Artillery, Issue 2, Volume 18; November-December 2023

NOV / DEC 2023

Crafts & Utility

NOW OPEN Betye Saar, Drifting Toward Twilight, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. © 2023 Betye Saar. Photo: Paul Salveson.

Generous support for this exhibition is provided by Mei-Lee Ney and the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation. Additional funding is provided by an anonymous foundation, Terry Perucca and Annette Serrurier, Faye and Robert C. Davidson Jr., and the Virginia Steele Scott Endowment for American Art.

SHINGO FRANCIS ERIC JOHNSON RECENT WORK

WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY

MADAME X

NOVEMBER 18 - JANUARY 6

2525 Michigan Avenue E-1, Santa Monica, CA 90404 info@williamturnergallery.com 310.453.0909 www.williamturnergallery.com

Image: Shingo Francis, Heart of Blue, oil on canvas, 21”x 21”

hammer.ucla.edu Joey Terrill, Painted by Her Brother, 1983 (detail). Acrylic on canvas. Frame 25¼ × 31¼ in. (64.1 × 79.4 cm).

Courtesy of the artist and Ortuzar Projects, New York. Photo: Timothy Doyon

SHERIN GUIRGUIS A’ARU // FIELD OF REEDS: GATHERING

LIZ COLLINS COSMOLOGIES

LIA HALLORAN WARPED SIDE

LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES

4 NOVEMBER - 22 DECEMBER 2023 OPENING 11.04.2023 | 16:00 -19:00

Buy tickets

December 8–10, 2023 Miami Beach Convention Center

Maria Nepomuceno, Treze bocas (detail), 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

November 18, 2023 - January 13, 2024

Louis Stern Fine Arts 9002 Melrose Avenue West Hollywood, CA 90069 310.276.0147 louissternfinearts.com

Ja n ua ry 2 0 – A p r i l 1 4, 2 0 24

C U R AT E D BY A r a a n d A n a h i d Os h aga n Reflectspace Gallery | Glendale Central Library 222 E. Harvard Street, Glendale Ca 91205 818-548-2030 | Www.reflectspace.org

Kiel Johnson Kevin Kowalski Galia Linn Elana Mann Elyse Pignolet Aili Schmeltz Diane Silver Camilla Taylor Sean Yang Galia Linn, Dino Egg. Large. Heineken Bottle (Detail), Red sculpture clay, crawl white glazed stoneware, 2016

661-723-6250 lancastermoah.org 665 W. Lancaster BLVD, Lancaster, CA 93534 @LANCASTERMOAH @MOAHLANCASTER

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TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 18, ISSUE 2, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2023

Crafts & Utility FEATURES Diedrick Brackens George Melrod

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Melissa Joseph Annabel Keenan

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Sal Salandra Tucker Neel

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COLUMNS

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Ahree Lee William Moreno

DEPARTMENTS

Art Brief: Lisa Schiff Stephen J. Goldberg

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Shop Talk: LA Art News Scarlet Cheng

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Bunker Vision: Elsa Schiaparelli Skot Armstrong

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Ask Babs: Int’l Art English Babs Rappleye

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The Digital: Foundry by PROOF Seth Hawkins

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Poems: Evan Laffer, John Tottenham

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Peer Review: Matthew Rosenquist on Pat Phillips

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Comics: Ancient Chinese Ceramics Butcher & Wood

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REVIEWS “Nonmemory” Hauser & Wirth

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Kim Jones The Box

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Sun Woo Make Room

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Deana Lawson David Kordansky

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Duke Riley Charlie James

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Alvaro Ilizarbe SADE

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Steve McQueen Marian Goodman

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Abel Guzmán La BEAST

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ON THE COVER: Sal Salandra, Sunday Walk In The Park, 2021, from his book, Iron Halo • OPPOSITE PAGE, clockwise from top left: Melissa Joseph, A Bow for Angelik, 2023, photo by GC Photography, courtesy of the artist; Schiaparelli’s shoe hat, as featured in The Surrealist Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli; Mike Kelley, Kandor 16, 2011, © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, All Rights Reserved / VAGA at ARS, NY, photo by Fredrik Nilsen; Sal Salandra, Human Ashtray, 2016; Pat Phillips, You Better Stop Hangin’ Out With Them White Bois, 2023, courtesy of the artist and M+B, Los Angeles; Sun Woo, Dawn in the Grove, 2023, photo by Jong Hyun Seo, courtesy of the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles; Ann Philbin, photo by Mark Hanauer; Matthew Rosenquist, Chevy Vedder, 2022, courtesy of the artist. artillerymag.com

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FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader,

This issue is a fave of mine. I’ve always loved crafts, especially as a youngster. I taught myself how to sew and embroider, and I made a hooked-rug wall-hanging in my high school art class. I was by far the youngest member of a quilting bee. I even considered becoming a ceramicist when I was an undergraduate. But in my mind, at the time, I didn’t think of those mediums as something to be taken seriously. No notable or major artist worked with those materials. Crafts were reserved for hobbyists—and I wanted to be an artist.

Recently, little by little, these mediums have been showing up in art galleries. Sure, Picasso and Matisse used clay as a medium, but their ceramic pieces were supplemental to their paintings. Ceramics became recognized in the contemporary fine art world with the likes of Ken Price and Betty Woodman—few other artists were working solely with the material. It really hit home when I was visiting the Frieze LA art fair last February in Santa Monica, where crafts were being prominently displayed—and purchased.

There were weavings, tapestries, ceramics, embroidery, hooked rugs, you name it—about the only things missing were macramé and candle-making. Works were dangling from ceilings, covering vast wall spaces and crowding gallery cubicles, all in bright colors, messy glazes, wrinkly fabrics and unexpectedly lascivious scenarios. It was a cacophony of texture in 3D. These relatively new-to-the-art-world mediums made everything else look drab and passé.

When there’s an explosion of new art forms, one wonders if history will record it as an art movement.

What caused this new attitude toward crafts, once considered the lowest of art forms found in thrift shops and beachside galleries alongside thrift-wood sculptures? Are artists rebelling against high art and the attitudes that go with it? What caused this quiet revolution in the art world?

Several theories might answer this question for our future history books. Four artists featured in our Crafts & Utility issue have different reasons for choosing their medium. Melissa Joseph, interviewed by New York contributor Annabel Keenan, uses felting to address broader social issues such as gendered labor and identity. Contributor George Melrod talks with Diedrick Brackens about his weaving works; Brackens identifies as a “weaver” and says that working in this medium is his “inheritance,” a medium that he feels has been disregarded in the art world. Sal Salandra, on the other hand, practiced needlework when he was a hairdresser, to pass time perhaps, creating flowers and cute dogs. He eventually gave up the dogs and flowers for more provocative subject matter. His beautiful new book, Iron Halo, is reviewed by Tucker Neel. Lastly, Ahree Lee’s weavings morphed from her video works and computerrelated algorithms—the thinking behind both is not so dissimilar, as she tells William Moreno.

I, for one, am thrilled to see this new genre in today’s art world. The tactile freshness of these mediums feels innovative in their use and intention. It all makes me want to dust off my sewing machine—and make some art.

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F E AT U R E D C O N T R I B U T O R S

Annabel Keenan

George Melrod

is a New York–based writer specializing in contemporary art, sustainability and market reporting. Her work has been published in The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic and Brooklyn Rail, among others.

She holds an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center.

has written widely about contemporary art and culture for magazines such as Art & Antiques, Art in America, Sculpture, Details, VOGUE and Los Angeles, and websites such as artcritical. From 2006–17, he was the editor of art ltd., an LA-based contemporary art magazine.

TULSA KINNEY EDITOR

• ALEX GARNER PUBLISHER

EDITORIAL Bill Smith - creative director Emma Christ - associate editor John Tottenham - copy editor/poetry editor John Seeley - copy editor/proof Dave Shulman - graphic design CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ezrha Jean Black, Laura London, Tucker Neel, John David O’Brien COLUMNISTS Skot Armstrong, Scarlet Cheng, Stephen J. Goldberg, Seth Hawkins

William Moreno is

currently principle of William Moreno Contemporary, an art advisory and consulting firm that provides advice to meet each collector’s particular aspirations. He is also a curator, writer, executive coach and consultant for the arts, focusing on issues of sustainability and management practices.

writer, curator and educator at Otis College in Los Angeles.

He’s currently squishing his body against a museum vitrine trying to photograph naughty stuff hidden on the backside of an ancient Greek vase. More to come at tuckerneel.com.

S TA F F

CONTRIBUTORS Anthony Ausgang, Emily Babette, Lane Barden, Natasha Boyd, Arthur Bravo, Betty Ann Brown, Susan Butcher & Carol Wood, Kate Caruso, Max King Cap, Bianca Collins, Shana Nys Dambrot, Genie Davis, David DiMichele, Christie Hayden, Alexia Lewis, Richard Allen May III, Christopher Michno, William Moreno, Barbara Morris, Carrie Paterson, Lara Jo Regan, Julie Schulte, Allison Strauss, Donasia Tillery, Daniel Warren, Colin Westerbeck, Eve Wood, Catherine Yang, Jody Zellen NEW YORK: Annabel Keenan, Sarah Sargent ADMINISTRATION Mitch Handsone - new media director Emma Christ - social media coordinator

Tucker Neel is an artist,

ADVERTISING Alex Garner - sales director publisher@artillerymag.com; 214.797.9795 Anna Bagirov - print sales anna@artillerymag.com; 408.531.5643 Mitch Handsone - web sales mitch@artillerymag.com; 323.515.2840 Artillery, PO Box 26234, LA, CA 90026 Editorial: 213.250.7081 editor@artillerymag.com Sales: 214.797.9795 publisher@artillerymag.com ARTILLERYMAG.COM Follow us: facebook: artillerymag Instagram: @artillery_mag Twitter: @artillerymag

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S H O P TA L K

Made in L.A. 2023

Dominique Moody, N.O.M.A.D. (Narrative Odyssey Manifesting Artistic Dreams), 2015–present, N.O.M.A.D. dwelling: layered corrugated patina-stained metal, salvaged stainless steel washing-machine doors, dryer door, vintage barwood, salvaged globe, found metal objects, plexiglass panels; 1950 tow truck: patinated steel, paint, train horn, washing-machine doors, photo by Joshua White.

