Jan 132025
 

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

Aug 012024
 

Sandra Cinto created the mural above in 2018 for Murals of La Jolla, in San Diego. The Murals of La Jolla project commissions various artists to create murals around La Jolla with 16 currently on view and 48 created in total.  A map of current work can be found here.

From the Murals of La Jolla website about this work

In Sandra Cinto’s mural, Untitled, we get lost in a vortex of lines that push and pull in every direction. Inspired by the immersive relationship of the ocean as a part of La Jolla’s Landscape, Cinto “decided to create another kind of landscape and make it by drawing without colors”. The artist intends for each viewer to have a different experience with the work as it is meant to be an open landscape. For Cinto, her work reinforces a kind of philosophy that each little mark is important, since “little details, little actions can change everything.” The viewer can be absorbed in the lines and details found in her work or step back and behold an undulating and pulsating landscape.

 

 

Apr 262024
 

This tribute to artist Margaret Kilgallen was spotted in Los Angeles in 2014. The quote is paraphrasing what she said during an interview for the PBS program Art21. The full quote reads- “I do spend a lot of time trying to perfect my line work… when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that’s where the beauty is.” Kilgallen died of cancer in 2001, at only 33, but left behind a remarkable body of work.

You can currently see one of these works at Cantor Arts Center’s as part of the group exhibition, Day Jobs, on view until 7/21/24. The exhibition examines the impact of day jobs in the lives and work of several famous artists.

Image courtesy of Cantor Arts Center: Margaret Kilgallen, “Money to Loan (Paintings for the San Francisco Bus Shelter Posters)” [detail], 2000. Mixed media on paper and fabric, sheet 68 × 48½ inches Courtesy of the Margaret Kilgallen Estate, photo by Tony Prikryl

You can learn more about Kilgallen, her husband and fellow artist Barry McGee, and several other artists including Shepard Fairey, Mike Mills, Ed Templeton and Harmony Korine in Aaron Rose’s film Beautiful Losers.

 

Apr 052024
 

This mural, by @elpinchegogo, @denseinthehead, @keefaura, and @eder_one, was spotted in 2019 outside the A+D Museum in downtown Los Angeles.

Eder Cetina (eder_one) also runs Wilson Cetina Group, which has worked on numerous artistic projects for various organizations and museums.

Mar 212024
 

Niki Zarrabi created this mural in 2019 for the Ladies Who Paint event in San Diego.

She is currently showing work at ABV Gallery in Atlanta for their Spring Group Exhibition, REFRESH, on view until 3/23/24.

Jun 182023
 

This work, by artist Cyla Costa, was part of the Ladies Who Paint all female mural festival in San Diego.

The subject of the mural is the Portuguese word “saudade“. It has no direct translation but she defines it as “a tangle of emotions both happy and sad about missing someone or something” (as seen in the second image).

 

Feb 042023
 

This mural, Shesha Sand Storm, by Fin Dac and Starfightera (Christina Angelina), is on the side of the Desert Shores market near Salton Sea in California.

Jan 202023
 

Artist Alex Katz created this mural, Bill 2, a portrait of modern dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, in 2019 for Murals of La Jolla in San Diego. Murals of La Jolla is a project started in 2010 by The Athenaeum and the La Jolla Community Foundation. It commissions artists to create work to be displayed on buildings around La Jolla. A map of all the murals currently on view can be found here.

From the Murals of La Jolla website about the work-

Alex Katz’s mural, Bill 2, celebrates Bill T. Jones, one of the most noted and recognized modern-dance choreographers of our time. Executed in Katz’s bold and simplified signature style, Bill 2 depicts Jones’ visage, through a series of distinct expressions. The repetition of his face has a cinematic and lyrical quality, reinforcing his place in the world of dance, music and film. Portions of the face are dramatically cropped, giving the viewer only quick and gestural glimpses of Jones. Bill 2, is a striking homage to two artists, Katz and Jones, both renowned in their respective fields of visual and performing arts. The mural’s proximity to the new Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center gives a nod to the interconnected worlds of art, music, and dance.

The Guggenheim museum in NYC is currently showing Alex Katz: Gathering, a retrospective of the artist’s work from the late 1940’s until the present. The exhibition will be up until February 20, 2023.

From their website about the exhibition-

Emerging as an artist in the mid-20th century, Katz forged a mode of figurative painting that fused the energy of Abstract Expressionist canvases with the American vernaculars of the magazine, billboard, and movie screen. Throughout his practice, he has turned to his surroundings in downtown New York City and coastal Maine as his primary subject matter, documenting an evolving community of poets, artists, critics, dancers, and filmmakers who have animated the cultural avant-garde from the postwar period to the present.

Staged in the city where Katz has lived and worked his entire life, and prepared with the close collaboration of the artist, this retrospective will fill the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda. Encompassing paintings, oil sketches, collages, drawings, prints, and freestanding “cutout” works, the exhibition will begin with the artist’s intimate sketches of riders on the New York City subway from the late 1940s and will culminate in the rapturous, immersive landscapes that have dominated his output in recent years.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has numerous performances every year. Conceived and directed by Bill T. Jones, and choreographed by Jones with Janet Wong and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, the latest work, Curriculum II, will be performed at on March 10, 11, and 12, at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston.

Jones also hosts the series Bill Chats at NYC’s The New School. On January 30th, he will be in conversation with Bessie Award-winning theater director and performance artist, Niegel Smith and curator, producer, and director, Kamilah Forbes. For more events check out the New York Live Arts calendar.