though Gallace could easily slip into the realm of the sentimental or int... [more]
|
Tawanna Thai
by Catherine Wagley
Posted
3/29/09
Tawanna Thai
6236 Wilshire Blvd.Los Angeles, CA 90048Phone: 323-939-2450
Mon-Fri 11:00-10:00Sat-Sun 12:00-10:00
www.tawannathai.com
I love driving through Los Angeles because, every few blocks, I feel like I’m in a different city. There’s a little strip mall on Wilshire that enacts this LA phenomenon. A manicured Thai restaurant called Tawanna sits right next to a Subway, and the whole strip is made up of disparate, crammed-together shops. At Subway, the employees wear baseball c... [more]
|
Exposing/Imploding
by Catherine Wagley
Tierney Gearon at Ace Gallery- Beverly Hills
February 19th, 2009 - April 25th, 2009
Posted
3/29/09
I have been trying, for the past week, to teach myself how to articulate what I felt when I saw Tierney Gearon’s Explosures. But I am still at a loss. I can say, quite simply, that Gearon’s photographs twist archetypes in a way that is both poignant and unnerving. I can also say that the many images—over thirty—hung in Ace’s Beverly Hills galleries are too many, and that I would have preferred to see fewer so that I could look at each without being distracted by the rest.... [more]
|
Raising the Verdugo Bar
by Jeff Baird
Posted
3/28/09
Verdugo Bar3408 Verdugo Rd.Los Angeles, CA. 90065(323) 257 – 3408open 8pm – 2am dailyHarnessing the good, blocking the bad: Verdugo Bar manages to keep it classy while bleeping out the sass and pretense of many an Angeleno bar.You won’t spot this nightspot by any neon distraction, and Paris Hilton sightings be damned. The bar’s unassuming “Cocktail” signage in the sub-suburb of Glassell Park smacks of the album cover for The Good Life’s Help Wanted Nights; how fitting, as frontman Tim K... [more]
|
Iamthewalrus at Blum & Poe
by Jeff Baird
Dave Muller at Blum & Poe
February 21st, 2009 - April 4th, 2009
Posted
3/28/09
Regardless of whether Muller sits well on your prefrontal palate, Timothy Blum and Jeff Poe have created an ideal setting to display his work. A small haven for art nestled in a less-than-idyllic locale just south of the 10 freeway at La Cienega, the gallery itself is a macrocosm of the aesthetic it contains, with its plainness and position giving just the right nudge to focus on the art while it compliments a dichotomy present in many of Muller’s pieces. The first piece presented sets the pace: Oh... [more]
|
South of the Border goes West of the Pacific
by Gina Clover
Posted
3/15/09
Korean BBQ takes on the Taco Truck
The taco trucks of LA have long been regarded as one of our city’s greatest treasures and finest institutions. Standing at the taco truck, we are all equals. We are all bound together by our love for convenient street food and Mexican seasonings.
But like most things in LA, it will inevitably gentrify, become more upscale and, in some cases, this is a fantastic thing. Because now in our great city, we are lucky enough to have a Korean BBQ taco tr... [more]
|
The Grecian Formula
by Gina Clover
Elliott Hundley at Regen Projects
March 7th, 2009 - April 4th, 2009
Posted
3/15/09
“Hekabe”, Elliott Hundley’s first solo show for Regen Projects, takes its name from the eponymous, violent Greek tragedy by Euripedes, and Hundley visually updates this chaotic theme with disparate, striking installations, both classic and contemporary, his-toric and timely.
The cleanest and slickest part of the exhibit greets you in the lobby, which features seven stunning lightbox photographs. Carefully staged and costumed, these subjects represent the characters of... [more]
|
Optical Electroclash
by Gina Clover
Patterson Beckwith at Mesler&Hug
February 20th, 2009 - March 21st, 2009
Posted
3/15/09
Dark and electric, minimal and explosive, it’s hard to not have a visceral reaction to the incendiary images of Patterson Beckwith at his second solo show for Mesler & Hug. The evocative images are called “strobographs, meaning that each event is photo-graphed up to six times as it elapses.”