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The Hammer’s “Made in L.A.” just opened (through Dec. 31), and it is now clearly THE art biennial of SoCal. It’s also the best one yet, I think. This year’s theme, “Acts of Living,” allows for a diverse range of work from 39 artists while giving the show some unity. Actually, more unity than usual—I came away feeling that I had really seen a whole exhibition, not just pieces of one.

The show has been adeptly curated by Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramírez. “Acts of Living” is taken from noted artist Noah Purifoy: “One does not have to be a visual artist to utilize creative potential. Creativity can be an act of living, a way of life, and a formula for doing the right thing.”

One work that most eloquently encapsulates this idea is Dominique Moody’s N.O.M.A.D., a tiny house parked on the street behind the museum. It sits on wheels and features a welcoming porch and round windows which are repurposed washing-machine doors. Moody herself is there much of the time, welcoming visitors and explaining the features of the 150-square-foot dwelling with a cot in one corner and custom-built and found objects throughout. An old photograph of her parents and family appears in a silhouette of a bird in an assemblage piece. artillery • nov/dec 2023

SCARLET CHENG

Shortly after the opening of “Made in L.A.,”

So Long Annie

Ann Philbin, photo by Mark Hanauer. artillerymag.com

the Hammer announced that the indefatigable Ann Philbin will be stepping down as director in November 2024—after 25 years of exceptional leadership that has transformed the museum into a must-see in Los Angeles. When she took over in 1999, arriving from the Drawing Center in New York City, the Hammer was a rather sleepy outpost attached to UCLA. Now it is recognized as a leading, world-class contemporary art museum.

Philbin oversaw the presentation of remarkable shows such as Lee Bontecou’s retrospective and “Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960– 1980,” and also the major expansion and overhaul that culminated this March, designed by Michael Maltzan. The museum added 40,000 square feet of space, including a dedicated gallery for exhibitions of works on paper organized by the Grunwald Center (yes, part of the Hammer!).

On the evening of the “Made in L.A.” opening, Philbin hung out in the galleries—clearly delighted with the show and talking to artists and wellwishers alike. Now I realize she might have been lingering to enjoy her last biennial as museum director.

When she saw me, she called my attention to nearby artists. I was quite taken with the molded-clay wall plaques and sculpture of Akinsanya Kambon; Philbin strongly urged me to talk to him—“his backstory is really amazing,” she noted. And it was.

Kambon had been in the armed services during the Vietnam War, then joined the Black Panthers when he returned to the US. His work incorporates West African and African American narratives—there are scenes of colonial and racial oppression, as well as the bonds of family and community.

Thank you, Annie, for championing art and artists, and for creating the space to help them thrive and be seen by a wider audience.

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S H O P TA L K

New York Report, plus Blum sans Poe On other fronts in L A, Blum & Poe w ill be no more—henceforth, it will be known as BLUM. Founding partner Jeff Poe will be stepping down from running one of our leading galleries that now has outposts in New York and Tokyo. Next spring, for their 30th anniversary, they’re opening a new and larger New York space at 9 White Street. That space will be launched with a survey of Japanese art from the 1960s to present, co-curated by Tim Blum and Mika Yoshitake.

Yours Truly was in New York in early October and there were so many shows I wanted to see. It’s interesting how California artists are recognized now. Ruth Asawa and Henry Taylor both had exhibitions at the Whitney, plus there was a major retrospective of Ed Ruscha, full of very familiar work, at the Museum of Modern Art. I found Ruscha’s early work the most compelling because I hadn’t seen much of it. The show will be coming to our very own LACMA in April 2024.

The New Museum presented New York’s first museum survey of Judy Chicago, who started her career in California— getting both her BA and MA from UCLA in the heady ’60s.

Along with Rita Yokoi and Miriam Schapiro, she started the Feminist Art Program at Fresno State College and then CalArts, and later organized the team that made the landmark installation piece, The Dinner Party, which features table settings for 39 accomplished women from the past that we should all know. “Judy Chicago: Herstory” (through Jan. 14, 2024) includes her early works in Geometric Abstraction, preparatory works for The Dinner Party, as well as her other major series.

The surprise addition to all of this is “The City of Ladies” on the 4th floor, which presents works of other women who have influenced and inspired Chicago—art and archival material from the likes of Hilma af Klint, Artemisia Gentileschi, Zora Neale Hurston, Frida Kahlo and Virginia Woolf.

I made it to a handful of galleries—had hoped for more, but getting around in a city jammed with tourists and increasing traffic took time. One of the shows I most wanted to see was Tetsuya Ishida at Gagosian in Chelsea, which features his meticulous paintings. In his works, a young man looking quite like the artist is repeatedly placed in nightmarish conditions— in one, his gigantic body is trapped inside a school building, his head and fingers sticking out; in another, a row of “salarymen” in suits are fed at a lunch counter via electric extruders dangling from the ceiling, held in place by impassive waiters.

These are critiques of a regimented and depersonalized society that values conformity not individualism; technology aids and abets the process. The background is modern Japan, but when I look at these paintings of isolation and dehumanization, I can’t help thinking we are headed down the same path, sadly. The Japanese artist only had a decade of output; he died tragically at a train crossing when he was only 31. Two decades ago, I happened to see his work in Japan for an art fair and met him. Though we could only communicate through his limited English and my limited Japanese, I could sense his feverish dedication to art, to his vision of the world. I’ve never forgotten the work—or the artist.

Left to right: Judy Chicago, Rainbow Pickett, 1965/2021, Matthews polyurethane paint on stainless steel, © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation; Portrait of Tim Blum during an opening in Tokyo, photo by Masayuki Saito, courtesy of BLUM Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York.

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artillery • nov/dec 2023

WYNWOOD ARTS DISTRICT WELCOMES MIAMI ART WEEK DEC. 5-10, 2023 Sculpture: Hebru Brantley Photo: Wynwood Walls and Nika Kramer

DISCOVER MORE

A r t I n Wy n wo o d .co m

ART BRIEF

BAD BEHAVIOR

STEPHEN J. GOLDBERG, ESQ.

Lisa Schiff, among the top ranks of New York art advisors, who faces multiple lawsuits by clients and art dealers, put her company, SFA Advisory (with another office in London), into bankruptcy in May. Schiff, 53, who counted the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio among her rich and famous clients, was a member of the NYC art-world elite.

The bankruptcy filing followed shortly after two lawsuits against Schiff and her company were filed by real-estate heiress Candace Barasch, who charged that Schiff was running a “Ponzi scheme” with millions in funds intended for art acquisitions diverted to financing Schiff’s high-flying lifestyle instead. The suits accuse Schiff of a shocking betrayal— Barasch, a major collector, was a best friend and they appeared together at numerous art and society events.

In the first suit, Barasch and another Schiff client, Richard Grossman, maintain Schiff shorted them $1.8 million on the private sale of an Adrian Ghenie painting, arranged through Sotheby’s. The second suit alleges that Barasch and her husband paid Schiff’s companies more than $6.6 million over 18 months for acquisitions—including two purchases of sculptures from Gladstone Gallery—one of which was only partially paid for and the other not at all.

In the months after SFA’s bankruptcy filing, claims were made by numerous creditors, including London’s Stephen Friedman Gallery, Sotheby’s private sales department and artist Seffa Klein, who had exhibited at SFA’s gallery space, according to ARTnews.

Winston Art Group, selected by the bankruptcy trustee to inventory SFA’s holdings, determined that at least 109 works valued at $1.13 million are missing, many by such prominent artists as Richard Prince, Alex Israel and Julie Mehretu, according to ARTnews. The Winston court filing reported that works valued at $3 million remained in Schiff’s possession.

Schiff began her advisory business more than 20 years ago,

and in 2019 she opened an exhibition space in Tribeca, a somewhat unusual move for an art advisor—an inherent conflict of interest since advisors primarily represent collectors but could benefit by steering their clients to buy works by artists they also represent. Schiff gave a revealing interview to the New York Times in May 2022, in which she described the art market as “a ruthless, capitalist kind of space.”

Closer to home, there were developments in the art

scandal involving the bankruptcy of LA’s once preeminent Ace Gallery and its owner Douglas Chrismas. In September, after 10 years of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, the trustee put the last remnants of the gallery’s inventory up for an online auction by a liquidator, ThreeSixty Asset Advisors, for the benefit of the numerous creditors of the Ace mess.

The 300 auction lots represent the dregs of what remained of Ace’s art assets, much of which had been sold by the trustee over a period of years for the benefit of creditors. Collectively, the lots were estimated by ThreeSixty to bring in a minimum of $230,000. Many of the items were either small works, multiples or art exhibition posters. The oddest offering was a series of 48 pieces of clothing designed by Issey Miyake in the 1990s.

