but race and class? Evidently, the jungle scenes in Henri Outliers and it was me who was naïve. Rousseau’s Tropical Forest While Outliers seeks to with Monkeys (1910), in the American Vanguard broaden the art historical previous gallery—were not conversation to include so much uneducated as Art at LACMA voices previously ignored, schooled in a diferent set drowned out or conde- of folk aesthetics that they November 18, 2018– scended, Cooke is rightly each applied to contempo- March 17, 2019 careful never to blithely paper rary subjects and themes. over the divisions that have Next, we leap forward I searched and searched, but long existed, and which to the early 1970s, when nowhere could I fnd, explic- continue to exist, in the Chicago Imagists and Bay itly stated, the proposition world as Area Funk artists such as Jim that seems to be at the heart in American society at large. Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, Roy De of Lynne Cooke’s Outliers Outliers maintains Forest, and William Wiley and Vanguard American Art: focus on three periods in enthusiastically promoted that the categorical separa- the last 100 years or so when “outsiders” including Joseph tion upheld primarily by the boundaries between the Yoakum and Martín Ramírez, specialist dealers, curators, center and the margins were infuenced not only by their and historians of “outsider especially porous. (Retrench- styles but also by their art” between self-taught ment usually followed.) The aberrant relation to the artists and those with college implication is that these are mainstream. While this or university degrees is moments to be celebrated— section of the exhibition untenable, and should be and indeed the brilliance contains some of the most henceforth abandoned. of the work in the exhibition powerful work from both That idea, at this backs this up—but the sides of the academic point in time, is not even so presentation and the inter- divide—notably Ramírez’s 40 controversial, having begun pretive didactics retain the grand Untitled (Madonna) gathering steam as early as dispassion and fastidiousness (c.1948–63)—it is also not 1992, when LACMA mounted of historical analysis. without ethical unease. What Parallel Visions: Modern Cooke’s study begins were the power dynamics Artists and Outsider Art, and in the 1930s, when WPA of these relationships, arguably reaching its apothe- programs allowed a host especially when one artist osis in 2013 with Massimiliano of skilled amateurs to be could not speak for himself? Gioni’s the Encyclopedic employed in artistic pursuits. (Yoakum died in 1972; Palace exhibition for the Concurrently, Alfred H. Barr Ramírez in 1963.) Did the Venice Biennale and the 2013 was making compelling academically credentialed Carnegie International. arguments at the nascent younger artists really I, for one, had half Museum of consider their unschooled expected—hoped for, even— for the signifcance to Ameri- colleagues to be equals? Cooke’s show to be the fnal can Modernism of what (We can never know.) word on the matter, a defni- he regrettably termed the Instead of “outsider,” tive demonstration that “modern primitive.” (His Cooke proposes the more categorizations like “outsider,” ridiculed exhibition of the sympathetic term “folk,” “visionary,” or “naïve” self-taught artist Morris “outlier”—a word implying are not only inaccurate but Hirshfeld contributed to his unexpected exceptionalism also ethically compromised. dismissal in 1943.) What is rather than inevitable What separates sculptor clear from the outset is that exclusion. My guess is that, John Flannagan, for instance, in the 1930s, “primitive” sadly, it won’t catch on, not who incorporated ancient was usually was usually because it isn’t better but Celtic references into his a euphemism for work by because it lacks the tragic stone carvings, from William African American or Latinx romance of “outsider”— Edmondson, whose motifs makers. Artists such as a romance that is especially often came from African Horace Pippin—whose Holy appealing to the “insider” American burial traditions, Mountain III (1945) recalls art world.