Everyday objects are given the fast track to entropy in this vibrant display of high-speed photography. Beckwith has captured multiple exposures within a half second’s time, allowi... [more]
|
Howard's Famous Bacon and Avocado Burgers
by Greg Stacy
Posted
3/9/09
11127 Venice Blvd., Culver City
(310) 838-9111
We can't guarantee you'll enjoy a magic evening at Howard's Famous Bacon and Avocado Burgers. The place is tucked away in a slightly scuzzy strip mall on Venice Blvd., and the food goes through cycles of awesome and bland. For a year every turkey burger tastes like it was grilled by Jesus himself, but then they'll hit three solid months of burgers that aren't much better than the stuff they served you in the cafeteria back in elementary school. As a... [more]
|
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Mors Voluntaria and Other Misfortunes
by Greg Stacy
Gavin Bunner at Tinlark Gallery
February 28th, 2009 - March 28th, 2009
Posted
3/9/09
As an Angeleno you've probably driven by Crossroads of the World on Sunset Blvd. a thousand times, briefly wondered what was up with that crazy globe monument out front that looks like some relic of a long-gone world's fair, and then went home and forgotten all about it. Well, it's time to stop wondering and go down to the Crossroads. Behind those ornate gates you'll discover an office park that looks like Geppeto's storybook village, centered around a building that's shaped like a '30s movie st... [more]
|
In With the Out crowd
by Greg Stacy
JOHN VAN HAMERSVELD at Subliminal Projects
March 6th, 2009 - April 4th, 2009
Posted
3/9/09
Given all that he's done, it's kind of amazing that you've never heard of John Van Hamersveld. It's not unlikely you grew up with one of his images taped to the wall of your bedroom. This remarkable graphic artist designed instantly recognizable album covers for bands ranging from the Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour) and the Rolling Stones (Exile On Main Street) to Blondie and Public Image. He also created the poster for the 1964 surf movie classic Endless Summer and he even designed the Fatburge... [more]
|
Prime Real Estate
by Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
Penelope Gottlieb at Kim Light / LightBox
January 24th, 2009 - March 7th, 2009
Posted
2/23/09
Penelope Gottlieb's installation, NO $ DOWN, is both playful and somber. The installation is comprised of monochrome drawings, in frames matching the color in each drawing, all placed salon style around a fake fireplace. The fire in the fireplace lights up as if it were real and the gallery space is made to feel like an odd, kitsch representation of a living room. Gottlieb depicts, in simple, semi realistic colored pencil drawings, homes that represent the stereotype of the American dream... [more]
|
Materiality and Hidden Meaning
by Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
Jennifer West at Marc Foxx
February 14th, 2009 - March 14th, 2009
Posted
2/23/09
Even before investigating what these short films are about and how they were made, they are intriguing, beautiful and mesmerizing. Projected on all four walls in the gallery, Jennifer West's abstracted films light up the space with streaks of color. Each film, taken one at a time, commands attention. Reminiscent of earlier experimental film, the four pieces are highly abstracted with the apparent use of other materials on top of the film. West's films combine classic abstraction and... [more]
|
The Echo Curio
by Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
Posted
2/23/09
I noticed it for the first time when I was driving down Sunset and saw an unusual gathering of people. It's just a little storefront, but aside from drawings, paintings and prints on the walls, it looks pretty vacant from the street. Much of the artwork is self described as "outsider" or "fringe" and the rest is affordable handmade merchandise (silk screened items, CDs, etc.). What is nice about this place, is that it also hosts concerts, film festivals and other events. Visit the website fo... [more]
|
Interview with Melanie Schiff
by Ed Schad
2009-02-16
Feb. 2009 - Melanie Schiff's photographs often have haunting atmospheres, where activities and people in the past have an oblique but powerful presence. Working mostly through allusion, Schiff uses a number of sources, from art history to legend to personal circumstance, to find moments seemingly caught between history and the beautiful fleeting moments of the present. A great example is her Water Birth, 2006. In the photo, the viewer finds a bathtub containing a large leafy plant stretching its arms tow... [more]
|
Gleaners Stone
by Michael Shaw
Posted
2/15/09
I never would have seen it if I hadn’t known exactly where to look, and it’s only a few blocks from where I live. Make your way to the intersection of Inglewood and Washington in Mar Vista/Culver City, and head a half block east, where you’ll find it just off the NE corner. It’s called Gleaners Stone, and it’s a 92 x 44 x 30 inch rectangular block of studio detritus encased in urethane: a vintage ViewMaster circular reel along with assorted woods, foams, plastics,... [more]
|
Becca Mann at Roberts & Tilton
by Michael Shaw
Becca Mann at Roberts & Tilton
January 10th, 2009 - March 21st, 2009
Posted
2/15/09
It’s a safe bet that Becca Mann isn’t a descendant of the Russian imperial dynasty members that she depicts, but after having lived with this group of aristocrats – the Romanovs, the Cheremis – while completing the paintings and drawings that make up this body of work, she’s certainly injected new life into their memory. Mann has transformed the archival photos of her chosen era - turn of the 20th century Russia – with the similar Victorian-esque, light/white-washed aesthetic she’d br... [more]
|
Farrah Karapetian at Sandroni.Rey
by Michael Shaw
Farrah Karapetian at Sandroni.Rey
January 24th, 2009 - February 14th, 2009
Posted
2/15/09
Photograms are alive and well in Farrah Karapetian’s world. Her Tragic Muse installation was composed of nine sheets of 8’x2’ photo paper pinned to the wall with roughly six-inch gaps between them. The artist herself stands stiffly in the central panel, a contact print (the only non-photogram of the nine) from a negative roughly 2/3 her actual size (it makes one wonder how big negatives get); while friends/colleagues, in silhouettes both clear and blurred, bright whi... [more]
|
It's All in the Neighborhood
by Catherine Wagley
Posted
2/2/09
When I walked into the Ruskin Theatre last Saturday, to hear Richard Hertz read from his new book at Art LA, I was floored by how many people I recognized -32 bodies in the room and I could name 7 of them. Then, when Hertz began moving through his various narratives-The Beat and the Buzz: Inside the L.A. Art World includes a slew of narratives from people who have shaped the LA art world since 1970. The 30-plus people featured talk a lot about Walter Hopps and eccentricity (Jim Hayward: "I've al... [more]
|
65 and Counting
by Catherine Wagley
Group Show at Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery (Scripps College)
January 20th, 2007 - April 8th, 2007
Posted
2/2/09
The two traditional craftsmen depicted on the massive sign outside Scripps College's Williamson Gallery are hard at work, sculpting ceramic masterpieces that promise to look a lot like what we usually imagine such masterpieces to look like: formally pristine vessels that share an aesthetic sensibility with Brancusi.