The bankruptcy trustee, Sam Leslie, brought a civil suit in 2017, alleging that Chrismas siphoned off millions from Ace’s bank accounts to two shell companies he controlled. In May 2022, a federal court judge granted summary judgment to the trustee and ordered Chrismas to pay more than $14 million for the benefit of Ace’s creditors.

Chrismas was arrested by the FBI in July 2021 and indicted for allegedly embezzling $265,000 from the time of the Ace bankruptcy filing in 2013 until 2016, when Leslie took over management of the gallery. Chrismas, 78, is facing a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The trial date has been continued several times since charges were filed.

Above: Lisa Schiff.

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artillery • nov/dec 2023

BUNKER VISION

SURREALISM & FASHION

SKOT ARMSTRONG

When you talk about utilitarian art, the elephant in

the room is always fashion. As fashion houses expand to encompass lifestyle brands, most art with a utilitarian function might fall into the fashion category. It is not uncommon to see museum retrospectives now for fashion designers. But it is not always an easy alliance.

The best-case scenario for calling fashion fine art is Elsa Schiaparelli. She was friends with many of the Surrealists and collaborated with artists. Her most famous artist collaborations were with Salvador Dalí. This partnership gave us the infamous photo of Wallis Simpson modeling a lobster dress. It is also credited as the source of her most iconic design: a hat shaped like a shoe. Jean Cocteau drawings were incorporated into decorative motifs on clothing, and he designed jewelry that was sold under the Schiaparelli brand. Meret Oppenheim offered a metal and fur bracelet. Man Ray’s painting Le Beau Temps was inspired by a Schiaparelli collection. Picasso’s Portrait of Dora Marr features a piece of Schiaparelli jewelry. A Magritte painting, The Treachery of Images, inspired her men’s fragrance. Leonor Fini designed the bottle for her most famous perfume. Giacometti designed columns and lamps for her salon. She made gloves based on a Man Ray photo of hands that Picasso had painted to look like they were wearing gloves.

Because she lacked any training in design essentials, she really did approach the creation of clothing as if she were making art. She would drape fabric on herself and work intuitively.

Despite this naivete, fashionistas often comment on how well her clothing fits the body.

She led the kind of life that inspires biopics, but there haven’t been any yet. She was born and raised in an Italian palace—many of her relatives were noted intellectuals. She spent time in New York, where her best friend was Gabrièle BuffetPicabia (her relationships with many artists can be traced back to this friendship). Most of her fashion career took place in Paris between 1927 and 1954. In 1954 she published a memoir called Shocking Life and retired.

While there isn’t a definitive documentary about her career, she inspires the kind of passion that causes people to assemble photographs into short films that get posted to YouTube. The best overview of her work (with loads of rare images) is called The Surrealist Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli, which is part of a series called “Fashion History Sessions.” If you are going down a YouTube rabbit hole in search of other clips about her, be sure to include her first name. Her brand is still very active, and clips abound of recent shows bearing her surname.

Schiaparelli’s shoe hat, as featured in The Surrealist Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli. artillerymag.com

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T H E D I G I TA L

SHOW ME There are moments in history, moments in which the

tide can turn based on the will and actions of few. We are currently in one of those moments regarding the acceptance of NFTs in the mainstream art world. As best-selling author Malcom Gladwell would describe far better than myself, these moments don’t last—they are finite and fleeting. But give the right person access at the opportune time and a small spark will turn into an epic blaze with the potential for causing an iterated future. These moments are the literal incarnation of a societal “choose your own adventure game.” With the uncertain and volatile future of cryptocurrency fundamentally linked to an artwork, the traditional fine-art community needs reassurance when it comes to NFTs. There have been so many fads, scandals and trendy flashes in the pan. WE NEED THE PROOF! The IRL art collectors, critics and appreciators need a leader (more so a savior) to unplug the fine-art NFT arena from life support and prove to the world that this platform provides intrinsic and immutable value to traditional fine art. We need

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proof that NFTs are more than silly pictures of apes purchased by celebrities and crypto is not just imaginary internet money easily stolen to fund drug-fueled orgies in the Bahamas. Both of those don’t sound horrible if you are included on the guest list, but when you are just the unwitting financier—not as much fun.

As if by divine intervention or an auspicious moment, enter Kevin Rose—a human many would call a serial entrepreneur, some would call an angel investor and others on the platform formerly known as Twitter may call a conglomerate of names less appropriate for public consumption. X trolls aside, Rose is aligned to usher forward the transformation of how the traditional art world views NFTs. A new Los Angeles gallery—appropriately named “Foundry by PROOF”—states that its goal “aims to cultivate a greater understanding of the digital art landscape, specifically within the web3 space.”

Collaborations with Pace Gallery and a plan to relocate to the LA Arts District in early 2024 put Rose and PROOF (of which he is the CEO) front and center in the IRL art scene and hope-

artillery • nov/dec 2023

THE PROOF SETH HAWKINS fully allows them to cultivate that much-needed understanding.

While the upcoming move is imminent, Foundry by PROOF’s current location within the former American Apparel complex is hip, sleek and industrially modern. Envision a private club that is covered with futuristic flat screens showing NFT images that are magically pulled from the owner’s crypto wallet through the blockchain. This is not the JPEG reproduction I have complained about before, but rather a formal link to the actual NFT. Half of the 4000 square feet exists as dedicated gallery space, while the remainder is more akin to a nightclub. A giant bar built of cinder blocks and live-edge wood slabs delivers cocktails adorned with custom-made images—floating atop the liquor—of the digital art being shown in the adjacent gallery. A large stage surrounded by upscale seating exists to innately provide ambiance, but also easily accommodates regular podcasts in which artists, curators and special guests talk about the current exhibitions. Foundry by PROOF begins to set a new standard for what a high-end gallery feels like and, funnily

enough, they don’t actually sell any art out of the space.

If you don’t know Kevin Rose, he may be worth a google.

Rose has started a handful of tech companies, invested in far more through his VC firm True Ventures, won a volume of awards from the likes of Forbes, Bloomberg and Time. He has the self-proclaimed “worst cover ever” on Business Weekly and—if that isn’t enough—his Moonbirds NFT collection made up of pixelized owls sold out in 2022 for tens of millions of dollars in a matter of hours (with some speculating over $50 million in mint sales). Rose has been in the public eye for well over a decade, so obviously I had no interest in regurgitating questions others had asked, when I caught up with him at his gallery. With his history and PROOF’s new space building the bridge between the blockchain and the IRL art world, I did feel it necessary to ask a hard-hitting question or two. The question which seemed most relevant was “How are you always in the right place at the right time, what is the cheat code?” Hint, hint: it starts with up, up, down, down, left, right ... Fill in the blank—if you know you know.

ABOVE, left to right: Catchem, 2022, by Gremplin; Ixian No-Ships, 2022, by IX Shells; Kevin Rose; images courtesy Foundry by PROOF. artillerymag.com

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PEER REVIEW

MATTHEW ROSENQUIST ON

Raised in and around Washington DC, with two degrees in painting,

Matthew Rosenquist now makes sculptures, albeit with some paint applied.

How did that happen? I ask him. After grad school in the South, he took an entry-level job at the Smithsonian with duties that drew him into the woodshop department: He was making simple tables and chairs and realized he liked working with wood—or more specifically, with his hands.

When Rosenquist moved to New York he still considered himself a painter and continued to show his art while working in cabinet shops. The eureka moment to become a sculptor occurred when he moved to Los Angeles in 2010.

He sheepishly admits that while taking morning walks with his dog along the Arroyo he found himself dumpster-diving in the numerous trash receptacles.

On one such walk he found a “disgusting, dirty Barbie doll” that he brought back to his studio. A 4 x 6-inch piece of wood was staring at him and he began carving into it, using the doll as a model. Now his repertoire of roughly carved wood sculptures includes vintage television sets, dogs, aerial pieces, figures holding smartphones (all shapes and sizes) and lots of cars and vans from the ’70s and ’80s. This November, Rosenquist will have a solo show of his wooden vans and TVs in Tokyo. He was excited to talk about a show he saw this past spring at M+B in West Hollywood.

Matthew Rosenquist, Road Trip, 2023, wood and acrylic paint, courtesy of the artist.

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artillery • nov/dec 2023

PAT PHILLIPS Pat Phillips found my work on Instagram and was really into it; instantly we were simpatico. A lot of his references relate to his memories of growing up in the South in the ’90s and early 2000s, not so dissimilar to my upbringing. I love his depictions of cars, sneakers and especially how his cartoony drawings appear within his paintings; he draws very well. When I saw his exhibition “Strange Suburb,” there was one painting that stood out for me titled You Better Stop Hangin’ Out With Them White Bois. A giant hand with a rag is seemingly wiping down an old Pontiac Grand Am, the same model my aunt had growing up, of which I have fond memories, although it’s an awkward looking ’80s car, not real goodlooking, but kinda cool as well. It’s a powerful painting where Phillips visually packs everything in with all of these symbolic smaller components (rebel flag, barricade points, graffiti, a can of paint thinner, Goof Off—a paint remover). Elsewhere in the show is a neon text wall piece: “POOR OLE NIGGA THINKS IT’S A CADDY”—a colloquial acronym for Pontiac. Where the hand might look like it’s polishing the car, actually there’s a much larger message. Phillips is addressing the racial and social inequalities of being Black and growing up in Louisiana. The large hand in the painting is trying to erase his tarnished childhood memories rife with the injustices of being Black in America.