Jonathan Grifn Reviews 41

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By the conclu the By go? t du a nd o rtists who m who rtists le ted th ted bout the rel the bout af rtistic center to the the to center rtistic a sed work w work sed ry Heilm ry tely, the quilters of of quilters the tely, a a nything more th more nything a It is in the third section section third the in is It Cur a a s Lee Godie or Eugene Eugene or Godie Lee s a a a nd, a a a a rt, self-t rt, a r a a tori a ver, Jessic ver, a mpioned by the v the by mpioned phy, perform phy, t in the l the in t a tures here. In the the In here. tures rgins—still less rgins—still y be the most honest most the be y st objection st kl ve beenve llery, Cooke en Cooke llery, a rly 2000s, when photo- when 2000s, rly pped Scott, who cre who Scott, pped a ry ry a a a a a a a a a a a professor coincident nd Judith Scott. Scott. Judith nd rtists a le like M like in her c her in in the future. Cooke observes observes Cooke future. the in from Y from fe schooled somewh such of Chic of c of bringing together the the together bringing of other’s work other’s celebr ch of the exhibition th exhibition the of the of her bound y bound her but they but h severely the between m h r nent in Americ in nent become most most become m e who gr who which working in those medi those inworking which we might proceed proceed might we which totems there there together, such together, to their to th text-b thesis von Bruenchenhein, were were Bruenchenhein, von g gorgeous gorgeous gr Outliers Sh Sep Growth Art Center in in Center Art Growth O Gee’s Bend, Al Bend, Gee’s a a a a “cur homage to Bess, titling one of of living outside the bounds of drawings implied some sort their works The Mystery Cult the homogenous, capitalist of dance as the two moved of Forrest Bess (2016). status quo, being guided by around each other in a furry Pushed to one corner, “insurrectionary magick, of mark-making. Viewers also resting on the foor—in radicalism, nomadism, sexual could certainly glean the a rejection of conventional, & social diversity.” It’s a world process implicit in these hierarchical presentation— where romantic libertine works, but absent a partici- were ektor garcia’s sinuous Arthur Rimbaud, occultist patory invitation, it was ceramic pieces, collectively Aleister Crowley, and grunge harder to locate themselves titled desechos (2018), or rockers Mudhoney exist side within the ceremonial “waste.” These shiny, black by side. As the zine’s title bacchanal. Perhaps that glazed objects were wound suggests, bodily fuids are distance between the object and woven into vulva-like seen as the lubrication for this and its origin was simply forms, interlocking hooks, or liberation, and although a function of the gallery looping snakes that ended in cocks are cut and pasted setting, in the sense that all a tangle, ofering a less literal throughout the issues, gender artworks are remnants of interpretation of hedonistic is less important than radical- their making. But an accom- coupling. Given the title, ity. (Treleaven implores in panying dose of performative these coils of clay couldn’t one, “More GRRRLS Should drama would have gone help but take on an abject, Send Stuf In!”) a long way in juicing up this scatological reference. Some may have mostly static vision of trans- Placed around the viewed this ejaculatory gressive ritual liberation. room were four sculptures by infatuation as nothing more Ariana Reines and Oscar than a puerile obsession Kahlil Joseph Tuazon, based on ancient with molten manspreading, Greek herms—pillars that an update to Pollock’s sugges- at MOCA PDC featured a male bust on top tive drippings. But that 42 and a phallus carved at groin overlooks the emphasis on November 17, 2018– level—thought to protect collaboration, community, February 24, 2019 against evil. These particular and consent that was evident herms were crudely in much of this work, that Towards the end of Kahlil constructed from everyday ofered a queer male rejoin- Joseph’s essayistic flm Fly materials—wood, buckets, der to the popular rallying Paper (2017), on view at candles, concrete—and cry, “the Future is Female.” MOCA PDC, an orchestra of covered in pages of Reines’ In adherence to hedonistic heavy, ambient, oceanic poetry. They too played pleasure, the sperm cult bass quiets as a disembodied with gender identity—a pair ofered an alternative, not female voice reads: “Memo- were titled Ma and Pa, a support, of the status quo. ries must make due with their another was The Lesbiator The show Sperm Cult delirium, with their drift.” (all 2016)—and furthered the thoughtfully feshed out the This phrase, excerpted from ejaculatory conceit. A bucket themes explored in Hawkins’ Chris Marker’s pioneering placed beneath an engorged and Burgher’s publication— 1983 flm Sans Soleil, punctu- protuberance in Old Spice ofering conceptual as ates a scene in which two (2016) was flled with liquid opposed to simply aesthetic men—one young, one old, soap resembling semen. links—but somehow left the and both shrouded in In a small gallery space viewer wanting more. So shadow—begin to drift upstairs sat two cases flled much of the work in the show towards each other as their with the Sperm Cult’s literary seemed to have a performa- bodies gradually fall into precedent, Canadian artist tive aspect, of which these a synchronized series of Scott Treleaven’s late-’90s physical objects were merely choreographed movements. “queer, pagan, nomad, punk mementos. Burgher’s sigils An abrupt cut to grainy color zine,” Salivation Army. refected ritualistic origins, footage reveals a bespecta- The eight issues that were as did Tuazon’s and Reines’ cled man resting in a hospital produced of this collaged and herms, one topped with bed, his head freshly sewn photocopied publication dramatically melted candles. by a patchwork crown of refect a search for new ways Even Pfeifer and Walz’s silver staples. Elsewhere,

