Draag- The day has come
This song is from Draag‘s 2024 EP Actually the quiet is nice.
They are playing at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on Saturday, 1/25/25, with Barr, Casino Hearts, Mamalarky, Surfbort and more as part of a benefit for abortion funds, community and bodily autonomy.
Still from “Mulholland Drive”
Club Silencio scene with Rebekah Del Rio from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive
Today would have been artist and filmmaker David Lynch’s 79th birthday.
Although it was sad to hear of his passing, it was such a joy to spend the weekend looking through his artwork, reading the tributes from those who knew him, and rewatching his films and the documentary about him, The Art Life.
He also wrote Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, a short book filled with his thoughts on transcendental meditation, his films, digital video, creativity and more- worth checking out. Below is a short clip from one of his interviews with The Atlantic.
He also acted occasionally, both in his Twin Peaks series and in other projects. Below he plays another famous director, John Ford, in a clip from Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans.
And here he is on Louis C.K.’s show Louie.
David Lynch’s creative legacy will continue to influence and inspire people for many years to come. He was one of the greats.
Flat Top Desk, 1929 and 1962, Walnut and padauk, Flat Top Desk Chair, 1929, Walnut, padauk and laced leather seat, Flat Top Desk Figure, 1929, Bronze cast of cocobolo original
“Head of Dreiser”, ca.1927, Pine- This is a portrait of writer Theodore Dreiser who Esherick met in 1924 through the Hedgerow Theatre. This was a rough, geometric sketch for a finished mahogany piece.
“Self Portrait”, 1919, Oil on canvas
The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick, on view at Brandywine Museum of Art, presents a wonderful look at the artist’s varied work from throughout his career.
From the museum-
This exhibition explores the interdisciplinary creativity of Wharton Esherick (1887-1970), the famed American artist best known as the father of the Studio Furniture Movement.
Esherick considered his hillside home and studio, now the Wharton Esherick Museum (WEM), the best representation of his iconoclastic vision, calling it “an autobiography in three dimensions.” Built between 1926 and 1966, his unconventional escape on the verdant slopes of Valley Forge Mountain houses almost 3000 iconic works of art from across Esherick’s seven decades of artistic practice.
The Crafted World brings selections from this rich and rarely loaned collection to a broader public, including many objects never before seen except in Esherick’s home and studio. Detailing the artist’s career from his early woodcut illustrations for books by members of the avant-garde literati to his revolutionary reimagining of furniture forms as organic sculpture, works will be presented in thematic vignettes that invite visitors into Esherick’s story and bring the essence of his creative world into the gallery.
Below are a few more selections.
“Drop Leaf Desk”, 1927
“Hedgerow Theatre Lobby Stair Model”, 1934, Walnut; “Spiral Staircase Model”, 1963,Pine; “Bok House Chimney Stair Model”, 1937
From the museum about the staircase models above-
Esherick made numerous objects centering on the twist or spiral to represent natural growth. He returned to this form in models for staircase commissions for the Bok House- in which the spiral is created through gradual shifts in the shape and width of each step- and for the Hedgerow Theatre– which features a staircase like the Studio’s that revolves around a center post.
“Moonlight on Alabama Pines”,1919-20, Oil on canvas, carved wood frame with metallic paint
Alabama Pine woodblock, 1929
“Oblivion” 1934, Walnut
About the sculpture above, Oblivion, from the museum-
Moved by the emotion and physicality of actors, Esherick spent many hours in the balcony of the Hedgerow Theatre, in nearby Rose Valley, sketching performers, and many more hours designing stage sets, props, posters, and other visual elements for their productions. Oblivion was inspired by the passionate embrace of two actors in The Son of Perdition, a play by Lynn Riggs. This organic, fluid sculpture offers an exaggerated rendering of emotion as two intertwined bodies, carved from a single log, seem to softly dissolve into one another. Oblivion was prominently featured in the sculpture portion of the second Whitney Biennial in 1936.
This exhibition closes Sunday, 1/19/25.