—As told to Tulsa Kinney Pat Phillips, You Better Stop Hangin’ Out With Them White Bois, 2023, acrylic, pencil, molding paste, airbrush, aerosol paint/glitter on canvas on panel, image courtesy of the artist and M+B, Los Angeles. artillerymag.com

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WOVEN DIEDRICK BRACKENS EXPLORES IDENTITY WITH INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUE AND UNUSUAL TENDERNESS GEORGE MELROD

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Even with the growing inclusion of textile art in text-

books, surveys and biennials, one doesn’t normally think of weaving as a cutting-edge contemporary art medium. Diedrick Brackens is out to change that. A breakout star of the 2018 Hammer “Made in L.A.” biennial, Brackens uses his works to foreground Black and queer bodies—and the occasional catfish—through lyrical, at times haunting, scenarios. An eager advocate of his adopted medium—“At the very beginning I fell in love with how meditative it was,” he recalls—he is unafraid to adjust his practice through insights that he gleaned from studying painting and other art forms: first at the University of North Texas, where he was often the sole male textile artist amidst 40 women, then at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where he got his MFA. Informed by a widely diverse range of artists, from Donald Moffett to Simone Leigh, from Sam Gilliam to Matisse, he weaves a shadow theater of allusive vignettes that examine such subjects as loss and joy, commemoration and redemption. Embracing the idioms of textile art, he extends them in invigorating new directions, with works that hover in the mind’s eye like a memory or a mirage.

“I do identify as a weaver when I’m asked what I do, or what I make,” Brackens explains. “I’m a weaver. But I feel confident about straddling the line and pushing toward a multiplicity of voices and identities. I think that, about fiber in particular, it’s one of the fields of art where there are many types of people making the work. Being Black, being queer and working in a medium that’s been disregarded, in some ways I feel very fully that this is my inheritance.”

Although he’s known for his dramatic use of silhouetted Black figures, the route to his current approach was circuitous.

Initially, Brackens abandoned figuration when critiques would wander into discussions of slavery and other issues that he hadn’t intended. After working in abstraction for a few years, he began reintroducing bodies in the tumultuous year of 2015. At first, he said, “I just wanted to see a body

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VISIONS

bitter attendance, drown jubilee, 2018, courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, Dallas and Seoul. artillerymag.com

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Above: a deep and abiding dance, 2021, courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, Dallas and Seoul; Below: The artist in his studio, photo by George Melrod.

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at rest. Then I was like, ah, there’s always only one person. That person seems so lonely.” So he gradually added in companions.

A mong t he centra l t hemes in his work is the use of water, which was partially inspired by the 2016 film Moonlight, with its poetic depictions of its young Black protagonist. A more sobering influence was a harrowing event that occurred in his hometown of Mexia, Texas, amidst the city’s Juneteenth celebration in 1981, before Brackens was born: three Black teens were arrested for marijuana possession, but drowned while being rowed across the town’s central lake in police custody. As a form of remembrance and perhaps transcendence, Brackens re-envisioned the boys as catfish. In what has subsequently become his signature work, bitter attendance, drown jubilee (2018)— included in the 2018 “Made in L.A.” biennial—he portrays two figures gently gathering the catfish in an image of striking sensuality, vulnerability and tenderness.

A focus of his 2022 solo show at Craft Contemporary, titled “heaven is a muddy riverbed,” the catfish have remained a frequent motif. Though derided as bottom feeders, catfish are in fact resilient creatures, and a staple of Southern diet and culture. Brackens is also fascinated by “other animals that we find ugly, or scavengers, because of the ways that folks of color have been animalized throughout history.” He likes to include animals that have been maligned—“animals that we find undesirable, irredeemable, like catfish, mosquitoes, pigs, goats, snakes. Yeah, if people aren’t into them, I’m usually like: They can be redeemed! They can be saved! They’re special!”

A recent exhibition/residency at Dartmouth College included various works with horses, and even a unicorn, inspired by such disparate references as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Assateague ponies. (Unicorns also figure prominently in several Medieval tapestries.)

He deliberately avoided allusions to war or the American West. Evoking ancient myths, fables and personal allegory, the imagery feels at once dreamlike and ritualistic.

A visit to Brackens’ studio in Downtown LA offers an immersion in the tools of his craft.

Across the f loor is a large work-in-progress with a black silhouetted figure and a lighthouse,

artillerymag.com

while a pair of looms he purchased from his old college stand by the windows. Piles of lustrous colored thread lie stacked against the walls like an installation by fabric-art pioneer Sheila Hicks.

Another space holds six more looms, all of which feature weavings in various stages of tantalizing incompletion. Arrayed with rows of brightly colored string, they seem joyfully prismatic.

Sitting behind one of the looms, Brackens begins to work the shuttle with the ease and dexterity of a skilled pianist.

“I start any project with about 70% of what I think the image will look like,” he reflects. “And I dye the threads myself, so I’m always inviting another chance element.” While the work is largely planned out in advance, Brackens welcomes accident and improvisation into his process. “It’s kind of like woo-woo spiritual, maybe, but I think the loom is doing as much as I’m doing. So it’s like we’re participating in the thing together.”

Physically, the works are deliberately imperfect, often featuring dangling strands of string along their tops and bottoms, with separate, often uneven, panels sewn together to create a slightly ragtag whole. Thus he literally lets the seams show, reveling in their ungainly grace. This effect leaves the works feeling loose and a bit raw, mirroring the vulnerability of his imagery. In the realm of traditional textiles this embrace of materiality and imperfection is considered radical.

This past August, Brackens curated a show at Various Small Fires, the L A galler y that represents him. Titled “Shaping Color,” it featured six diverse artists who explore the fusion of color and materiality while questioning the traditional intent of their respective mediums.

This fascination with undermining expectation and expanding the language of his medium is one the artist clearly includes in his own work.

“When I think about weaving in particular, I definitely have bones to pick, things to change.

There’s so much more terrain for people coming along beside and after me to take. For me, it’s exciting to be any part of that sea change,” he states. “I want to be part of defining where the medium is—where it’s going ... I want to cheerlead, I want to instruct, I want to ask questions,” Brackens adds. “But I also want to trouble the idea of what mastery looks like, what excellence is—what craftmanship means.”

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AND

EDGES PLURALITIES MELISSA JOSEPH BRINGS CRAFT INTO THE FUTURE ANNABEL KEENAN

For Melissa Joseph, all things relate to edges. Her

practice exists on several of them: painting, felting, craft, utility, art … the list continues. She works in a unique dry-felting medium to create imagery based on her own photography and that of her family. While channeling “ancestral stories,” as she explains, she also addresses broader social issues, including gendered labor and identity. She constantly considers multiple things at once from a perspective that is inherently plural, evolving and defined by many identities: artist, teacher, woman, South Asian, American, friend, daughter and sister. As she prepares for her fall solo show, “Irish Exit,” at Margot Samel in New York, Joseph welcomes me into her studio to discuss how these identities and concerns inform her practice.

While she studied art after teaching and working for several years, Joseph only began using felt in 2020, when she first saw an artist working with the material. Intrigued, she signed up for a class, but it was canceled at the onset of the pandemic. With a degree in textile design, but never having seen—let alone studied—felting, she was determined to learn about it. She scoured YouTube and tracked down other artists online for support. She was innately drawn to the discipline and borrowed from the languages of painting and soft sculptural bas-relief to find her voice.

Joseph insists there is no difference between felt and painting. She uses the same language and concepts of perspective to build her compositions. She begins with a support of industrial wool, not unlike a canvas, and adds layers of colorful wool fibers.

She then uses a needle-like tool to poke the wool into the surface, filling in additional details as she crafts the image.

As Joseph explores felting more deeply, she connects with

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A Bow for Angelik, 2023, photo by GC Photography, courtesy of the artist. artillery • nov/dec 2023

artillerymag.com

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the legacy of craft—noting that some of our most ancient artifacts are craft, and embraces its significance as a marker of changes in taste. She rejects negative connotations of the term in the Western art market. “I deeply respect craft, craftsmanship and craftspeople,” she says. “The art world—specifically the market—has a problem with craft because it’s difficult to value unfamiliar materials and non-Western aesthetics. When I say unfamiliar, I mean materials associated with women and people of color. I waste so much time talking about craft versus art that could be better used interrogating ideas of form and language.”

Now that she excels at felting, Joseph is constantly looking for ways to build on historical precedents and incorporate new techniques, sometimes pairing felted imagery with clay that she’s painted on or with found objects—such items as rusted anchors, first-aid kits and unidentifiable steel shapes fill her studio. Furniture also features prominently in “Irish Exit,” both in content and materials. In A Bow for Angelik (2023), for example, Joseph and a friend are seen in a felted image of a mirror and French dresser. She found a similar, physical dresser that will become part of another piece with a felted painting in place of the mirror. In another work—What Chair?

(2023)—the artist’s niece is portrayed lying on the floor with a chair on her chest, playfully subverting its function.

Joseph’s use of diverse materials parallels the pluralities we embody. “Because I am biracial, I have to understand pluralities on a regular basis,” she explains. “Over time, I realized this is about more than just race. It’s the idea that we are multiple selves that we constantly try to understand while 36

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“ The art world—specifically the market—has a problem with craft because it’s difficult to value unfamiliar materials and non-Western aesthetics.”

accepting that this is a fluid definition.”

While at times her subjects are personal and address social concerns, Joseph allows for broad interpretations. Recently, she started taking photos specifically to turn them into artworks. One goal that remains a priority is depicting people who reflect a nuanced, diverse population: “Growing up, I didn’t see images that represented my personal experience; I only ever saw half or none of it,” she says. “It’s insidious and it’s hard to understand the impact this has on one’s self-worth.

