Art exhibitions, karaoke, bingo, and an art walk marathon? Just chalk it up to more super cool things in Los Angeles while I’m in jolly old England (others including the week-long plus Morrissey shows and the Cure at the Hollywood Bowl). But yes, LACE really is kicking fall into high gear…and wasn’t I just saying LA needed excitement? Thanks LACE!…see the list on art.blogging.la

Amid the cheers for the blockbuster The Arts in Latin America 1492-1820, let me offer a few sober comments. To be sure, the show is unprecedented. It exposes large swathes of Latin American creativity that most North Americans know little about. But the show is only a start, because what we see at LACMA has a lot of gaps. Some of these are caused by attrition; many objects did not travel to all three venues. And in some cases, objects cannot be lent in the first place. In other cases the curators were too cautious. The result is that this show does not accomplish what could have been principal goals: to build respect for viceregal Latin American painting and sculpture, and shake European hegemony over the canon of art history…continue reading on art.blogging.la

I first got wind the Swerve, a three-day festival of film screenings, music, art and related activities, about a month ago when I noticed the postcards in the neighborhood shops. The point of view and style of the collateral had sense of familiarity. Then I noticed the extremely impressive visual art lineup and the fact that there was finally an event on the eastside that reflected the creative spirit of the community and I got excited. Add to that the fact someone is finally using the entire Barnsdall facility to its potential and, well, it would be a stretch to say I went into convulsions but a friend did ask about the foam coming out of the corners of my mouth.

How did this event suddenly materialize right under my nose? The whole thing started to make more sense when I learned Jonathan Wells organized the event and enlisted Aaron Rose to curate the art component. Among their individual endeavors, Well’s is responsible for the Resfest and Res Magazine and Rose is the former owner of the Alleged Gallery and more recently curator of the acclaimed Beautiful Losers exhibition.

You really don’t need to know anymore than that to know this event is legit, but to get some info on the particulars I went straight to the horse’s mouth and asked Aaron Rose about Swerve and he generously agreed to answer a few questions…interview on art.blogging.la

One of the most unexpected aspects of running a gallery was the general lack of awareness about the art industry. I say industry but it’s actually several “industries” each with their own functions, economies and agendas. Academic institutions, museums, art press, patrons, galleries and of course artists all contribute something to what might be called “our esthetic preferences at the moment.”

One of the reasons why I wanted to write for the blog was to create some transparency about those aspects which I best understand, the systems of support called galleries and museums. Some of those tasks are creative in their own right . I would biasly argue curating for instance is another form of art production, or at least that’s how I see it. In the future will address some of those tasks creative and non …purely on a time based percentage basis it’s mostly none by the way, but that’s for another time. Today I wanted to give some attention to the practice of curating. What do curators do, what do they contribute to artists, our understanding of art and our culture.

With the opening of the impressive, humor Us exhibition at Barnsdall last Sunday, I thought it might be a good idea to have a young curator fresh off a project shed some light on the subject. I contacted Leta Ming one of the curators for the humor Us show who graciously agreed to answer a few questions.

Click here to read interview on art.blogging.la…

There’s an old bromide that every picture tells a story, but what about a picture that is literally three stories high by eleven stories long?

That’s the enormous, breathtaking scale of The Great Picture, the largest photograph ever made, on display at Art Center’s South Campus Wind Tunnel space through September 29. Produced by turning a decommissioned military jet hanger into a gigantic pinhole camera, the image would be overwhelming on scale alone. What makes this one of the visual wonders of the world, though, is the haunting, elegiac quality of the subject itself: the panorama of the empty Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, an austere landscape punctuated abruptly by the air traffic tower and other structures of the base…continue reading

There are so many openings in Los Angeles (Chinatown, Hollywood, Wilshire, Culver City) that it’s difficult to keep track. The Fellows of Contemporary Art opened their new/second exhibition in their Chinatown office on Thursday (the first of their curatorial quarterlies this show is curated by Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer and Stacy Bengtson Fertig and includes work by John Baldessari, Dan Graham, Jesse Aron Green, Lee Lozano, Rachel Mason, Richard Prince, Mark Roeder, and Maya Schindler), MOCA opens Gordon Matta-Clark’s You Are the Measure next weekend and it’s just going to keep going from there including the Hammer opens Francis Alys’ Politics of Rehearsal on the 30th. Then…continue reading on abLA

When it comes to the Los Angeles art culture The Los Angeles Municipal Gallery at Barnsdal Park is either the best kept secret in L.A or the most poorly advertised space of its kind. With no dedicated webpage of its own and limited advertising the they put on great show after great show. The gallery sits atop Olive Hill near the intersection of Hollywood and Vermont and operates aunder the DCA (Department of Cultural Affairs) umbrella. The site is also home to a theater for the performing arts, the Junior Arts Center and the famous Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House. It’s an eastside resource that in my mind should have the same brand recognition as similar institutions like the Hammer…what a difference private funding makes.

Nude sculpture attacked by Marauding Robert Irwin garden at Getty…

Photo by Zack Alan who will be an upcoming guest writer on abLA.

Mike Kelley from Silver Lake’s Junc Gallery is a new guest writer on abLA and has written the first of what I hope is many more reviews.

There’s a lot happening on the east side. Over the last several years I’ve watched the scene grow from the perch of my own gallery in Silver Lake. Of course China Town is a land mark and recently new proliferations of galleries have also resulted in NELA, SLGA and LADAD. In the future I hope to chronicle some of the interesting aspects of this evolving landscape but for this first post I knew immediately what to write about because I’m still reeling from having my mind blown last Saturday by Shizu Saldamando (what a great name) at Tropical De Nopal…continue reading on abLA

It’s definitely August in the LA art world but things haven’t completely slowed down, no way! Take a look at some of the groovy things happening this week at Circus Gallery, LAXART, and the Silent Movie Theatre that are not to be missed…continue reading

Sean’s on the prowl, and without internet connection, so I’m posting some pics he’s currently taking of the fire…more here on his Flickr.

Continuing on with my YouTube obsession, this is Sylvia Sleigh at speaking at MOCA on her painting The Turkish Bath that’s included in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. This is the museum’s second video they’ve posted with the promise of more to come…continue reading

For the 14th time, Side Street Art Projects doesn’t invite you to their non-event Phantom Ball. Don’t worry if you can’t attend…no one ever has! But if you buy a “ticket” now (for $150) you will get the fabulous party favor of a limited-edition signed print by Matthew Monahan. Want to see it? Too bad – you have to wait until June 1st (when the price jumps to $200)…continue reading

Though Los Angeles keeps importing curators to our institutions, today it was announced that New York is importing from LA! Eungie Joo, curator and director of REDCAT’s gallery, has accepted the position of director and curator of public programs at the New Museum of Contemporary Art effective July 1. Clara Kim, current associate curator at REDCAT, will become acting director/curator…continue reading

Who isn’t obsessed with YouTube? Everything from Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ to Daily Show clips to this documentary above of the Street Level exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art that features LA artist Mark Bradford…continue reading