L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A column by Catherine Wagley I was slapped by a child named Sam who must have been 4 years old the last time I visited Friederich Kunath’s show Lacan’s Haircut at Blum & Poe. Sam was playing with his sister on the bright yellow carpet in the first gallery — each subsequent gallery has bright carpet too, orange[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley On January 5th, 2nd Cannons Publications, artist Brian Kennon’s publishing venture, sent out a press release. It announced “the last exhibition in our Chinatown project space/vitrine,” a small closet-sized enclave at 510 Bernard St. with a glass sliding door. 2nd Cannons has been hosting miniature shows there for the past 3 years.[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley Around 1970, painter David Hockney was in London feeling listless. Or at least he was according to Jack Hazan’s 1974 documentary, A Bigger Splash, which portrays Hockney as a lovesick, indecisive genius. The original NYTimes review of Hazan’s film called it “unforgivably solemn, something that Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey would never[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley Stop motion lends itself to stilted narratives about creativity. Some of the earliest films for which the frame-by-frame technique was used tell stories about eccentric characters making something almost as eccentric as themselves. In Thomas Edison’s 1902 project, Fun in a Bakery, a baker smothers a rat he sees with a glob[…..]