The opportunity to help increase visibility of mixed-race and South Asian families is not something I take lightly.”

As she works to increase visibility and innovate felting, Joseph’s practice is grounded solidly in the future of craft. The art world, it seems, is slowly following suit. Her work is entering museum collections and is on view at exhibitions across the country. While there is work to be done, artists like Joseph are shifting the visual makeup of institutions. The further the edges are pushed, the sooner the hierarchy among aesthetics and disciplines will finally be understood as antiquated. artillerymag.com

Left to right: Owen, 2023; Guardian Gator, 2023; Aunty Loretta, 2023, photos by GC Photography, courtesy of the artist.

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NEEDLEWORK IN THE SERVICE OF SUBVERSION IRON HALO BY SAL SALANDRA TUCKER NEEL

For the past few weeks, Iron Halo, a catalog of

Sal Salandra’s art, has occupied my coffee table, stopping everyone who sees it in their tracks. The cover is a detail from a work called Human Ashtray: an ultramarine background surrounds a bearded man wearing a dog collar, his head restrained by a disembodied hand. Two cigars flick ashes into his salivating mouth. But it’s not the shocking nature of the picture that commands a double take—the real reward arrives when you notice that the image is composed entirely of cross-stitched thread.

Salandra, a septuagenarian artist with no formal art education, has practiced needlework for more than four decades. At first, he created quaint pictures of dogs and flowers while working as a hairdresser, but for the past 10 years, he’s been crafting complex, provocative, sexual and sometimes absurd scenes reflecting queer subjectivity, BDSM power dynamics and the debauched underbelly of Catholicism—all things with which he is intimately familiar. Iron Halo captures the work

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artillery • nov/dec 2023

Above: Church Taught Sex Is A Sin, 2021 (detail). artillerymag.com

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Salandra exhibited at his first-ever solo show in 2021, hosted

by Club Rhubarb, an experimental gallery run by Tony Cox out of his Chinatown apartment in New York City. As the catalog’s introductory essay by Michael Bullock notes, Salandra, a longtime member of the leather community, sees a connection between Catholic pageantry, acts of submission that permeated his youth, and the rituals surrounding BDSM that liberated him as a gay man later in life.

In Church Taught Sex Is A Sin, we are drawn into a multi-­ perspectival narrative within the confines of a sacred interior.

A hooded figure watches the scene unfold as two bare-bottomed priests kneel in prayer, clutching rosaries as they reach toward the cock of a ripped leather daddy who stares into the distance at the blessing of the Eucharist held aloft by another priest, attended by altar boys with reddened backsides. Nearby, another priest lays on the ground as his mouth vacuums up the crotch of a man wearing jeans and boots. And there’s plenty more action in the rest of the image—an orgiastic ballet

straddling sin and salvation is brought to life through painstakingly stitched threads, forming a delicious dialogue between technique and taboo.

The subversive power of Salandra’s art depends on its ability to catch its viewer off guard while celebrating libidinal exuberance through a traditionally conservative medium.

Needlepoint typically adheres to predetermined patterns and predictable outcomes along a rigid grid, contributing to its associations with order and control. But Salandra’s work, which he calls “thread painting,” ventures into improvisation, often taking on the more ornamental appearance of embroidery, using threads as brushstrokes to evoke tactile elements, from body hair to veins on an engorged phallus.

While Iron Halo doesn’t delve deep into art-historical precedents, one can’t help but place Salandra within a long tradition of needlepoint. Since the Industrial Revolution, the discourse sur rounding this craf t in the Wester n imagination has hinged primarily on its associations with

Iron Halo by Sal Salandra, published by Blurring Books, BlurringBooks.com.

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“The subversive power of Salandra’s art depends on its ability to catch its viewer off guard while celebrating libidinal exuberance through a traditionally conservative medium.”

femininity and domesticity, which until recently relegated it to the periphery of “serious” art. Generations of artists have worked to contest, subvert and queer these presuppositions, using needlepoint, embroidery and weaving as critical vehicles for counter-narratives—a way to highlight the thoughts and actions that “polite” society hides away, or actively tries to erase. Salandra’s practice comes in the wake of such mid-century artists as Allen Porter and George Platt Lynes, whose modernist creations explored homoerotic themes that were more palatable in their era.

Salandra’s work also stands out from other contemporary artists who use needle and thread to directly reference sexually explicit subject matter. Take Leah Emery, who makes complex, thread-bound images reproducing stills from pornographic films. Her work creates meaning by juxtaposing the cross-stitched canvas with the glossy sheen of porn, complicating gendered associations that permeate the two. Salandra’s work operates more viscerally. Filled with

awkwardly rendered bodies and f lattened picture planes, his thread paintings ref lect the uninhibited style of an “untrained” artist while also producing a surprising sense of immediacy and spontaneity that we don’t normally associate with needlework. This removes any tinge of irony or associations with the countless cross-stitched naughty schlock items you can buy on Etsy.

One of the best aspects of Iron Halo is its use of conventionally photographed images of the artist’s works alongside full-bleed spreads that highlight details of specific pieces, allowing readers to fully appreciate his laborious process. The book provides an intimate interaction with the work, creating an experience that surpasses seeing it on a digital screen (though Salandra’s website is filled with astonishing art). Although it is a slim volume, containing only 14 thread paintings from the artist’s growing oeuvre, Iron Halo leaves an indelible mark. I pray there are plans to publish his catalogue raisonné in the near future.

Left to right: Maid Service, 2020; Kiss It, 2020; Sunday Walk In The Park, 2021; Scotty, 2019; Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy, 2020. artillerymag.com

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Ada, 2019, handwoven cotton, linen and wool on canvas, photo by Cecily Brown.

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artillery • nov/dec 2023

FABRIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS

AHREE LEE WEAVES SEAMLESSLY BETWEEN ART AND TECHNOLOGY

WILLIAM MORENO

Multidisciplinary Los Angeles–based artist Ahree Lee started her career focused on video work.

In 2001, she took on her first major long-term project employing the repetitive and somewhat pedestrian habit of taking a daily selfie. The resulting images were transformed into a mesmerizing visual diary, Me, 2001, which became a prescient viral YouTube sensation. Envisioned as a lifetime effort, it inspired a tsunami of imitators and was arguably one of the internet’s first time-lapse self-portrait videos.

The video works were a precursor to her parallel passion—weaving. At one point she had a stint in tech, which, notably, is connected to that ancient tradition.

Indeed, early computers mimicked the processes that enabled weaving looms—a clever application of a straightforward process. “Weaving is binary, either a warp or a weft thread is, on the surface, essentially a zero or one,” says Lee, the daughter of Korean immigrants, who graduated with an MFA from Yale.

The history of women as essential protagonists in the tech field is often overlooked. “Women were instrumental in writing the first computer programs and filling the ranks of programming jobs in the early years,” Lee notes. One of her works, Ada (2019), composed of cotton, linen and wool, is a homage to Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer program in the 19th century. The hand-wrought work mimics 1960s-era IBM punch cards, with black yarn marking spots corresponding to perforated holes. Yet women’s roles have dimmed over time as men populated the field and “bro culture” took hold. Despite the industry’s recent outward public relations proclamations and media exposés, tech culture has become, if anything, increasingly clamorous: witness the Zuckerberg-Musk wrestling hype.

With Pattern: Code (2019), the result of a residency artillerymag.com

at the Women’s Center for Creative Work, Lee explored connections between technology, craft and the value of women’s labor—elegantly simple, if conceptually rigorous, correlations. One particularly personal work— Timesheet: November 4–10 (2018)—is a carefully rendered and revelatory tapestry, recording time spent on personal tasks with highlighted threads tracking activities such as sleep, childcare and work. More recently, the ongoing series she started in 2021, “Motherboard,” juxtaposes the functional and aesthetic qualities of Bauhaus weavings and computer motherboards.

The women of the prominent Bauhaus school were “assigned” to the weaving workshop. These included such figures as Anni Albers and Margarete Köhler-Bittkow.

Despite being relegated to a lower status—and counter to Modernist limitations—they developed several expressionistic innovations, such as soundproofing, and incorporating cellophane and light-ref lective fabrics into their processes. Lee’s adept conceptual synthesis renders unique perspectives on the roles that power and gender play in buried historical narratives— without a shred of mawkishness.

Up next is a solo exhibition at California State University Long Beach in 2024. While most of her work to date has focused on what she admits are explorations of emotionally fraught ref lections of familial and gender roles, Lee seeks to consolidate technology, domestic activity and multimedia into a kind of alternative frame of thinking, inviting social action where “women weave computer code and men stitch circuits.” It’s true enough that we exist in an ever-accelerating and unwieldy loop of information exchange between humans, technology and, increasingly, AI, with its relentless focus on efficiency.

It seems opportune to propose a social road map for something better.

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REVIEWS

Mike Kelley, Kandor 16, 2011. © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All Rights Reserved / VAGA at ARS, NY. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.

“NONMEMORY” HAUSER & WIRTH

By Christie Hayden

“Nonmemory,” for the artist Mike Kelley, was something akin to his notorious usage of the “uncanny,” a theory borrowed from Freud wherein repressed memories emerge into disturbing feelings. In nonmemory, however, what has been forgotten stays so, and recollection is built around, or in the stead of, that which has been lost. Probing its eponymous concept, this group show features Kelley’s work alongside that of seven other contemporary artists—Kelly Akashi, Meriem Bennani, Beatriz Cortez, Raúl de Nieves, Olivia Erlanger, Lauren Halsey and Max Hooper Schneider—and exposes the modes in which Kelley’s themes have snaked their way through art’s advancing discourse.

