December, 2015

Chris Johanson: Equations at Altman Siegel

Given the cartoonlike basis of most of his portrayals, the slackerly compositions, and the seeming arbitrariness of the surface textures of the paint he uses so dynamically as a set of color choices (seemingly clumsy elements that have often been similarly deployed by other artists who might pass as “outsider,” however relative that term might be), the question arises as to why Johanson chooses to so often paint rather than draw. In these pieces Johanson doubles down on painting in several ways: first, through the large scale of several of the scenes, as with Lecture Series/Abstract Mass, and the bleak consumer composite suburbia of Los Angeles with Pills. Johanson paints on repurposed wood panels and displays most of his work in awkward, large, built wooden armatures to show off both fronts and backs equally (as he has done even more elaborately in installations elsewhere). This prominently shows off the wooden buttressing behind the panels, which he also highlights with “secondary” paintings on the reverse. These include what look like a series of painted geometric doodles mosaic’d on the back of one larger composition, a simple set of color fields of darker and lighter brown parceled out by the different wood elements themselves, and what looks like a beginning painted sketch of an abstract landscape not so dissimilar to what might show up elsewhere as just one among many background components in a “primary” or finished painting by Johanson on the front of one of his panels.

Today from our partners at Art Practical, we bring you Brian Karl’s review of Equations at Altman Siegel Gallery in San Francisco. The author notes, “Johanson eschews in this set of paintings the strategy of inserting text directly into the worlds he creates. The titles of the pieces do some of that work.” This article was originally published on November 30, 2015. In this exhibition of ten new works (all[…..]

La Polis Imagi-nada at El Quinto Piso

Liz Misterio. El regreso de Ana Suromal, 2015 (action-art still); action-art and video projection. Courtesy of the artist and El Quinto Piso, Mexico D.F. Photo: Liz Misterio.

What is a city? How can it be conceptualized? How does one create oneself within that geographic and symbolic space? These questions frame the most recent show at El Quinto Piso, La Polis Imagi-nada. The curatorial statement talks about the polis and civic participation in theoretical terms, but the exhibit situates these concepts firmly within the symbolic and geographic realities of Mexico City. El Quinto[…..]

Lawren Harris: The Idea of North at the Hammer Museum

Lawren Harris. North Shore, Lake Superior, 1926; oil on canvas; 40.25 x 50.13 in. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada. ©Family of Lawren S. Harris. Photo: ©NGC.

“You need to understand, Patricia, that every Canadian recognizes these paintings,” so explained my friend and guide, a native Torontonian, as we walked through The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris at the Hammer Museum. “Canadians who have no other art-historical point of reference know who the Group of Seven are.” This school of early 20th-century Canadian landscape painters occupies the periphery of[…..]

Help Desk: Culture and Compensation

Help Desk is an arts-advice column that demystifies practices for artists, writers, curators, collectors, patrons, and the general public—and today we’re celebrating our 100th installment! Submit your questions anonymously here. All submissions become the property of Daily Serving. The problem: sincere offers, from sweet, well-intended people, to show my work without compensation. The result: My polite refusal is taken as a slight and I’m sometimes thought of[…..]

An Evening Redness in the West at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

Andrea Carlson. Ink Babel, 2014; ink and oil on paper; 115 x 183 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Bockley Gallery.

Shotgun Reviews are an open forum where we invite the international art community to contribute timely, short-format responses to an exhibition or event. If you are interested in submitting a Shotgun Review, please click this link for more information. In this Shotgun Review, Alicia Guzmán reviews An Evening Redness in the West at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, NM. When viewers enter An Evening[…..]

Nicole Cherubini: Golden Specific at Samson Projects

From our friends at Big Red & Shiny, today we present a review of Nicole Cherubini’s exhibition Golden Specific. Author Zach Horn notes, “The sculptures in Golden Specific are emphatically contemporary but with significant history, like the punky offspring of a storied dynasty.” This article was originally published on November 23, 2015. Golden Specific, Nicole Cherubini’s exhibition at Samson Projects, is meditative. The gallery’s white box is punctuated[…..]

Interview with Nick Cave

Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2015; Mixed media. Courtesy of Shreveport Regional Arts Council. Photo: Casey Jones.

Shreveport is a border town at the crossroads of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. The city is known for its musical history—the term “Elvis has left the building” was coined there. But Shreveport also suffers from crippling issues of injustice. Shreveport prosecutors use peremptory challenges to bar people of color from juries, and juries in Caddo Parish “now sentence more people to death per capita than[…..]