Someone told me to write some art reviews like I did back in the 1990s, hahaha well here goes…
Quick LACMA exhibit report card reviews:
•Christian Marclay solo show: A+
Fantastic duet with Snapchat, this is where art is going. Only thing here I want to see again.
•Mary Corse retrospective: B
I love Mary but this tiny survey should have been three times as extensive. She is at least an equal to Ellsworth Kelly who would get two floors while she settles for less than half of one. Must be sexism as the need to include clunky outliers overrode the need to stun us with the depths of her greatness. Contemptible curation and space allocation.
•Some group show of Art from China: F
Every stupid idea you had as an undergrad is here and the one great piece – a rug of cigarettes- is a rip-off of Tara Donovan so much that she should sue for copyright except China doesn’t honor that anyway.
•Betye Saar solo show: B
Hey I’m noticing a pattern: women get shunted to a little room at LACMA with truncated little surveys while men sprawl out all over the place with their mediocre bullshit. Michael Govan is from NY where everyone needs a subway token but this is no excuse for blatant tokenism you twerp. Anyway, here is a show that scratches at the surface of a truly creative soul and they can’t scan the pages of her journals so we can enjoy more of what makes her tick, nope, just shove the binders (Mitt Romney style?) into a vitrine and insist we’ve seen enough. Grade B for the dimly lit art, F- for the curation.
•Thomas Joshua Cooper solo show: F
Oh my god the problem with the great Andy Goldsworthy are the legion of Indiana Jonesers he inspired to go out into nature and fuck it all up with artmaking. So here is boring photograph (okay they are sexy prints but you seen one you seen ‘em all and you snooze) after boring photograph of bodies of water, occasional shoreline, oh a cloud or two, and then the important part is to read that these spots are geographic edges of locations – the northernmost point in Britain or the water where one river meets the sea. BFD, right? Okay fine, a token photo show, Indiana Joshua Jones here is 70-something, he gets his goddamn retrospective and what the fuck there is four times the real estate devoted to this putz than to Betye Saar AND it is the best lit show in history. I mean, the last thing I want is to be a cloying sycophant to the woke left BUT when the installations palpably illustrate every single one of their bitter twitter posts where does that leave a critic? Organized with the Lannan foundation I can only assume this show exists so that Lannan money will be funding (or has funded) Govan’s coming amoeba building boondoggle (abb). If there is an “Art Hell” Govan is gonna burn in it for eternity for backroom bullshit like this.
•Animals in Japanese Art exhibit: C-
I stood by while a field-trippin teacher made a gradeschooler read a paragraph about the year of the pig and they never mentioned cops once. Had to leave instead of risk it all to address the kiddies!
•SteakFrites at the LACMA restaurant RAY’S: A+
Would have been an A- but my wife’s nephew grabbed the check and food always tastes better when someone else is paying for it! Thanks Nico!