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Galleries
Crackdown Clouds at Jack Hanley Gallery
You don't have to be stoned to enjoy Scott Hewicker's neo-hippy cosmic landscape paintings - but it might be fun. His colors are those of Elvis on black velvet, of the fairy glen in your backyard the time you took mushrooms. Hewicker's current show The Crackdown Clouds at the Jack Hanley Gallery presents satisfyingly meaty layers of abstraction that may send you in to a staring trance to rival a hardcore burner. The mostly large-scale works have a vibrant and loud presence but encourage private, even hushed conversation with the viewer. More
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Galleries
Robert Rauschenberg from the collection of Terry Van Brunt
When I broke up with my boyfriend he burnt, crushed, stomped or ran over everything I had ever made for him. Special delight was taken later in recounting to me how things I had toiled over making met their end. It is truly fortunate that the beauty and deitrous of Terry Van Brunt and Robert Rauschenberg's relationship survived the fireplace’s lure to be hung on a wall for the whole city to see. More
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Galleries
Substance of Choice at Galeria de la Raza
How do you take it? What's your pleasure? Pick your poison. I like coffee and cigarettes. Ask an artist and they may tell you they're partial to paint or plaster. We all fancy something, desire some substance that we just can't do without. Galeria de la Raza's current exhibition, Substance of Choice is an eighteen-artist meditation on this material world and the choices we all make in relation to it. These are choices that often render us or others helpless, either through addiction, or through enslavement to others' addictions, a Third World apart. More
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Galleries
The Secret Life of Storage
Bags, the current exhibition from the folks at New Langton Arts, has brought Soma an experience somewhere between a puppet show and the wonderment of a child's first trip to the airport baggage claim - overwhelming, yet intriguing. Bursting with flights of fancy, Bags transforms Langton's gallery into a living, breathing creature full of component parts, referred to by James Bewley, the show's curator, as "bag-based life forms." More
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Galleries
When the Bitter End Meets the Rainbow Swallow
We've all heard it a million times in the last year, so much that it has all but negated itself through repetition... it is a new era in the modern world. Reactions to this new era vary, as do opinions over whether there is anything very different in this new reality. The only thing that seems constant is the emotionality inherent in people's response to the perceived change in the world order. We need places to go to consider these emotions, to say them aloud and see and hear others say them aloud. And we need to be thankful when we find these places. More
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Galleries
Dirty Work at Ego Park
As a venue whose mission statement is currently the Gettysburg Address (I had to take their word on it, as the website is under construction until late spring), Ego Park seems to be a different sort of arts space from the very get go. Even the name is different, described by founder Kevin Slagle, a creative writing student turned sculptor and painter, as a happy accident that stuck, it describes Slagle's somewhat ironic philosophical take on showing art. Specifically, that a gallery is a place for artists to take their egos for a walk - a dog-park for the ego. More
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Galleries
Arresting Americana and Expressionism
I often long for the comforting images of childhood: the red vinyl chairs of the donut shop, the blue and green psychedelic curtains in my parent’s bedroom, the grey, mournful face of our sweet-tempered Golden Retriever, Penny. They are reminders of innocence and contentment, days when all I had to worry about was homework and swim practice. Douglas Schneider’s paintings in "Suburban Birthday Party" (his first showing at the Dolby Chadwick Gallery) are just such images, images that evoke nostalgia for days past while at the same time casting them in a surreal light. More
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Galleries
He-Man Hits Hard
“By the power of Grayskull… I am He-Man!!” It has probably been quite some time since most of you have heard these words. Around twenty-five years, most likely. But He-Man is back, along with many of his co-stars, in Double Punch Gallery’s “I Have the Power” show. With over thirty artists, this show packs a nostalgic punch. More
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Galleries
Re-framing Questions of Identity
Regardless of the industrial and kitchen metaphors used to describe multiculturalism in America, it remains a fact that each person has his or her own individual and shared experiences, background, and understanding of culture. Any art exhibition, play, film, novel or piece of music is an opportunity for us to share those with one another, thus hopefully creating if not understanding and appreciation, then at least acknowledgement. More
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Galleries
Funny Page Freedom
There is truly no medium that has not been transformed by the freedom and widespread availability of the internet. Music, television, film; even the more traditional media of drawing and painting have crossed previously unimaginable thresholds as a result of the all-pervasive yet intangible world wide web. And now, just as you can get your daily dose of news via your laptop, so, too, can you enjoy the funny pages online. More
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