Blog
Angelo Dilena: The Car Whisperer
On Sunday, January 30, 2022, my brother-in-law Angelo Dilena, 70, was one of 456 Americans to die from Covid-19. He was vaxxed and boosted but had numerous co-morbidities that made him especially susceptible to the virus. My sister was widowed in 1993 and married Angelo in 2003. He really brought the sparkle back to her …
Review: DISPLACED – A Book of Photography by Ara Oshagan
Reviewed by Mat Gleason Ara Oshagan is a poetic photographer merging the magical happenstance of cinema verite with the elegance of a great still life painter. His new book DISPLACED (Kehrer, 2021) is a return to the Armenian enclaves in Lebanon from whence he fled – a refugee – more than forty years ago. ©Ara …
Roland Reiss – The Man, The Friend, The Artist
Sitting around in the café most afternoons at the Brewery Art Colony in the latter half of the 1990s, Roland Reiss didn’t exactly hold court. He was too good a listener to do that. He enjoyed the give and take and would seize upon whatever subject in which a person was an expert. Over a …
They Can’t Cancel The Autonomous
Here is the deal about cancel culture, you only get canceled by two types of people: 1. The people who already hate you 2. The people who only liked you because of the power thing (media platform, institution, social position, prestigious job, lucrative employment, etc.) with which you are/were affiliated. The people who love you …
Dutch Master Pizza Lament
Someone posted a link to the LA Times article about the bulldozing of the old LACMA campus. It is in full swing. I don’t want to read the article, I don’t want to link to the article, I don’t want to see the pictures. I saw one and it made me angry and it made …
Is that Joe Strummer in your Refigerator?
What would it mean to find Joe Strummer in your refrigerator? Metaphorically of course, Joe’s been dead close to two decades, you heard didn’t you? I ask because the saddest thing was telling people two years later that he had passed – they hadn’t heard and wondered aloud if the Clash would ever reunite and …
How good was the Guston show at Hauser Wirth?
I always hate year-end lists that talk about shows from October and November as being the best-of-the-year and end-of-the-decade lists that concentrate heavily on the 8s and 9s, but as sure as Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t deserve it, I must declare that the Guston show at Hauser and Wirth does deserve infinite praise – it …
LACMA Fall 2019 Report Card
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: BI love Mary but this tiny …
Wowed at the Weisman
When asked I tell people, mostly visitors to LA, that the Norton Simon Museum has by far the best collection in Southern California if not the West Coast. But I now must qualify this. If you just want to see twentieth century art, there is nothing that rivals the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation. Located in …
Some Thoughts After Yet More MOCA Drama
Never considered MOCA to be “An Artists’ Museum”. Always a palace of the 1% …That is the role of Institutions. Individuals storm the gates. The idea that any break thru and those then change things is more mythical than “Star Wars”. The idea of “critiquing from within” or “sharing the stories of others” is a …
A Parable about Illustration.
There was a people who mingled freely with art. They were called illustrators. Their assistance on many projects was sought and appreciated. They made art better when they were involved. But at some point, some in art decided they were too predominant and openly scorned what they brought. Over the years the were slowly cut …