An ArtTable Southern California event once again provided my first introduction to an extraordinary Los Angeles art space--the Underground Museum. It is situated in a series of connected storefronts on Washington Boulevard in Arlington Heights, a largely working class Black and Latino neighborhood in the heart of L.A. The space once served as the family home and studio of Noah Davis, a young African American artist who a decade ago began to achieve considerable renown for psychologically penetrating figurative paintings based on Black experience. Davis was also a gifted curator and in 2012 established the space as an alternative art venue for exhibitions and events, with primacy given to community engagement. His shows were brilliant, … [Read more...]
Doug Aitken: Electric Earth at The Geffen
If you currently have no plans to be in Los Angeles before January 15th, when Doug Aitken: Electric Earth closes at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, make them, as the exhibition is a must see (it will also be shown at The Modern in Fort Worth, May 28-September 24, 2017). The exhibition is well worth the journey as it itself presents a journey, one whose images and experiences will long be impressed upon the eye and mind. The forty-eight-year-old Aitken was raised and trained as an artist in the Los Angeles area--its landscapes, cityscapes and sunsets figure prominently in his art--and he has long been familiar with The Geffen, whose spaces he has reconfigured so as to offer multiple paths of exploration to his work of the past twenty years … [Read more...]