Flip through any Mike Kelley catalog and you’re likely to find a plethora of images that show the artist to be a maker of videos, installations, and objects that betray what critic Jerry Saltz once described as “clusterfuck aesthetics“. So it may be a surprise to view the relatively straightforward Arenas at Skarstedt Gallery, comprised of seven out of the eleven works from the original[…..]
L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley The poet Frederick Seidel once received a death threat. It came via answering machine, in the form of a message left by a young woman. In a breathy voice, the woman said, “Frederick Seidel . . . Frederick Seidel . . . you think you’re going to live. You think you’re going[…..]
Foreclosed is the kind of show that makes it seem advantageous for artists to also be craftsmen. In contrast to the parallel movements of “post-skill art” on one hand and “sloppy craft” on the other, Alison Elizabeth Taylor‘s marquetry pieces at James Cohan Gallery are constructed with incredible skill. And—when materials connect meaningfully with imagery—they are outstanding examples of art that satisfyingly integrates workmanship and[…..]
Is it true belief’s unyielding determination that redeems and protects? This question lies at the heart of Brent Green‘s solo exhibition Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then at Andrew Edlin Gallery. The issue of belief occupies both Green and the man whose work provided the inspiration for the project. The story goes like this: a man named Leonard Wood once built a house entirely by hand[…..]
L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley A show with as defeatist a title as Permission to Fail should be anything but healthy. Yet “healthy” nicely describes Macha Suzuki’s unpretentious installation at Sam Lee Gallery. Stationed at the intersection between ambivalence and ambition, Permission to Fail rejects the fragmented nostalgia and aimless grandiosity that has infected too much recent[…..]
The art world. It’s way more serious and important than every other industry! This thinking at least seems to persist even though the field of contemporary art has maintained an open flirtation with its sassy sister, the fashion industry, since long before even Andy Warhol trotted his wacky wigs around Studio 54 with the likes of Diane von Fürstenberg. There is a mutual fascination between[…..]
In William Gibson‘s 1986 novel Count Zero, an abandoned but sentient AI robot composes art objects from detritus found in space. Despite being built by a computer from discards and rubbish, these objects have a deeply human gravity—both a grace and a yearning for grace—and are highly prized. It is precisely this evocative use of materials and imagery that Isa Genzken gives us in[…..]