Setting the tone for the show is Kelley’s Mobile Homestead Swag Lamp Edition (2010–13). Modeled after Kelley’s childhood home, this sculpture ties in with his nearby video works, both of which depict portions of Kelley’s only public art project: a full-scale replica of the home dedicated for com- munity 44

use in Detroit. “Cubbyhole architecture,” referring to the nooks and crannies of a home or school, is one site of Kelley’s nonmemory—the forgotten places that might be synonymous with abuse. In the three works grouped here, Kelley makes private space public in a gesture of rectification. On the opposing wall to Kelley’s videos is Lauren Halsey’s dat fuss wuz us (2023)—a bulbous cloud of a wall- mounted relief, the sculpture carries a multitude of Black figurines and Technicolor objects in its caverns. Dat fuss wuz us activates hyperbolized, confined space while resembling an architectural model—leaving the viewer with a similar resolution to Kelley’s in this context.

The works in the next room are very much stylistically in sync with Kelley’s “Kandor” series, wherein the artist fixated on the tiny city kept in a bell jar in Superman’s lair. “I wonder if [he] ever feels the desire to smash this city and finally live in the present,” Kelley said of this series. Across from Kelley’s Kandor 16 (2011), a glowing glass city perched on a rock plinth, is Kelly Akashi’s Untitled (Polar Vistas Series) (2022–23). A perfect bell jar cut into marble, one imagines that the secrets it contains would be much harder to smash—the past it might indicate more difficult to be rid of.

The next room is clearly curated around Kelley’s “Memory Ware” series. Raúl de Nieves’ One One Eight Four Five Time Is On My Side (2023) is an incredibly intricate tiling of beads, toys, chains, dolls and more connected to a circular panel, imbuing the work’s surface with an accumulation of signifiers—each item indicating its own history of previously independent objecthood. Next to one another, the de Nieves and Kelley works reveal an undeniable likeness, thus creating another layer of uncanny resemblance in situ.

Finally, one passes by Meriem Bennani’s space shuttle–like video installation Ponytail (2019), otherworldly works by Olivia Erlanger, such as 16.5918° S, 39.1028° W (2023), which depicts a planet shot down with an arrow, and Kelley’s Repressed Spatial Relationships Rendered as Fluid #1: Martian School (Work Site) (2002), an architectural model-like mobile of the McMartin preschool and its floor plan.

These final notes of the exhibition drive home Kelley’s interest in the idea that what one can’t remember might be actively repressed. In the uncanny, this repressed memory could return as something beyond comprehension—or, if applying Kelley’s sense of humor, extraterrestrial. In terms of both style and subject matter, the artists showing alongside Kelley in “Nonmemory” verge on appropriation with their work, often bearing such a strong resemblance to or resonance with their predecessor.

As an appropriator himself, Kelley would likely endorse the gesture.

DEANA LAWSON

DAVID KORDANSKY GALLERY

By Jody Zellen

While Deana Lawson is known for her individual, staged photographs depicting African-Americans communities in interior and exterior environs, she also conceptualizes the entirety of her presentations, which often include casual snapshots displayed as collages. In this exhibition, titled “Mind’s Eye,” the photograph Cardeidra (all works 2023), which depicts a topless woman seated on a couch giving the finger to the photographer, sets the series in motion.

The central figure is joined by another woman who holds a sleeping child in her arms, but what stands out in the image is a mirror located in the back left corner of the room that captures the reflection of the photographer surrounded by a surprising flare of light. In her statement for the show, Lawson remarks that seeing the light reminded her of a dream of being in a plane that was suddenly surrounded by an ominous white light.

Whether prophecy or coincidence, this dream almost became a reality two years later on a chartered flight to photograph Ivanpah—a solar farm in the Mojave Desert with 173,500 mirrors—as her plane was forced to make an emergency landing. Phantom reflections, fields of mirrors, appropriated snapshots and ancient statues—these connections pervade “Mind’s Eye.” Lawson uses the gallery space as a stage.

Not only does she frame each image with thin mirrors reminiscent of 1970s decor, an obvious reference to the Ivanpah site, but she also includes objects. For example, spread across the floor below the image Afriye is an array of small glass elephants. The photograph is intimate. The setting is a living room in which a young girl with an ornate hairdo, wearing a frilly white lace dress, stands on an ottoman holding her mother’s hand. Dressed in black, the mother sits calmly on a couch. Both stare at what one assumes is the photographer. The background includes a Tiffany-like lamp, as well as a framed image of a white flower. A styrofoam container of leftovers rests on the couch. Closed vertical blinds separate the room from the outside. In many ways, this is a typical Deana Lawson image: Every detail is thought out, carefully composed and staged.

But the relationship between the large group of glass elephants and the image remains ambiguous.

A similarly obscured connection occurs in the corner of the gallery. On the floor between the photographs Olmec Negroid Stone Head and Arethea, Lawson placed a large white artillery • nov/dec 2023

REVIEWS

Deana Lawson, Low Rider, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery.

unpolished cluster of crystal, referencing the spiritual and creating a bridge between the images. She states, “Each of these works is born of an anticipation or meditation on some riddle that lies between this world and some other place.” While Lawson is particular about what is presented in each image and how they are displayed in the gallery space, she is also interested in what happens between and across these photographs, how the unknown and unanticipated can resonate through an image and across time, no matter how controlled the setup may be.

STEVE McQUEEN

MARIAN GOODMAN LOS ANGELES

to look at, but the way McQueen deploys this format in Sunshine State embodies the work’s motif of layers, mirrors and parallels. The film takes as its starting point a few scenes from the denouement of the 1927 film—Al Jolson’s character applies blackface in preparation for a stage performance so triumphant that it helps him reconcile with his estranged and dying father. The scene offers a message of tolerance that has acquired layers of irony, to say the least, since its release. These segments are doubled across the two (effectively four) screens, all in choreographed combinations— they are played variously in forward, reverse, repeated and mixed-up order, shown in both positive and negative. The syntactical and sculptural transformations McQueen enacts

on the original film create an atmospheric environment of flashing dissonance, a surrealist collage that disorients, but adheres to its narrative.

This striking visual would be enough; the focus on the complex revisitations of race and identity would already be clear. But a new dimension—a new universe, really—of meaning opens up when the soundtrack appears. It’s the voice of McQueen himself, relating a story from his own life—the moment of his father’s confession of a harrowing incident that had first defined his world, and later, his son’s.

McQueen’s voice-over has been given a similar editing treatment as the film— repetitions, redactions, eventual revelations—bringing the viewer along on the artist’s journey of dawning comprehension. A victim of racist anti-immigrant fear-mongering as a young man, his father never spoke of these events until the end of his life; McQueen learned a lot more than facts when he heard it.

This understanding folds back again on the 1927 sequences—the blackface content is the most obvious of commentary, but the storyline also focuses on a reparative moment in a contentious father-son relationship. That this work creates a deep empathetic connection between the contemporary Black artist, whose practice remains engaged in a critique of oppressive racist social institutions, and the once-iconic film star, who casually applied blackface like it was nothing, is a potent inflection point in its scope of meaning.

By Shana Nys Dambrot

Steve McQueen combines his filmmaker’s sense of scale, drama and cinematic history with his artist’s sensibility in Sunshine State (2022), a work of visceral impact and pointed message that is also rich in nuance, symbolism, connection, contradiction and emotion.

Lasting for just over 30 minutes, it is not only a two-channel video but also a two-sided screen; viewers on either side watch the same pairs of footage simultaneously, though in reverse orientation, united by the singularity of the encompassing audio. The gallery space is a darkened room illuminated only by the work’s projected flickering, which (along with the architectural scale) amplifies its movie-theater aspects. And indeed the work itself is largely based on reconfigurations of a classic Hollywood film—The Jazz Singer (1927). All of this sets up a situational aesthetic that is ripe to be powerfully subverted by the intimate and culturally charged poetics of the piece itself.

Multichannel video works are impressive artillerymag.com

Steve McQueen, Installation view of Sunshine State, 2022, at Marian Goodman Los Angeles.

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REVIEWS

KIM JONES THE BOX

By Ezrha Jean Black The opening for Kim Jones’ exhibition had a kind of homecoming spirit, reflected in its title, “Walking Home.” Several of Jones’ first post-graduate performance pieces in the 1970s were marathon “walks” between various landmarks in Los Angeles, performed in the “Mudman” sculptural guise he devised out of sticks and twigs twined together with electrical tape, foam rubber, cheesecloth and chicken wire—a kind of wraparound leanto—plastered to his body with mud and not a little of his own excrement. Some of the documentation for these performances is on display, along with sculptural constructions and installations built upon these constructions which he moved on to in later decades.

Conceivably his entire life led up to his practice—graduate education and early work in LA were turning points, as was his 1967–68 service as a Marine in Vietnam. A crippling childhood disorder sidetracked him into obsessively crafting diagrammatic war-game strategy drawings interspersed with cartoon incidents. (One of these drawings is collaged between figures in an untitled pen-and-ink drawing from 2009, reworked in 2020.) He has carried these forward long after graduate school into large, late-Renaissance style strategic plans of cities, fortifications and projected attack lines. There are four on view, executed and/or reworked between 1997 and 2021.

The freestanding Stars, from the 1990s, which seemed to evolve in part from his “Mudman” constructions, actually bears a closer resemblance to the kinds of “hedgehog” snares deployed in anti-tank and mining defenses.