Jessica Simmons Reviews 43

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A crowded subw crowded A ings. submerged within the within submerged streets, to the de the to streets, soundsc sc compress discord compress orchestr visu textured of quiet convers quiet din drumbe own compositionown depicts depicts between Roy DeC Roy between poetic fog of memory of fog poetic n r people, people, p p men men protects, exceedingly liter exceedingly work-t tic moments evoke both the the both evoke moments tic st twilight tory sens tory physic being of feeling the the bre the tion L DeC H MOCA Gr MOCA view of view Manny Farber and Termite Art, Termite and Farber Manny Paper Fly genic Sweet Flypaper of Life of Flypaper Sweet Sans Soleil Sans young,resplendent bl 1955 liter 1955 A voice recites, “M recites, voice A Joseph’s Joseph’s a a a a a a The overarching works, making the exhibition framework of One Day at Ingrid Luche feel like it was showcasing a Time: Manny Farber and the complete clothing line Termite Art attempts to echo at Ghebaly Gallery from some recent season. this sentiment. While the Similarly, the forms of inclusion of Farber’s painting December 15, 2018– the sculptures, which the appears wholly unnecessary, January 19, 2019 artist called Ghost Dresses— his 1962 thesis on termite familiar and namable art reads as prescient in One can tell as much about clothing items (shawl, shirt, this context. A termite is a culture by the paintings skirt, dress)—were installed a communally-inclined it produces as by the dresses with all the trappings of creature, an omnivorous and articles of clothing high-end retail. Luche burrower capable of consum- it uses for individual and created inventive hangers ing and regurgitating vast collective expression. for each garment: assem- islands of material. A termite –Georges Bergés, blages of rope, chain, jewelry, artist, then, metaphorically Gallerist and rattan. Rather than “leaves nothing in [his] path clothing racks, the artist other than the signs of eager, Despite the long and tangled swapped in metal frames industrious, unkempt activ- history of fashion bleeding used to hold photo backdrops. ity….and feels [his] way into art and vice versa, these The installation begged the through walls of particular- categorical distinctions are question: if it looks like ization.”¹ Fly Paper embodies debated ad nauseum. And, clothing and is hung like a thoroughly modernist while I may contradict myself, clothing, isn’t it? exercise in the alchemy of proceeding to debate said Yet, throughout press experimental flmmaking: it categories here, this line materials, there was an rewinds and accelerates, of questioning is a bit tired, insistence that the artist’s bends and fattens time, and isn’t it? Over the last couple pieces are meant to be mused 44 blurs the threshold between of decades many high- upon rather than worn. Her verifable documentation end fashion houses have garments (referred to in turn and febrile mirage—in presented exhibitions in as both sculptures and a sense consuming and major international museums dresses in the press release) reformulating flm and its (Alexander McQueen elicited the body while also ability to hold time as mallea- at MoMA; Saint Laurent at denying it, and herein lay ble matter. Insomuch as the Petit Palais; Chanel at the the contextual divide. Fashion flm’s nonlinear structure Met; Dior at the Denver Art is meant to be touched and mimics the mechanics of Museum). Just this fall, 69 artworks are meant to be memory, it also complicates held an exhibit at MOCA pondered, as if touching the notion of memory as Pacifc Design Center, might minimize the efect of a one-sided, individuated and Eckhaus Latta hosted the saintly art object. When realm of private recollection. a pop-up-store-cum- the body utilizes and engages Mirroring Farber’s indefatiga- exhibition at the Whitney. with an object, is that object ble termite, Joseph dissolves And still, we are implored less pure? Is said object less memory, dreamscape, and by curators and gallerists to able to communicate ideas, urban consciousness into be dazzled by the fuidity once tainted by our imperfect a singular flmic landscape, between haute couture and fesh? It all sounds a bit rendering the peculiar contemporary art. biblical, doesn’t it? qualities of each in feverish The objects in Ingrid Luche, a Paris-based relief while unmooring their Luche’s Ghebaly Gallery artist, was inspired on perceptible boundaries. exhibition, titled They can't a recent trip to Los Angeles live without it. We can., looked by our unique local trappings: like fashion. Dynamic printed you know, the burning houses images folded over afghans and celebrity sightings that and pleated skirts. A handful make up everyday Angeleno of photographs repeated as life. (The works were “concep- printed motifs across multiple tualized in California and

