Critical analyses of contemporary art
Emily Yong Beck: Spoonful of Sugar at New Image Art, Los Angeles
In Spoonful of Sugar, Emily Yong Beck asks: What is beneath the veil of beauty that we buy into?
The Casual Intimacy of Women Caring for Women: Anne Buckwalter at Friends Indeed and Rebecca Camacho Presents
In the two-venue exhibition, Buckwalter’s domestic scenes have a revolutionary proposition: what would a world of care and support for the needs of all women look like?
The Power of Discrete Things: Ricki Dwyer at Anglim/Trimble in San Francisco
Ricki Dwyer’s vast textiles and small sculptures examine the gravity of human relationships.
Flirting With the Uncontrollable: Peter Gronquist at Winston Wächter Fine Art in Seattle
Felted wool, steel, river rocks, and sound combine to illustrate the vulnerability of all life.
We Vessels of Existence: Jesse Mockrin at Night Gallery
Religious images question the multifaceted nature of human lives.
Who Do I Think I Am? Lynn Hershman Leeson at Altman Siegel
A multi-media artist on the West Coast gets up close and personal with their viewers, unsettling the notion of a fixed identity.
Balancing Buoyancy and Desolation: Emily Kepulis at Lolo Pass
A painter meditates on the impending and preventable horror of environmental destruction.
Support, Opportunity, and Liberation: Month of Sundays at Eugene Contemporary Art
An ambitious group exhibition steps in to show the world that liberation requires both trouble and quietude.
Mixed Feelings for Strange Fruit: Genevieve Gaignard at Vielmetter Los Angeles
A daring but imperfect exhibition challenges notions of racism and colorism.
Srijon Chowdhury’s “Groundhog Day” at SE Cooper Contemporary
A Portland-based painter conjures the otherworldly to meditate on the shrouded interiority of his subjects.
Unknowable Spaces: William Matheson’s “Dissipatio” at Nationale
Evocative oil paintings on jute canvas trouble the perception of figure-ground relationships.
Joke’s on Us: Hugo Montoya’s “Florida Man” at Et al.
Through found objects and wry humor, Hugo Montoya reveals problematic cultural stereotypes.
Compendium of Scars: Pained Vistas at Photographic Center Northwest
Eleven artists depict landscapes framed by conflict, trauma, and beauty.
The Importance of Meaningless Things: Sara Cwynar at ICA LA
At ICA LA, Cwynar probes what we can learn from our fickle taste and consumerism.
Each One of Us Was Fastened to the Other: Josh Smith and Vanessa Woods at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA
A wife and husband artist duo explore their identities as artists and parents.
Photographing the Surreality of Western Landscapes: Ingeborg Gerdes at Blue Sky Gallery
The German-American photographer applied street photography tactics to documenting rural Western United States.
Insatiable Exuberance: Daisy May Sheff at Ratio 3
When you walk into Ratio 3, one of the first artworks you encounter doesn’t initially seem like it’s part of the exhibition. Olive Girl (2021) is a tiny assemblage of beads and rubber on a painted piece of metal that looks like a salvaged bit of packaging material. Here the artist shows an abstracted pink…
An Archive for End Times: Invisible Labor in Taryn Tomasello’s “As Long As It Doesn’t Spread”
Monuments to pandemic isolation reconsider the archival impulse
The Mesmerizing Secrets of Mundane Objects: Mariel Capanna Overlook at Adams and Ollman
An enigmatic painter draws her viewers into her impermanent abstractions, invites them to consider everyday materiality.
FROM THE ARCHIVES | Imagining Caregiving as Constant: Contact Traces at the Wattis Institute
A group exhibition in San Francisco exposes lapses, performances, and vital acts of care.
FROM THE ARCHIVES | Residential Intimacies: Shoccara Marcus Choreographs the Past and the Present at Wa Na Wari
Shoccara Marcus’s photographs highlight the complex nuances of relationships.
FROM THE ARCHIVES | Disco as a Communal Site of Pleasure: Coady Brown’s nightlife paintings at Shulamit Nazarian
Gabrielle Lawrence interprets Coady Brown’s vibrant paintings through her favorite disco songs.
FROM THE ARCHIVES | New Images for an Old Struggle: Jacob Lawrence at Seattle Art Museum
Lawrence’s research into this nation’s early years point the way to reckoning with past and present social crises.
