LOS ANGELES — What does it mean to be an LA artist? This is the question that curators Aram Moshayedi and Hamza Walker came up against when organizing the Hammer Museum’s third Los Angeles Biennial, Made in LA 2016.
Sterling Ruby
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Fresh Air and Artistic Forms Outside Art Basel Miami Beach
MIAMI BEACH — Wandering for hours around the convention center housing Art Basel Miami Beach tends to make one long for fresh air.
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Subversive Color at the Rose Art Museum
WALTHAM, Mass. — To say that painting is having a moment would be ironic – since, despite periodic claims regarding its demise or return, it clearly never went very far away.
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The Meaning of Clay at the Whitney Biennial
On the afternoon that I visited the 2014 Whitney Biennial, I caught sight of a high school group being led through the exhibition by an engaging young arts educator. I slowed down as our paths converged on three large ceramic sculptures by the Los Angeles–based artist Sterling Ruby. Each one is roughly the size of a major appliance, hand-built, and covered with bold, exaggerated finger marks. Every square inch is uneven, almost obsessively so.
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Skirting the Nether Regions: Black Cake at Team Gallery
Currently at Team Gallery’s two venues, on Grand Street and Wooster Street in Soho, there is an exhibition simply titled Black Cake. Curated by Alex Gartenfeld, it includes only two artists from Team’s roster (Massimo Grimaldi and Ryan McGinley) out of sixteen participants, which puts it outside the typical reshuffling of the deck we so often see in January group shows.
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10 Actually Fun Works to See at Art Basel Miami Beach
MIAMI — Entering into the cavernous mouth of an art fair, it’s pretty easy to know what to expect — some blue-chip art, some provocative booths, and a few rare modernist works sprinkled throughout the contemporary avalanche. Thankfully, there are usually a few pleasant surprises. Here are ten works I actually enjoyed seeing at Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) 2012.
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Big Name Artists Hit the Street With Bowery Murals
As part of the Festival of Ideas For the New City anchored by the New Museum, a group of major artists have sprinkled the Bowery with murals. In collaboration with the Art Production Fund, painters including Mary Heilmann, Richard Prince and Jacqueline Humphries created murals for the roll-down metal gates of restaurant supply stores on the historic street. The trick is that these murals are only visible at night, after the stores close. Over the course of one evening’s sunset, I went on a scouting mission to photograph the works in their native habitat. Click through for the photo essay.
