Art Talk

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Chicano Art and All That Jazz Jul 02, 2008

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Most American museums follow the guidelines that advise against exhibitions showcasing private collections unless some of the artworks are promised gifts to the museum. Private collectors crave a museum's stamp of approval; it's good for their ego, and more importantly, it's good for their pocket. If they decide to sell the collection, the fact that it was shown in an important museum can significantly increase its value...

Marlene Dumas at MOCA: Art That Slaps You in the Face Jun 25, 2008

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Do you think you could enjoy seeing paintings that poke you in the eye, make you sick to your stomach and – as if that's not enough – violate your sense of decency and propriety? But wait a minute...I forgot to mention that these paintings also have an explosive raw energy, frightening authenticity, and the violent brushwork of a drunken samurai wielding his sword right and left...

Art Makes Nothing Happen Jun 18, 2008

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Gasoline prices be damned, I spent last week crisscrossing the cultural landscape of southern California, driving to Santa Barbara, to Ojai, to Long Beach, to Altadena. But on Saturday, I gave myself a break and spent the whole afternoon roaming for art close to home -– in downtown LA, to be precise...

Record Prices for Art and Crude Oil Jun 11, 2008

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Last year when I went to Beijing to get a taste of its exploding contemporary art scene, I was especially taken by the monumental and rather dramatic art installation by Qiu Anxiong in the cavernous space of the Universal Studios Gallery. In my Art Talk about the Chinese art scene, I described the dimly lit room dominated by a railroad car – not a full-scale replica, but the real thing, which I recognized immediately. I rode similar trains as a child in Soviet Russia in the 50's and 60's. At the gallery, one was invited to climb into this no-frills railroad car where every window was used as a screen for projecting black and white documentary footage of 20th century Chinese history, with special emphasis on the brutality experienced by Chinese people during WWII and the Cultural Revolution...

Up Close and Personal: Happiness and Monsters Jun 03, 2008

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Unless you are a man or woman of steel, I doubt that you had the willpower to shut out the media blitz surrounding the release of the last and hopefully final installment of Sex and the City. Am I the only one who looks at the impossibly teased 'do of Sarah Jessica Parker and gets spooked because it reminds me of Medusa, the mythological creature with snakes instead of hair?...

Blue Boy and Pinkie Back from Exile May 27, 2008

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After two years in exile, 'Blue Boy' and 'Pinkie' are back home at the Huntington Art Gallery. The much-loved Beaux-Arts mansion, built in 1911 for Henry and Arabella Huntington, has just reopened after two years of renovation and restoration. It looks every bit as resplendent as we remembered it, but now it has even more paintings and decorative art objects on display than before...

Rauschenberg: Forever Curious May 20, 2008

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Among the artists whose art I like and admire, there are a few whom I feel as if I've known personally. Rembrandt would be one of them. With dozens upon dozens of self-portraits, we are able to follow him from youth to old age. Also we know his mother and father, son, wife and mistress – all painted in a deeply personal way that reveals his feelings about them...

Racing against the Clock May 13, 2008

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It's always the same; with so many museum and gallery exhibitions to see and talk about, I'm constantly racing against the clock. Definitely want to be sure that you will see MOCA's captivating exhibition, Collecting Collections, before it closes this Monday, May 19. This sprawling exhibition is a celebration of the generosity and vision of private collectors – most of them Angelenos – who have enabled this relatively young institution to become a major player on the international art scene...

The Germans Are Here May 06, 2008

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If I were the cultural commissioner of this city, I would have declared the past few weeks a 'mini festival' of German culture in Los Angeles. Judge for yourself: a week ago I went to a screening of the new documentary, Shadows in Paradise, a fascinating story of German émigré musicians, writers, and filmmakers who fled the Nazis and settled here in LA. Some of them flourished; others merely managed; a few committed suicide. Never before have so many of the best and brightest creative minds of one country either left on their own or been forced to emigrate, and what's especially unusual is that most of these people ended up here in LA. The impact of this German-exile community on the cultural life of our city was profound...

Profound? Yes. Sacred? No. Apr 29, 2008

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I love LA for being an inexhaustible field of discovery for art, architecture, and music – not only in museums, galleries, and concert halls – but also in less expected venues...

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