FROM THE ARCHIVES | Going Through the Motions: Speculations on Birth in Patricia Piccinini’s The Awakening
A surreal birthing video situates viewers in an uncomfortable, yet fruitful space.
Resurrecting a Twentieth Century Cabaret Artist to Resist Oppression Today: Witch’s Kitchen by Shana Lutker and Active Cultures
An LA-based non-profit creates a novel space to remind audiences how communities can come together.
Artists Fill San Francisco’s Cliff House with Warnings of Environmental Disaster: “Lands End” Reviewed
Jutting out from the rugged coastline at Lands End, near barbed Seal Rock and the remains of the Sutro Baths, sits the Cliff House, a building that has perched here (in various forms) overlooking the Pacific for nearly 160 years. In that time, our climate has warmed by a little more than one degree Celsius,…
The Politics of Nature: Ansel Adams In Our Time at Portland Art Museum
Contemporary artists reposition Ansel Adams’s famous landscape photography.
The Boundless Light of Black Children: Barbara Earl Thomas’s “Geographies of Innocence” at Seattle Art Museum
Intricately cut paper reveals the joy of Black children in vibrant colors.
Disco as a Communal Site of Pleasure: Coady Brown’s nightlife paintings at Shulamit Nazarian
Gabrielle Lawrence interprets Coady Brown’s vibrant paintings through her favorite disco songs.
For the Love of Friends: Jonathan Berger at Adams and Ollman
A poetic installation chronicles the friendships made by a community living in tunnels under Manhattan.
Lessons from the Forest: Arboreal at / Gallery
A group show in San Francisco examines the many interconnected lessons we can learn from plants.
Imagining Caregiving as Constant: Contact Traces at the Wattis Institute
A group exhibition in San Francisco exposes lapses, performances, and vital acts of care.
Residential Intimacies: Shoccara Marcus Choreographs the Past and the Present at Wa Na Wari
Shoccara Marcus’s photographs highlight the complex nuances of relationships.
An Expansive Examination of Life and Death: Ameh Egwuh at Rele Gallery
An artist contemplates life, death, and the afterlife through unexpectedly cheerful symbols.
Going Through the Motions: Speculations on Birth in Patricia Piccinini’s The Awakening
A surreal birthing video situates viewers in an uncomfortable, yet fruitful space.
Neon Abundance Highlights Our Lack of Substance: Energy Drink at Museum of Museums
A wholly artificial environment satirizes our superficial world.
Drawing Moments of Everyday Life with a Typewriter: Lenka Clayton at Catharine Clark Gallery
Clayton uses typewriter keys to illustrate the minutiae of life in the pandemic.
Antifascist Climate Noir: Ryan Pierce at Elizabeth Leach Gallery
Chaotic scenes paint a cheeky and surreal image of capitalist futures.
New Images for an Old Struggle: Jacob Lawrence at Seattle Art Museum
Lawrence’s research into this nation’s early years point the way to reckoning with past and present social crises.
Shared Dreams of the Sea: Bonny Nahmias at Root Division
Sending dreams through the mail connects strangers with their unconscious and each other.
The Meaning in Everything: Synchronicity at Roberts Projects
A group exhibition embraces serendipity in everyday life.
Collective Grieving Through an Interactive Website
Performative practices offer the possibility of a more connected community mourning.
Facing Pervasive Trauma with Humor and Hope: Christine Sun Kim at François Ghebaly
Charcoal drawings process the social trauma of being deaf.
Black Life Exploited for White Lies: Ilana Harris-Babou’s Long Con at Jacob Lawrence Gallery
Satire and collage expose capitalist strategies of using Black bodies to exploit spiritual, mental, and physical health.
Know Thyself, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Fordism: Jeamin Cha at Kadist San Francisco
An exhibition stalled by the global pandemic examines mental heath under late capitalism.
Searching for a More Perfect Union: Tannaz Farsi at HOLDING Contemporary
Textural and material poetics question notions of citizenship and belonging.
Documenting the Changing Self: Melanie Flood at Fourteen30 Contemporary
Flood’s photographs suggest a changing self located within a difficult but perhaps all too common history, at once revealed and withheld.
All the Strings that Bind: Patty Chang at Friends Indeed and Cushion Works
Chang’s work displays a longstanding preoccupation with the boundaries and trace appearances of the body.