Jones’ drawing style has evolved into a dense and heavily crosshatched, quasi- Victorian satiric style reminiscent of British illustrators Arthur Rackham, George Cruikshank and John Leech. Figures are rendered mostly in profile, frequently in disproportionate scale and distorted, emphasizing their character (but without the sort of irony or humor we might see in, say, Saul Steinberg). Extensions are frequently truncated, bodies dissected to expose segmented viscera. The conflict implied in his war-game/map drawings is frequently transferred to the figures, which present more than one “shadow” figure alongside a more prominent caricature-type subject. The effect is frequently magnified by the underdrawing of the war-game map. Using photos 46

Kim Jones, “Walking Home.” Installation Image. 2023.

Courtesy of the Artist and The Box LA. Photo Fredrik Nilsen Studio.

as a support adds another light and amplified dimension to some of these deeply interior, psychological drawings. Nonhuman figures are in short supply, though a toad occasionally prances into the picture.

Rats are a troubling obsession. Two iterations of Rat With Long Legs (2016)—large black rubber rats atop what look like abbreviated ski poles—flank a video of one of his “Mudman” walks from 1979. A tarry black ball of them, Rat Ball (2) (2008–09) sits in one corner. It’s clear that Jones has a dark, rather Manichaean view of the world, and certainly humanity. The quasi-human specimens of Jones’ imagination give birth to shadow or divided selves; conceivably evil or indifferent to it. Whether such specimens might be little more than “rats on stilts” (and this is not to excuse Jones’ horrific “performances” in 1972 and 1976) is a more tendentious proposition.

Then, too, considering the political climate of the past few years, he may have a point.

sculptures included in “Tomorrow is a Mystery” leverage artifice, illusion, humor, irony and masterful craftsmanship to incite jolts of recognition that illuminate, however briefly, the difficult but necessary truth.

Mesmerizing geometric patterns unfurl kaleidoscopically from the center of a hexagon on the gallery’s back wall. At first glance, the crystalline mosaic, with its aquamarine, amber, and opal planes, is breathtaking. Only upon close inspection does one see that the lustrous seashells are interlaid not with gems or glass tessera but with a rainbow of spoons, tampon applicators, bottle caps and other insipid single-use plastics. Disgust intermingles with delight, and while you can’t look away from Order from Prescription History (2023) you can’t unsee the trash. In O’er the Wide and Plastic Sea (2023) a chimerical mosaic

DUKE RILEY

CHARLIE JAMES GALLERY

By Tara Anne Dalbow

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” remarked the poet who gave us The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot. The observation supports the standard explanation for the failings of our species to adequately address the climate crisis, the scope and scale of which are too abstract and elusive for people to fathom.

Artist and activist Duke Riley is determined to change that and make the calamitous environmental impact of human behavior comprehensible to visitors, even if that means breaking up its components into a million tiny pieces and then reassembling them, or addressing it in a kitschy YouTube tutorial.

Fabricated from scavenged, seaborne plastics, the mosaics, scrimshaws, drawings and

Duke Riley, Order From Prescription History, 2023. Photo: © 2023 Yubo Dong. Photo: © 2023 Yubo Dong, @ofphotostudio. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. artillery • nov/dec 2023

REVIEWS

seascape of a cargo ship and a pod of whales, black combs replicate the ventral grooves that run the length of a whale’s body, corroded lighter cases evoke weathered shipping containers, and bulbous red bottle caps recall the rubber bumpers encircling a freighter’s hull.

Comparing the crenelation of a plastic lid with that of a scallop shell, or the sheen of a cigar tip with that of a sea snail, nods to the striking difference between nature’s discarded goods and our own.

Perhaps the most efficacious simulacrum in the show is the meticulously detailed scrimshaw. Instead of whale teeth, the material 19th-century sailors etched in, Riley scrolls his dense yet fine-lined mariner imagery on whitewashed and artificially patinated plastic products, such as flip flops and honey pots.

That the ersatz objects are almost indistinguishable from anthropological artifacts gives credence and gravity to the drawings, which range from factory renderings to portraits of the business executives the artist holds responsible for producing the excess of single-use plastics.

Two shadow boxes display Technicolor plastics that shimmer between fishing lures and the fish themselves. Constructed from easily recognizable products that lure consumers with the promise of health (medicine droppers), hygiene (toothbrushes), beauty (hair clips) and pleasure (vape pens), they are as humorous as they are unsettling. In his clever parody of a fishing tutorial, Riley earnestly instructs viewers on how to turn a discarded tampon applicator into a lure of their own. Proving once again that a few minor adjustments can have a transformative effect, the artist calls us to reconsider our consumption habits in the service of collective action toward systemic change.

ABEL GUZMÁN LA BEAST GALLERY

By William Moreno

Religious parochial dogma is often fraught with pedagogical conflicts in the spheres of doctrine, institutional curricula and, unsurprisingly—queer identity. Overlay these ideologies with Mexican-American cultural norms and concomitant conventions of masculinity, and you have potent fuel for artist Abel Guzmán’s exhibition “serás más macho” (you will be more macho). A major shift from the artist’s previous works, this engrossing show thoroughly dismantles prevailing archetypes. artillerymag.com

Abel Guzmán, con tu bendición, 2022.

Courtesy of la Beast gallery.

The alluring and meditative installation of works on paper and sculptures, awash in sepia tones, compels the visitor to explore Guzmán’s unexpectedly lascivious and seductive lair.

The carefully installed drawings, fashioned on brown paper with colored pencil, crayon and marker, are seamlessly sustained by a grouping of sculptures—3D manifestations of Guzmán’s sweeping vision. The works on paper command the gallery space: the surreal con tu bendición (with your blessing, 2022) anchors the series. A landscape of icons incorporates a male figure nearly turned inside out, his vaquero style cowboy boots askew and his exposed anus stuffed with anal beads—an object of both containment and pleasure— while encircled by a divine mandorla or halo.

It’s a provocative and strikingly synchronized montage, in which masculinity, religion and sexual agency are orchestrated into a visual cacophony of male anxiety and an unapologetic evisceration of traditional religious icons.

No se dio cuenta de su propio mal presagio (he did not realize his own bad omen, 2022) refers to the double-headed serpent in Aztec mythology (maquizcoatl), who was bearer of bad omens. The Aztec ruling elites often gifted Spanish occupiers fine turquoise gifts of serpent representations, gestures that ultimately did little to mitigate their eventual subjugation—an allegorical irony. Macho macho man (2023) takes its cue from the classic Village People song, but its composition is an overt reference to Mexican tradition. Created in the manner of papel picado on traditional Amate paper, it depicts impossibly muscular men hoisting dumbbells in a kind of hyper-masculine ballet—a picture of fraught and ensnared power.

Positioned in the middle of the gallery, the nine sculptures are tantalizingly provocative.

They function as a kind of power source— indeed, the entire series is titled “Energy Vessels” (all 2023). Composed of woven wire, pipe cleaners, latex and animal parts, these vessels are not to be taken lightly. Energy Vessel (No. 23) and (No. 24) read as compan-

ion works emitting and channeling an ethereal luminosity, rooted in familial brujeria traditions—a syncretic blend of folklore, traditional herbalism and religion. Both are oddly disconcerting and insistently compelling; the carefully constructed forms take on distorted qualities imbued with animism. Energy Vessel (No. 19) adds elements of chicken legs and a corn cob as a kind of blooming phallus. A daunting composition, it demands scrutiny: the deliberative, ritualized form is morphed into an equivocal alternative totem.

More breathing room would have eased absorbing the totality of the scene, but the beauty and audacity of the works on view are unambiguous—Guzmán’s aching catharsis and castigations of religion, masculinity and cultural norms is an overwhelming sensorial expedition.

SUN WOO MAKE ROOM

By Catherine Yang In “Swamps and Ashes,” Sun Woo reflects on the contemporary desires and fears borne from our increasing interaction with and use of commodified technologies. Evoking visceral feelings against the backdrop of fantastical virtual environments, her paintings create a

Sun Woo, Long Shower, 2023. Photo: Jong Hyun Seo. Courtesy of the artist and Make Room, Los Angeles.

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REVIEWS

tension that reveals her experience growing up on the cusp of two cultures—she was born in South Korea and raised in Toronto—and generations.

Just as technology fractionates our sense of space, so too do her eerie compositions, in which she attempts to affix conceptual sensations. Sun Woo’s works mimic the surreal (yet now ordinary) feeling of viewing the world through a screen; her depictions of everyday objects—ironing boards, ashtrays, drains and keyholes—are altered by absurd and disconcerting elements, and thus enter a realm unbound by physical restrictions.

In Long Shower (all works 2023), an unsightly sea wool sponge, larger-than-life and swathed in glistening, spidery strands of hair like something out of a body-horror film, sits in the middle of a living room replete with plants and mid-century modern furniture.

A mysteriously impervious lamp glows in the background while rain pours inside the room, and the sponge drips a swamp onto the carpet below.

Other works similarly feature corporeal elements in dreamy and often grotesque states, which come together to arouse peculiar and specific physical conditions, such as being saturated in hot steam (Down in the Grove) or engulfed in flame (Salamander’s Cottage). Depicting straw mounds anthropomorphized with soft crevices and cascades of shiny black hair, Brittle Landscape uses rough-hewn texture and unexpected visual cues, such as hair dryers and crooked nails, to suggest the vulnerability of today’s body as it interacts with unforgiving surroundings.

In Ashes, hair creeps out from the ridges of an ashtray while its contents simultaneously convey a charred wasteland or a closeup of a parched scalp in which, through extermination, regrowth is possible.