1. Manny Farber, “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art,” Film Culture, no. 27 (Winter 1962–63), 242–246. Lindsay Preston Zappas Reviews 45

tion view). view). tion a ll a nd LACMA. nd a ge courtesy of courtesy ge (2018) (inst (2018) a rtists Outliers and American and Outliers a Im the Below: Below: Vanguard Art Vanguard

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Above: Sperm Cult (2018) (installation view). Below: Works by Scott Treleaven. Image courtesy of the artists and LAXART. Image courtesy of the artist and LAXART. Reviews 47 ry Art. ry a (2018) ge courtesy of the of courtesy ge One Day at a Time: a at Day One k Kelley. k a a Photo: Z Photo: hlil Joseph, Joseph, hlil a tion view). Im view). tion a ll nd the Museum of Contempor of Museum the nd Kahlil Joseph’s Fly Paper Fly Joseph’s Kahlil a a Below: K Below: (inst rtist a

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Ingrid Luche, House on Fire (2018). Digital print on organic cotton, cotton, metal chain, sequined focking, wicker hoop, cotton twine and metal ring, 78 ¾ x 27 ½ x 3 ½ inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Ghebaly Gallery. Reviews 49 - nt nt

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Extending Extending visit. her during dot our streetsc our dot ple of series A TV. on denim muumuu, w muumuu, denim polycotton skirts polycotton photogr house th house produced in P in produced with green plus signs—the signs—the plus green with this Western motif, Luche Luche motif, Western this the weed dispens weed the Westerndesert l Denim 01-03) gener f a a a occured in small doses across concerned with a more the other that receives it), the sculptures—on one human negotiation of reminding us that we have garment, a muscled Arnold production, technology, become increasingly insepa- Schwarzenegger’s body and culture. rable from the systems that became warped when The largest of the support us. stretched over a hoola-hoop works in the exhibition, Look Although Paweski’s rattan hanger—their fast out (all works 2018), was four works displayed a namability into clothing about the size of a carry-on buzzing compositional categories didn’t provide suitcase, and, while stationed inter-relationship, what a deeper inquiry into their front and center in the gallery, ended up setting them apart formal qualities. The display it operated much as the title from each other was their mechanisms lifted from the implied. The focal point of respective color palettes, realm of retail shopping this dynamic combination which were frustratingly added to this quickness. of fat angles and curves in unharmonious when taken (Luche’s pleated skirts don’t deep navy blue, canary as a whole. Deep, rich blacks exactly entice me to walk yellow, and crimson, was and midnight hues were set around and experience them a cantaloupe-sized cylinder of by bright and saturated in the round.) Doesn’t a skirt that pierced through the tones that would seem called a sculpture become work around head height. at home in a Looney Tunes beholden to qualities of This negative space visually animation. This created sculpture: form, balance, framed two smaller works an air of lost innocence, like contrast, and dimensionality? (Couples and Switch - Switch) an abandoned Peter Shire Call me a traditionalist, but at the back of the gallery chair sitting on a sidewalk in I still expect a good sculpture while also recalling the the rain. In contrast to the to do these things. transgression and transcen- reductive palettes of elemen- dence of Robert Gober’s tal primary colors favored Matt Paweski Virgin Mary with a drain pipe by Joel Shapiro or Louise 50 thrust through her torso. Nevelson, Paweski injected These bodily inferences a sense of melancholy into at Park View / cast the four sculptures in his work via the combination Paul Soto the exhibition as anthropo- of dominant dark hues and morphized junctions in of-kilter tertiary tones that December 16, 2018– an invisible network of gave each work a distinct February 9, 2019 conduits; a connective identity that felt at home in energy occupied the empty a constant state of anxiety. space of the gallery. The West Coast Finish Upon entering Park View / persistence of the open Fetish artists like John Paul Soto’s new Mid City ducts and planes continued McCracken exploited storefront gallery on Wash- in —a horizontal polished, mirror-like surfaces ington Boulevard, you would composition of three hopper- on straightforward, be forgiven for thinking the like modules connected by geometric forms as a way recent exhibition—four another cylinder. The work to complicate the boundaries modestly scaled sculptures hung low on the left wall, of their volume. Similarily, of painted, bent, and assem- and recalled a drinking Paweski embraced a recent bled aluminum plates— fountain while also pointing trend in custom car culture, was authored by a deceased to a lineage of works by a light absorbing matte fnish, modernist recently being the same title (Duchamp’s to push the boundaries of re-evaluated for entry into the urinal and Nauman’s refection. His fnish along postwar canon. However, portrait of the artist spitting with subtle tonal shifts in the work on view was created water). Paweski’s Fountain color obscured and fattened in the last year by Los Angeles connected Nauman’s the incised, curving cuts artist Matt Paweski, and a irreverent spitting with two and joints that permeated closer viewing of the curving, elements of the built environ- his interlocking compositions. riveted forms revealed a ment (one that supplies a In addition to chromatic complex but playful assembly biological necessity and tension, the exhibition