For 65 years, Scripps College has honored ceramic art and this year's annual exhibition confronts the medium's stigmas head-on, suggesting that its baggage only ad... [more]
|
Curiosity Kills Couture
by Catherine Wagley
Marianne Mueller at Kim Light / LightBox
January 24th, 2009 - March 7th, 2009
Posted
2/2/09
There are no faces in Marianne Mueller's photographs. The Swiss artist shoots thighs, arms, breasts, legs, sheets, shoes, poles, and bathtubs, but leaves eyes, noses, and mouths out of the picture. It's a brilliantly simple move.
Every nuance of Mueller's newest exhibition at Kim Light/Lightbox evokes the shape and weight of a body-even images of microphones or piping feel like they're waiting to be filled by a living, breathing figure. Yet without facial expressions to pin down i... [more]
|
In Case You Missed It
by Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
at artLA 2011
January 23rd, 2009 - January 25th, 2009
Posted
1/28/09
In case you missed the fair, here are some pics of the booths.
[more]
|
Mountain Bar at ART LA
by Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
Posted
1/26/09
Jorge Pardo rebuilt the Mountain Bar in a tent adjacent to the Barker Hangar to quench the thirst (and to loosen up) the collectors, public and exhibitors at ART LA. The Mountain Bar, located in Chinatown, functions as both an art installation and a bar. Although I expected a direct recreation of the dark and brooding bar that I am familiar with, the space just didn't allow for it. The bar was certainly not just a simple bar set up for the purpose of serving customers; the bar was striking in... [more]
|
In These Times
by Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
at artLA 2011
January 23rd, 2009 - January 25th, 2009
Posted
1/26/09
The weekend is over and the booths are being disassembled as we speak. In it's first year at the Barker Hanger, ART LA found a more accessible home, but other than that, not much else changed. It's a tough year for art fairs, as fewer people want to shell out the big bucks for anything, let alone hundreds of thousands or more objects that they can't justify as necessary. Many galleries scaled back and presented works that were more affordable, such as $200 modified album covers at... [more]
|
Bar Cinema
by Ed Schad
Posted
1/19/09
Cinema Bar
3967 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, Ca 90230
310-3901328
www.cinemabar.net
Bar Cinema’s distinction of being the “world’s smallest honky tonk” may be self-applied, but that does not erase the obvious -- it is a very small place, basically a few tables, a small band stand, and a short but comfortable bar marked with a bumper sticker that simply says “Willie.” For those uninitiated to all things country, take in one of dozens of great country acts on Cinema’s gre... [more]
|
Eileen Quinlan at Overduin and Kite
by Ed Schad
Eileen Quinlan at Overduin and Kite
December 14th, 2008 - January 24th, 2009
Posted
1/19/09
Eileen Quinlan lives in New York but works in a vein of photography gaining momentum all over the world, namely photography that abandons or foregoes digital or technological methods in order to return to the raw mechanics of the photographic process. This photography uses the “stuff” of the photography whether it is film, chemicals, light, and the mechanisms of camera itself as invitations to experimentation. An artist may overexpose a photograph for a conceptual purpose. They may direc... [more]
|
Lecia Dole-Recio at Richard Telles
by Ed Schad
Lecia Dole-Recio at Richard Telles Fine Art
January 10th, 2009 - February 28th, 2009
Posted
1/19/09
Included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Lecia Dole-Recio is known for working primarily with vellum, paper, tape, and gouche making constellational fields of geometric patterns. She admits to being impacted by artists like Julie Meretu and Matthew Ritchie at the time and the work used to seem very much in the vein of what may be called painting of information systems and entropy. However, Dole-Recio is very much a formalist at heart, prompting Peter Schjeldahl to say that she “g... [more]
|
|
|
|
|
|
add to mylist
email this artist
report abuse
contact us for help