In all the paintings, Sun Woo’s hyper- realistic technique is achieved through digital renderings followed by a mixture of airbrushing and painting. The resulting works have both the softness of traditional painting and the brusque precision of computer-generated imagery. Through the interplay of the physical body and the digital sphere, she treats the surface of her works like skin and constructs new “bodies” in canvas that carry, like scars, traces of her memories and experiences. She also invites viewers to experience cryptic snippets of her personal history. Room of Haze is a visual representation of flesh memory: the artist uses skin-like garments on a drying rack doused with mist to recall the damp atmosphere of her childhood living room in Seoul, where her mother would hang laundry during 48

the rainy summer seasons.

Anything feels possible in Sun Woo’s striking compositions. Just as easily as users grow desensitized to a barrage of bizarre digital imagery, viewers become easily lost in her virtual world and soon grow unfazed by the unpredictable nature of her juxtapositions.

Her paintings stimulate twinges of discomfort, feelings of uncanny familiarity and, above all, a sense of consternation regarding the inescapable entanglement of bodies and technology.

ALVARO ILIZARBE GALLERY SADE LOS ANGELES

Alvaro Ilizarbe, U, 2023. Courtesy of SADE LA.

By Elwyn Palmerton

Psychedelic experience has some distinct qualities. One may experience hallucinations of shifting yet repetitive imagery. Random objects become supercharged with symbolic meaning. Reality dissolves into the purely visual. Time itself is revealed as an abstract conceptual category, and one is inundated with eruptions of extreme emotions like love, joy, terror and anxiety. Alvaro Ilizarbe’s work hits all of these marks. His show, “I Love You,” includes an edition of chocolate bars infused with psilocybin mushrooms, available for purchase. Cast from a small wooden relief, titled Smiling With You In Mind (2023), the piece feels a bit gimmicky and secondary to the show until—with the creeping strangeness of shrooms kicking in—it becomes a Rosetta Stone for unlocking the exhibition. Ilizarbe’s wall reliefs and sculptures are quintessentially psychedelic in their own way while bearing little resemblance to genres that we think of as “psychedelic art.”

The formal presence of the show hits first.

The wall reliefs and sculptures are composed of glyph-like symbols in grids and bulging convex parallel strips, looking a bit Gothic and sci-fi—like a cross between Finish-Fetish Minimalism and ancient Sumerian cuneiform.

These were designed on a computer, printed with a CNC router and finished by hand with sandpaper and acrylic airbrush paint. Although they are made from wood, they have a surreal plastic quality, as if replicating the virtuality of 3D renderings. The contoured surfaces and plastic sheen create highlights and shadows in smooth gradients—it is hard to tell what precise shade they are; one only discerns colors under specific light. As students of Josef Albers know, this is how color works. Neverthe-

less, Ilizarbe makes this quality of experience visceral: the sense of materiality dissolves into pure visuality.

You can also sense time dissolving here.

Ilizarbe credits a trip to Alhambra, a palace complex in Granada, Spain, famous for its Islamic architecture, as a major inspiration. Despite the modern fabrication methods, links to conceptual art and the Finish Fetish sensibility, there is a clear link to ancient decorative traditions in Ilizarbe’s work. This appetite for hallucinatory yet geometrically rigorous patterning must have been hard-wired into our central nervous systems a long time ago.

Not unlike the effects of fungi grown in cow dung, this connection to art from nearly a millennium ago is mind-expanding, collapsing our sense of historical time.

More than a little reminiscent of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, the shapes in these pieces are derived from a cipher of Ilizarbe’s own devising. Twenty-six square glyphs inscribed with straight lines and simple curves represent letters of the alphabet. Still, it is impossible to imagine a Conceptualist like LeWitt giving his work an emotive title like “I Love You (Things I Wanted To Say And Didn’t But Now I Did).” Here, the rational and the poetic collapse into each other. Objects are tethered to ideas and intense feelings outside their literal ambit. These uncanny effects cannot quite be captured in language. I suppose then, the word “trippy” will have to suffice. artillery • nov/dec 2023

Vetruvian Wombman alias Brünhilde 69” x 73” Inkblot on canvas 2017

THE LOFT AT LIZ’S PRESENTS THE ART OF

ULI BOEGE 1969-2020

COLLAGE | TERRAZZO | PAINTING | INKBLOT

11.11.23 - 01.09.24 OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2023 (5-8PM) INKBLOT DEMONSTRATION NOVEMBER 18 (3-5PM)

THE LOFT AT LIZ’S GALLERY 453 S. LA BREA AVE. LOS ANGELES, CA 90036.

ULIBOEGE@ GMAIL.COM

Amazona with Infant 46” x 70” Inkblot on canvas 2011

NIKOLAS SOREN GOODICH WE NEED MIRRORS TO SEE OURSELVES November 11 - January 11 Opening Reception For The Artist November 11, 2023, 5pm to 8pm

gallery169.com nikolassorengoodich.com luminouscommunitycenter.org

Gallery 169 169 W Channel Rd Santa Monica, CA, 90402

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2024 Bendix Gallery Openings January 13

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Alexandre Arrechea (Cuba, 1970) Fish Bite / La mordida del pescado, 2022 Ink on wood / Tinta sobre madera 26 x 55 x 1 ½ inches / pulgadas Courtesy of the artist / Cortesía del artista

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POEMS / ASK BABS

ASK BABS BABS RAPPLEYE

GOBBLEDYGOOK?

POEMS free country

your voice on the phone in the dream is disinterested I miss you I say It’s a free country a moth falls through the door drunk on light the same one that flies out of my wallet how have I never seen him I think coming home —Evan Laffer

Dear Babs: I’m sick of the BS-way people in the art world talk so that most of us can’t understand them. Why can’t they just be okay with calling stuff beautiful and cool? Has the art world always been like this? Is it just to be exclusive, or is there a point I’m not getting?

—Disillusioned in Denver Dear Disillusioned: The BS-talk you refer to is called International Art English or IAE for short—a term coined by Alix Rule and David Levine to describe the particular language spoken in the gallery-tomuseum, pipeline-driven contemporary art world. Writing for the magazine Triple Canopy in 2012, the authors attempted to use data analysis to explore the structure and use of language in thousands of press releases distributed since 1999 by the e-flux newsletter, which was (and is?) the place where art PR starts. They pointed out features of IAE, like the persistent use of single and double adverbial phrases and dependent clauses that go on and on, and hiding a sentence’s meaning deep in its syntactical bowels. One of their more interesting assertions is that IAE began with bad English translations of French Post-structuralist and German Frankfurt School writings from such theorists

STILL THE SAME Wallowing in a besotted stupor, relishing the powerlessness and mental disarray.

You wouldn’t want it any other way: this thing you unknowingly craved, in its many stifling and exhausting shades: strength sapped, nerves unstrung, mind turned to dust, familiar patterns emerge: the worst being that you haven’t changed, and despite every other long-cherished aspect of your life being disrupted, and fully knowing that it will eventually destroy you, this thing has to be handled delicately.

—John Tottenham

60

as Roland Barthes and Theodor W. Adorno. These original translations provided inspirational ways of thinking about the world but were also nearly impenetrable to everyday readers. After working through academia and influential such publications as October, this way of writing became the norm adopted by an international art world linked together through the internet. Eventually, according to the authors, you get press releases written by “ … French interns imitating American interns imitating American academics imitating French academics.”

Yes, IAE is exclusionary, but it’s not useless; there are many cool ideas in the gobbledygook. My advice is not to let IAE get to you. Call it out when you see it and try to engage. Who knows? Perhaps one day, you might find yourself hermeneutically excavating discursively charged understandings of perception masking the “real” that fetishistically lurks beneath post-internet systems of cognitive exclusion. artillery • nov/dec 2023

The California Festival celebrates the innovative spirit of the Golden State.

As part of this statewide initiative, the LA Phil presents music by a wide range of cutting-edge composers and artists.

NOV 7

Chamber Music

Pereira, Washington & Mozart Members of the LA Phil NOV 9

Lila Downs, Catalina García, Goyo, Ely Guerra, and Ana Tijoux Canto en resistencia Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo, Dudamel, conductor NOV 10–12

GUSTAVO DUDAMEL

LILA DOWNS

Dudamel and the LA Phil featuring Silvana Estrada Canto en resistencia Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo, Dudamel, conductor NOV 12

Organ and Piano Recital

James McVinnie NOV 14 SILVANA ESTRADA

JAMES MCVINNIE

Green Umbrella

Chaparral and Interstates New Music from California LA Phil New Music Group Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor NOV 15

Colburn Celebrity Recital

FRAGMENTS 2 VIMBAYI KAZIBONI

ALISA WEILERSTEIN

Alisa Weilerstein, cello and project creator Elkhanah Pulitzer, director Seth Reiser, scenic and lighting designer Hanako Yamaguchi, artistic producer/advisor NOV 16–19

Dudamel and the Music of Tango, Ballet, and Beyond

ELKHANAH PULITZER

LETICIA MORENO

Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo Dudamel, conductor Leticia Moreno, violin

Get Your Tickets Today! laphil.com/CAFestival

English/Español 323 850 2000 Programs, artists, prices, and dates subject to change.

Also on view: Sheila Metzner: From Life Through February 18, 2024 Getty Center FREE ADMISSION Plan your visit

Image: Boy with Basketball, Bronx, New York (detail), 1970, Arthur Tress. Getty Museum. © Arthur Tress Archive LLC. Text and design © 2023 J. Paul Getty Trust