John Zane Zappas Reviews 51

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Conforming the the Conforming rivets. of lines l insisting on sp on insisting ism ists like Don like ists in the constr the in forms from the work w work the from s structure structure str s Adopting experience. of sity sheets held in ex in held sheets celebr orn of cont ded compositions pivot on on pivot compositions ded obscuring the l the obscuring of Henry Ford’s Ford’s Henry of cold met cold be reg be production nurtured its deni its nurtured production refuses to fully enclose enclose fully to refuses p reinforcing the rigid cl rigid the reinforcing removes the removes Conceptu like movements m projected projected exploit espoused espoused e to the sm the to to produce their work, these these work, their produce to th n the bre with exhibition the vision of pure form, minim form, pure of vision Lookout Couples Contr Judd—whose logic Judd—whose a a a a a a a a a colorless beings whose frst comic book (also called Endgle are depicted in this mission is to destroy and Step and Screw), a horrifying work, standing along the harvest them as food. tale of blind altruism met side of the scene, serenely A superhero named Torpedo with betrayal as Hancock’s watching the battle take Boy—the artist’s alter ego— superhero is tricked into his place. Their inaction implies protects the mounds but own demise by a group of a darker complicity. fnds himself under attack hidden klansmen. In this Hancock uses by external forces and piece, Hancock reveals a common threads among inner demons. vulnerability and fallibility in disparate works to reveal his Hancock deploys his his superhero that’s mirrored commitment to the continuity multidimensional characters in other multidimensional of lore as his practice and in the Moundverse in an characters in the show. the themes in his work evolve. autobiographical exploration Elsewhere, a life-size In addition to the work on of his youth in North Texas sculpture of a cosmic deity, view in the show, prototypes where the religious beliefs Undom Endgle, stands of trading cards and vinyl of his conservative Baptist with her arms extended in collectible dolls from community informed the a powerful Vitruvian woman Hancock’s Moundverse are strict, black and white, stance; she’s surrounded on display in the gallery. unyielding characteristics by halos of brightly colored While these items would be of his dogmatic characters. shellacked balls that are more at home in a booth at Conversely, according to the strung together with white Comic Con, they are import- gallery, the strong, protective, steel hoops. A constellation ant signifers of Hancock’s nurturing traits of the women of similarly patterned circles straddling of two diferent art in Hancock’s family are and bottle caps are painted worlds. While on the surface artistically rendered in the on the white gallery wall this appears to be fraught colorful guardians within behind her. Within this cosmic with potential channel the Moundverse. With a nod scene, Hancock reveals confict, the diversifcation of 52 to the narrative structure subtle details that belie the his work expands his audi- of graphic novels, Hancock colorful galaxy over which ence rather than cannibalizes reveals the origin stories she reigns. She’s wearing it. The grey space he occupies of his characters within his a black and white bodysuit is mirrored in many of the paintings, refusing to allow that gives way to series of characters on display in the them to neatly ft into para- small pink silicone fgures show, revealing complexities digms of good and evil. of children and wolves that that challenge us to think He teases out this tension appear to protrude from her beyond the rigid paradigms on canvas. body. While the dolls ground that govern how we see the In the painting Step her in motherly, protective world. Operating in an art and Screw Part Too Soon guardianship, they also world that draws a bright line Underneath the Bloody Red expose a tenuous relationship between high and low art, Moon, heroes and villains are with the wolves that intensi- Hancock has carved out not quite what they appear fes in a nearby painting. a place where his work is to be. Hancock’s alter ego is A dizzying maze of legible in multiple spaces. playing football while being colors yields to a dismem- chased by a cartoon klans- bered head of the wolf man whose body is inhabited caught in the clenched fst by the colorless enemies of of a goddess in The Sound of the Mounds. The klansman’s Ocello Opo as the Sun Rises hatred, which appears to be in Her Hands. It’s a gruesome fed by the beings inside him, scene of entwined limbs is represented in a digestive and fsts radiating in a kalei- tract made from a long red doscope of color that’s rope fashioned into a noose. beautifully rendered through Within the background of Hancock’s use of color. the painting, Hancock has The same pink dolls that embedded panels from his are embedded in Undom told a nonlinear story of bad politics. Yet, The Modern- an arsonist. The character ist read more as novelty a la (L.A. in N.Y.) was played by Opie’s friend Charlie Chaplin—a portrai- and frequent subject, San ture of psychotic pleasure