Charles Ray “Family Romance”, 1993, and Ashley Bickerton “F.O.B.:Tied (White)”, 1993/2018
Charles Ray “Family Romance”, 1993
Maurizio Cattelan “WE”, 2010
Tishan Hsu, “mammal-screen-green-2”, 2024
Work by Josh Kline
“Untitled”, 2008-9, and “Two Breasts”, 1990, by Robert Gober
Mike Kelley, “Brown Star”, 1991 (left) and “The Judge”, 2018, by Jana Euler (painting on right)
Wanghechi Mutu, “One Cut”, 2018, (center sculpture); photographs by Cindy Sherman, 2010/2023
“Pep Talk”, 2024, by Cajsa von Zeipel and Jamian Juliano-Villani, “Women”, 2024, (painting on right)
Post Human, the current group exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch’s Los Angeles location, continues an artistic investigation of humanity that began with the 1992 exhibition of the same name. Some of the over forty artists (and even some of the works) were in the previous iteration, but now their work is placed alongside others made more recently. Seeing them together offers viewers a chance to contemplate the shifts and continuations in culture, technology, and what it means to be human.
From the gallery-
“Post Human was virtually a manifesto trumpeting a new art for a new breed of human,” wrote the art historian and curator Robert Rosenblum discussing the impact of the exhibition in the October 2004 issue of Artforum.
In 1992, Post Human, curated by Jeffrey Deitch, brought together the work of thirty-six young artists interested in technological advancement, social and aesthetic pluralism, and new frontiers of body and identity transformation. Through their art, these artists were exploring the same questioning of traditional notions of gender, sexuality and self-identity that was—and still is—taking place in the world at large. Capturing a developing social and scientific phenomenon, Post Human theorized a new approach to the construction of the self and interpretation of what defines being human. The exhibition set the agenda for the 1990s, and its influence on artists and philosophers led to a new field of academic study.
In her book Posthuman Feminism (2022), the philosopher and feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti credits Deitch for capturing “the avant-garde spirit of the age by foregrounding the role of technology in blurring binary boundaries between subjects and objects, humans and non-humans.” She adds, “Post Human showed also that art assumed a much more central role as it merged with science, computerization and biotechnology in further re-shaping the human form and perfecting a flair for the artificial.”
The catalogue of the 1992 exhibition, with its visual essay and innovative design by the late Dan Friedman, also proved lasting relevance. Deitch’s influential essay predicted many of the scientific and sociological shifts that have since shaped our cultural and social environment, even the pandemic.
More than thirty years later, Post Human at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, revisits the theme of the exhibition, bringing the discourse into the present. The show includes several of the key figures who participated in the 1992 exhibition in dialogue with some of the most interesting artists continuing the exploration of these themes today. In keeping with the social and technological trends that inspired it, the interest in figuration of the original artists and the younger generations presented in the show is conceptual rather than formal.
Much of the then-new figurative work was descriptive of the “real” world but cannot, in fact, be called “realistic” in the conventional sense. That is because so much of the “real” world the artists were reacting to had become artificial. With the concept of the real disintegrating through an acceptance of the multiplicity of reality models and the embrace of artificiality, Realism as it was once known was no longer possible. This new figurative art may have actually marked the end of Realism rather than its revival.
Fully integrated into our pop psychology, the term “posthuman” is now used in everyday conversations and has come to primarily identify with the trope of the cyborg. This exhibition, like the 1992 show, however, examines multiple declinations and aspects of the postmodern construction of personality and the engineering and transcendence of the human body. The artists in the exhibition embrace notions of plurality, metamorphosis and multi-beingness. Cyber-futuristic, surgically improved, commodified, stereotyped, and politicized, the “cultured body” lends itself to reflect on a variety of concerns that define our age.
Several works in the exhibition will embrace the biometrical aestheticization of the human body to address the decay paranoia, the social conflict over genetic engineering and the use of biotechnologies, and the conversation around the limits of “natural” life.” Artists have long engaged with the threats of biometric surveillance, the possibility of virtual reality overtaking our physical one, the accelerating real-time consumption of experience, and the automation of the workforce. As AI’s ability to fulfill our creative and specialized needs has reached mass fruition, artists are confronting the impact of what was once considered speculative science fiction, an everyday reality.
