On October 8th, LACMA opened Contemporary Projects 11: Hard Targets–Sports and Masculinity, a survey exploring the intersection of masculinity and sports in contemporary culture and artistic practices. Curated by Christopher Bedford (himself a player of rugby and American football), the show poses athleticism not in diametric opposition to artistic expression, but rather as a kind of male-dominated theatrical spectacle of gender performance. In Bedford’s accompanying[…..]

The Soft Epic; Savages of the Pacific West is a monumental video and audio installation that is currently on view at Telic Arts Exchange on Chung King Rd. in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Philadelphia-based artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib have collaborated on this five-projection work collaged with vast contemporary references of cultural anxiety, urban decay and epic sci-fi movie excerpts to create an entirely new[…..]

Ryan Trecartin casts, directs, films, edits, and often stars in full-length videos that are based on the proliferation of video documentation of today’s youth culture, primarily through the channel of YouTube. The artist has recently been acclaimed by Artnews as “the Matthew Barney of the digital generation,” referencing his surrealistic and sometimes disorienting use of scenery, costume, makeup, and characters. The artist successfully captures the[…..]

A conceptual video work by acclaimed artist, Bill Viola is currently on display at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Entitled The Tristan Project: Fall into Paradise, the work was created in response to the Celtic tale of Tristan and Isolde. Viola created four hours of video footage to accompany an operatic production of the legend that was directed by Peter Sellars. From[…..]

A collection of works by acclaimed Chinese conceptual artist, Ai Weiwei is currently on show at Sherman galleries, Paddington. The display, entitled Under Construction focuses primarily on two artworks by the artist. The installation piece named Through fills the entire exhibition room and is comprised of fragments of tables and temple pillars that date back from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Weiwei has reconstructed them so[…..]

The photography, video and performance works of artist Kelly Nipper proclaim the material proof that is inherent to photography and lens-based media at a time when most artists are determined to prove the falsities of the medium. Nipper explores the human relation to time, space and dimension, usually carried out through the choreographed acts of her subjects. The artist often works against normal photographic expectations,[…..]

Galerie Michael Janssen is currently showing a three person exhibition titled Heaven, Hollywood, and Hitchcock until June 14th. Tom Allen, Kristian Burford, and Christoph Steinmeyer are all interested in mixing motifs and media culled from the history of film and European painting traditions. Los Angeles-based artist Tom Allen references works from the German Romanticist and European Baroque traditions of painting and then transforms this imagery[…..]