Catherine Opie Francisco-based artist Pig and madcappery—rather Reviews Pen, a.k.a. Stosh Fila. The than a cautionary tale. at Lehmann sequential portraits showed The movement of the Fila as a budding pyromaniac flm ticked along like a Maupin in watery black and white metronome, each image November 1, 2018– pigment prints. We saw Fila leading the viewer along January 12, 2019 outside Lowe’s with equip- through a silent narrative. ment purchases in Arsonist We saw Fila burning (The Modernist) (all works maquettes, then outftting Some people just want to 2016); Fila hiding in a pile of their stylish modern room see the world burn. In 2014, manicured rocks along the with fowers, sneaking onto an arsonist burned to the fat lines of the Chemosphere properties to start fres, ground an unfnished portion (a stilted and octagonal L.A. then picking up the next day’s of the Mediterranean-style, house once described as “the paper to ensure that their ugly AF Da Vinci apartments most modern home built in success has been catalogued. in downtown Los Angeles. the world”) with gas can in Here, Opie attempted to Local investigators assumed tow in Chemosphere #1; Fila’s make a moralized dichotomy it was a crime (rather than refection radiating in double between oppressed and an accident) because the on the glass panes of L.A.’s oppressor and set out to buildings and their developer Sheats-Goldstein house invert the power dynamic. were universally reviled. in Sheats-Goldstein #2 The result was too canny to “There are probably a million (The Modernist). shock. The frestarter flm people who wanted to burn But Opie’s true subject was more a sleeper than down that developer’s was the fame. In each shot, an incendiary tale of good 53 building,” one ofcial a single source of light, versus evil. remarked.¹ whether from matchstick, Mural by Stosh Fila What if the motives light bulb, or the skyline, (aka Pig Pen), the collage were reversed? What if a acted as what Roland Barthes from the frst foor made pyromaniacal lust motivated called the punctum—an a cameo in the flm, as Fila an arsonist to destroy what element in the photograph burned through modernist they admired rather than that jumps out at the viewer. properties, then paired detested? In Catherine Opie’s In fve prints, Fila’s thumbs images of each house with recent exhibition at Lehmann were shown pinching the clips from news reports of Maupin in Chelsea, The wooden stick of a lit match the arson. Words from the Modernist, Opie used the close up and cocked at angles newspaper articles were archetype of the arsonist as if to present the wondrous chopped and layered out of to create a mood of ambiva- glory of fre. While the 20 context (troubled, guarded, lence as a thoroughly sequential images abstracted plight), which, paired with modern condition. The result Opie’s overall concept, the an overlay of hand-painted was a flm pulled apart payof waited in the darkened and oil stick red and orange and overemphasized through room on the basement level. fames, evoked a campy its repeating parts. The flm, also titled The aesthetic: Barbara Kruger The Modernist, frst Modernist, was composed meets True Detective. Head- shown at Regen Projects of 852 still, sequential lines such as HOT PROPERTY in L.A. in early 2018, was photographs set in the style and SCORCHED EARTH an exhibition in two parts: of a French photo-roman flm. glued over glossy magazine a series of photographic Opie’s flm frames destruction cut-outs of celebrity homes prints and a sprawling as a means of avenging the were as kitschy as they were collage upstairs and a flm sins of capital-M Modernism, charged. Mural in a sense downstairs. In the upstairs turning its case study houses was a prop plucked from gallery, the photographs into the efgy for the era’s a cinematic landscape then