Post Human was first presented at FAE, Musée D’art Contemporain, Pully/Lausanne (June 14–September 13, 1992) and traveled to Castello di Rivoli—Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli/Turin (October 1–November 22, 1992), Deste Foundation, House of Cyprus, Athens (December 3, 1992–February 14, 1993), Deichtorhallen Hamburg (March 12–May 9, 1993), Israel Museum, Jerusalem (June 23–October 10, 1993). A number of the works shown in 1992-1993 are now in international museum collections. Matthew Barney’s REPRESSIA (decline) (1991) is now in the collection of LACMA, where it was on view in 2023. Posthumanism has since been the subject of countless books, movies and high-profile exhibitions.
Artists in the exhibition: Isabelle Albuquerque, Matthew Barney , Ivana Bašić , Frank Benson, Ashley Bickerton, Maurizio Cattelan , Chris Cunningham , John Currin, Alex Da Corte, Olivia Erlanger , Jana Euler , Rachel Feinstein, Urs Fischer, Pippa Garner , Robert Gober , Hugh Hayden, Damien Hirst , Tishan Hsu, Pierre Huyghe, Anne Imhof , Alex Israel, Arthur Jafa, Jamian Juliano-Villani , Mike Kelley, Josh Kline, Jeff Koons , Paul McCarthy , Sam McKinniss, Mariko Mori , Takashi Murakami , Wangechi Mutu , Cady Noland, Charles Ray , Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith , Hajime Sorayama, Anna Uddenberg, Cajsa von Zeipel , Jeff Wall , Jordan Wolfson, and Anicka Yi
This show closes Saturday, 1/18/25.
Phantogram- All A Mystery
This song is from NYC band Phantogram’s 2024 album, Memory of a Day.
They will be playing at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California on Thursday 1/16/25.
Artwork by Jennifer Korsen aka humansmakeart
The devastation and loss from the fires in Los Angeles has been heartbreaking.
If you are looking for a way to help, several organizations have put together fundraisers-
Contemporary Art Review LA has put together an extensive spreadsheet that, along with fundraisers by organizations, also includes Go Fund Me pages for individuals and businesses
@griefxhope has set up a fundraiser and information on mutual aid for artists and artworkers impacted by the fires
Anti-Recidivism Coalition is taking donations to support the incarcerated fire crews that have worked tirelessly to help put out the fires (write “firefighter fund” on the donation)
Pasadena Humane has been caring for animals injured in the fires and those needing to be sheltered, as well as providing supplies to pet owners in need
Every year in January, I put together a playlist of the best songs of the past year. As always it is mostly indie bands, with a few hip hop, dance, and R&B songs.
Fontaines D.C.- Favourite
This song is from the 2024 Fontaines D.C. album Romance.
They will be playing at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Saturday, 1/11/25 as part of a large lineup for iHeartRadio’s ALTer EGO event.
Work by James Jean
Work by Luke Chueh
Work by Giorgiko, moniker of husband and wife duo Darren and Trisha Inouye. These works are an homage to Darren’s family as Japanese Americans that experienced the WWII era.
Work by Mike Shinoda
Work by Yoskay Yamamoto
Work by Yoskay Yamamoto
Giant Robot Biennale 5 at the Japanese American National Museum features artwork from Sean Chao, Felicia Chiao, Luke Chueh, Giorgiko, James Jean, Taylor Lee, Mike Shinoda, Rain Szeto, and Yoskay Yamamoto.
From the museum about the exhibition and Giant Robot–
Giant Robot launched in 1994 as a hand-assembled zine in Los Angeles and grew into a staple of Asian American alternative pop culture. Since 2007, JANM has partnered with Eric Nakamura, founder of Giant Robot, to produce the biennale that is dedicated to showcasing the diverse and creative works brought together by the Giant Robot ethos.
This year marks Giant Robot’s thirtieth anniversary. While the zine and magazine are no longer published, its legacy and influence are indelible parts of our culture. The shop and gallery continue to thrive in Sawtelle’s Japantown and reflect the independent spirit of its origins. Giant Robot continues to be a highly influential brand encompassing many aspects of Asian and Asian American popular culture. These galleries contain a cross section of Giant Robot’s stalwart artists, emerging talents, and friends.
