• Inquiring Within With In-Q

    "What is life if it's not an adventure and an exploration internally and externally. So I choose to do that from my poetry," said In-Q, the spoken word artist whose first collection of poetry "Inquire Within" was recently published by HarperOne. "Inquire Within" gathers In-Q's rhythmic written word explorations of our humanity couched in a search for self, growth and consciousness."…See everywhere you are is where you are supposed to beSo hopefully, you"re hopelessly lost as meBecause if y... View…

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  • Looking At Contemporary Art

    In the weeks before coronavirus shut down the world’s Art Museums, I saw a staggering amount of Contemporary Art both in Los Angeles which held its contemporary Artmegaddon – Frieze LA-Felix-Art Los Angeles Contemporary (all in one weekend!) and I also visited a number of contemporary art collections in South Florida, including the Perez Art Musem in Miami, the Rubell Museum, the DeLaCruz and Margulies collections in Miami and the Beth Rudin DeWoody collection, The Bunker ArtSpace, in West Palm…

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  • A Journey to Being: On Seth Greenland's "A Kingdom of Tender Colors"

    A MAN WALKS INTO a doctor’s office. And it’s no joke. He’s 37, seemingly in robust health, happily married, with one child and another on the way. The doctor finds that his lymph glands are swollen in a way that is troubling, and a few weeks later, the man is diagnosed as having lymphoma. Cancer. In A Kingdom of Tender Colors: A Memoir of Comedy, Survival, and Love, Seth Greenland, the author of five novels — including, most recently, the well-regarded The…

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  • A (Virtual) Journey With The People of Jerusalem

    At the close of every Passover Seder attendees are enjoined to proclaim, "Next Year in Jerusalem!"You need not wait. Mekudeshet, a Jerusalem-based cultural organization is offering up a virtual experience Dissolving Boundaries: A Journey with the People of Jerusalem, that you can order online and experience in your own home and while walking around your neighborhood (it costs $48 and can be ordered here).Mekudeshet (which means "belonging") is an arts organization that, as its press materia... View Original Article

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  • The Gospel According To Aretha

    In 1972, Aretha Franklin who had by then had some 11 consecutive hits including, "Respect," "Think" and "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman" decided to record a live gospel album. Over two nights at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Aretha performed with the Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir led by Alexander Hamilton. The first night was devoted to traditional gospel hymns, the second to gospel versions of contemporary songs by…

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  • Lorna Simpson's Certainty: Art Is "Everrrything"

    Lorna Simpson's Everrrything at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles presents the wide spectrum of work Simpson produced during the pandemic – paintings, sculptures, collages, assemblages of found photos – and if there is one thing that unites them it is Simpson's certainty: She is an artist at the top of her game, fully confident in her artistic instincts and her ability to execute whatever inspires her. Simpson's career has long been conceptual in its approach, and it is not without…

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  • Edward Goldman's Own "Made In LA" - Pandemic Version

    "How has this difficult time affected your art making?"Art Critic Edward Goldman, who for 30 years delighted NPR affiliate KCRW listeners with his weekly "Art Talk," and who continues to chronicle his art adventures with his weekly newsletter Art Matters as well as his private tours and classes on Art and Art collecting, asked this of LA artists during the pandemic.So, when Selma Holo, the esteemed Executive Director of Museums at the University of Southern California (USC) suggested he cur...…

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  • The Real London Of Leon Kossoff

    Leon Kossoff, one of the leading figures in Post-World War Two figurative art in Britain passed away in 2019. LA Louver in Venice, CA is now exhibiting the largest gallery show and first posthumous survey of Kossoff's work, Leon Kossoff: A Life In Painting (on view until April 9, 2022). Organized in collaboration with Annely Juda Fine Art in London and Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York, the show was curated by Andrea Rose, the former Director of Visual Arts…

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  • Dale Franzen: Bringing The World Back Into Tune

    Opera singer, Institution builder, Arts Administrator, Fundraiser, Theater Producer, Tony Winner, advocate for women's stories. You would not be wrong to imagine this as the dream team of players needed for a successful production at an arts venue. Or we could just be talking about Dale Franzen.Franzen is the Tony-winning lead producer on Hadestown (now playing in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson through May 29; and then at the Segerstrom Center for The Arts in Costa Mesa, CA, August 9…

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  • Steve Leder Wants You To Have The Last Word

    Have you thought about any final words you want to leave your loved ones to remember you by after you"ve gone? My guess is that even if you have, like me, you"ve haven"t committed those thoughts to paper. Well, Steve Leder thinks you should and he has authored a new book, For You When I Am Gone: Twelve Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story (Avery), to help you do so.In Steve Leder's last book, the best-selling The Beauty of…

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  • Who Killed Orchestral Music?

    JOHN MAUCERI, founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, is a composer, arranger, writer, and educator who has conducted the world’s major opera companies and symphony orchestras. For 18 years, Mauceri worked closely with Leonard Bernstein on many of Bernstein’s premieres. He has championed the work of composers banned by Hitler, in particular those who found refuge in Hollywood, and has written about and performed music from opera, musical theater, and music composed for film. His new book, The War on…

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  • Julian Schnabel vs. Death At Pace Gallery Los Angeles

    "All art is optimistic because it contains a denial of death"- Julian Schnabel.Recently, Pace Gallery celebrated the opening of their new Los Angeles flagship outpost, a partnership with Kayne Griffin, in their 15,000 square foot space on South La Brea, a former 1940s auto showroom whose building is now ivy-covered. The opening exhibition, "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor" presents 13 recent paintings on velvet by Julian Schnabel as well as a large sculpture in the gallery courtyard on…

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