1. Hiliel Aron, “Why Did an Arsonist one-of-dtlas-most-reviled- Target One of DTLA's Most Reviled buildings-7553100. Angella d’Avignon Buildings?,” LA Weekly, October 31, 2016, https://www.laweekly.com/ news/why-did-an-arsonist-target- 54

Catherine Opie, Artist #2 (The Modernist) (2016). Pigment print, 40 × 26 ½ inches. Image courtesy of the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Reviews

55

Trenton Doyle Hancock, Becoming the Toymaker, Phase 2 of 41: All is Forgravened (2018). Image courtesy of the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles. hung in the gallery, a gesture by its icons and their apartments symbolized to akin to merchandising. accompanying aesthetics, the arsonist all that is oppres- Similarly, the accompanying mid-century modern design sive in this world: the ugliness light boxes featured photo- might as well be shorthand of gentrifcation, the inacces- graphs of the collage for Southern California. sibility of wealth, and the close-up and excerpted on Outsiders are comfortable cruelty of greed. the basement level (Mural with an incomplete vision Opie’s arsonist plotted Study #1, #3, #4) and felt like of Los Angeles, and Opie’s with the precision of a sniper. afterthoughts or commemo- ambivalent and psychotic If midcentury modernist rative images from a movie Modernist added predictable politics delivered the world set. Though Fila’s vigilante lore to the pile of Los Angeles to the mess it’s in now, why arson was meant to even the fables. (To see Fila’s bare not reduce its hallmarks to spectrum of class, Opie’s (or tattooed arms glinting in ash as reparations? To burn the gallery’s) formal choices the California sunlight the pristine hallmarks of the distracted. We were brought while sunken in the middle midcentury’s Modernism— back to the salable art object of a dreary New York City a time of extreme simplifca- in the end. winter would have been tion and whitewashing in How the rest of the efect enough.) favor of making clean lines world pictures Los Angeles is In the end, according out of sociopolitical stress— akin to a shopworn Joan to the police report, the is a way to purge an era’s Didion essay—having never Da Vinci arsonist’s motivation sins. Not all stories need felt the heat of a wildfre or was abstract revenge endings—The Modernist was the slap of the Santa Ana against the system in general fragmentary and ultimately winds, city mice can only for the murder of black inconclusive, an apt meta- dream of tropical Armaged- teenager Mike Brown. The phor for our of-kilter and don from a distance. If of-the-streets, castle-style indecisive era. a place is topically known architecture of the Da Vinci 56

Review Contributors Jonathan Grifn is a contributing editor for Frieze Colony Little is a Los Angeles based writer and magazine, and also writes for publications including founder of Culture Shock Art, covering emerging Art Agenda, The Financial Times, Art Review, Apollo, contemporary art in California with a focus on Black Mousse, and Cultured. artists. She is also a contributing writer for artnet News, Arts.Black, Art Practical, and Hyperallergic. Matthew Stromberg is a freelance arts writer based (@cultureshockart). in Los Angeles. In addition to Carla, he has contrib- uted to The Los Angeles Times, , KCET Angella d’Avignon is a writer in New York by way Artbound, Hyperallergic, Artsy, Frieze, Terremoto, of Los Angeles. and Daily Serving. Exquisite L.A. Contributors Jessica Simmons is as artist and writer based in Claressinka Anderson has worked as an art dealer, Los Angeles. Her work and writing navigate the adviser and curator and is the owner of Marine haptic, oblique space that exists between the Projects. She is also a writer of poetry and fction, abstraction of language and the language of some of which can be found at Autre Magazine, abstraction. The Los Angeles Press, Artillery Magazine, and The Chiron Review. Lindsay Preston Zappas is the founder and editor-in-chief of Carla. Joe Pugliese, a California native, specializes in portraiture and shoots for a mixture of editorial John Zane Zappas is a sculptor based in Los and advertising clients. He has recently completed Angeles. He received his MFA from Cranbrook projects for such titles as Wired, Vanity Fair, Academy of Art in 2012 and has attended residen- Men’s Journal, and Billboard magazines, as well cies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture as advertising campaigns for Netfix, Sony, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. and AMC.