The video below from PBS Artbound is a great documentary about the Giant Robot project.
This exhibition closes Sunday, 1/5/25. On the same day the museum is free and hosting the 2025 Oshogatsu Family Festival- Year of the Snake event which will include cultural performances, crafts and other activities.
Josh Kline’s installations for Climate Change at MOCA use a variety of different mediums to explore the environmental issues of today while focusing on a potential dystopian future.
From the museum-
Looking at our era through a lens of labor and class, Josh Kline (b. 1979, Philadelphia) speculates in his art on some of the most urgent issues facing the world in the coming decades. His largest body of work is an as-yet-untitled cycle of immersive installations, organized as chapters, that explores key political, economic, technological, ecological, and biological questions of the twenty-first century. Climate Change, gathered together for the first time at MOCA, is the cycle’s fourth chapter.
Climate Change is both an exhibition and a total work of art—a visceral suite of science-fiction installations that imagines a future sculpted by ruinous climate crisis and the ordinary people destined to inhabit it. Begun in 2018 and produced in sections over the last six years, the works in Climate Change were largely made during the COVID-19 pandemic and informed by events during those difficult years. In its profound disruption of ordinary life, the pandemic became, for Kline, a cipher for the looming climate catastrophe and unprecedented disruption of our lives that scientists predict will accelerate in the years ahead. Using dystopia as a point of entry rather than a diagnosis, he invites us to place ourselves within it and consider the rear view. What happens in a world where the systems built to sustain and extend capitalist enterprise and global hegemony melt down their own foundations? Is this the future that we want to live in? Can we build a new and more hopeful world from the ruins?
The images above are from Kline’s sculptural installation Personal Responsibility. Although set in the future, the rise of tent cities around the country today in combination with the need for temporary structures after recent destructive storms, make this work feel contemporary.
From the museum-
Personal Responsibility (2023-24), the core of Kline’s project Climate Change, is a sculptural installation set in the future, in the aftermath of climate disaster. Borrowing their forms from the temporary shelters used by refugees and migrants in the United States and around the world, the tentlike structures here serve as both home and workplace for “essential workers” — the individuals who will still have to physically go into work, often at great personal risk, while those in higher-paying jobs can work from home in comfort and safety.
The installation also features two sets of related videos. Capture and Sequestration (2023) centers four iconic commodities made from materials that powered America’s rise as the world’s preeminent military, economic, and cultural power: sugar, tobacco, cotton, and oil. Through these materials, it is possible to trace the lineage of human-made global warming and climate change back through America’s global empire and the industrial revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the most painful parts of US history —the enslavement of Africans and the theft of Indigenous land. The other videos are fictional interviews with people living through catastrophic climate change in a future America. Although set decades from now, these videos are informed by extensive research into survivors’ experiences of climate-related disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey and recent California wildfires. In visualizing and making relatable the forecasts of climate scientists, Kline raises questions about whether Americans are willing and able to work together to prepare for, and possibly mitigate, what is to come.
Below are images from Kline’s short film Adaptation (2019-2022).
From the museum about the work-
The short film Adaptation (2019-22) imagines a future Manhattan transformed by climate change and follows a team of relief workers at the end of their shift. Described by the artist as a “science fiction of ordinary life,” the film focuses on what tomorrow could be like for the working people who will clean up the inevitable mess resulting from the political and economic decisions of previous generations. The fictional workers of Adaptation survive by doing the kind of essential but poorly compensated, physically taxing jobs that society takes for granted.
Using primarily analogue special effects — scale models, miniatures, and matte shots-and 16mm color film instead of high-definition digital video, Kline creates an expressionistic science fiction that suggests a nostalgia for the present from the perspective of a future transformed by global warming. Although it was filmed in 2019, the work was completed during the pandemic, and its poetic voiceover and melancholy soundtrack, both added in 2020, quietly evoke the lockdown and quarantine in New York.
This exhibition closes 1/5/25.