Posts Tagged With art
Saturday, February 4, 2012 / 1:58 pm
The Artist’s New Clothes
Critics and awards voters get caught up in uniqueness, and we’re left wondering what they’ve been drinking.
by Nathan Walpow
Tags: movies | The Artist
I saw The Artist last night, and while it was an okay movie, I didn’t think it was the grand piece of cinematic splendor everyone’s making it out to be. It was clever, and the acting was good, and I laughed a few times, but … okay, put it this way. When I’m seeing a movie I’m really into, and I have to take a leak, I’ll hold it no matter how uncomfortable I get. With this, when I had to go, I went. I didn’t even run down the endless hall at the Arclight in Manhattan Beach to miss as little as possible.
Now, my tastes in popular culture are often out of touch with the multitudes’. For example, my list of dislikes includes U2, Tom Hanks, and Modern Family. (Okay, and The Office, 30 Rock, and Community too.) But I was with my wife and two other people, and while at least two of them enjoyed it more than I did, none of them thought it was great. Why then is it getting such critical praise and a bazillion award nominations?
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 / 2:08 pm
I Am MOCA’s Abusive Husband
I wouldn’t hit you, baby, if you didn’t make me so mad.
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Tags: arts | culture | MOCA | Priuses
Got up to MOCA Grand this past weekend to enjoy the Weegee: Naked Hollywood show. (Pictures of crowds waiting for celebrities were by far our favorites. His distorted faces of celebrities left us cold–we’ve seen so many of them by now, and could only give him intellectual rather than emotional props for having basically invented Photoshop.)
So it was all well and good, and it was nice seeing about 5,000 people in a gallery. BUT!
The first thing we saw in a gallery devoted to new acquisitions was a white canvas painted with the slogan, in black, “I drive a Prius.” And MOCA had paid for it.
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Friday, January 27, 2012 / 12:51 pm
Reason No. 147 Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Arts Commissions
They would have denied the Watts Towers if they’d had the chance.
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Tags: art | Richard Serra | Anita Garouni | folk art
You know what I hate? Besides the rest of it? Arts commissions!
“But Commie Girl!” you’re whining in your usual fuddle, “Arts commissions are full of people who care about art and want to beautify our city! How could you take your usual shiv to them?”
Easy! Arts commissions are full of stuck-up bureaucrats enforcing their staid aesthetic; they’ll approve just about any twisted hunk of metal if it’s got the name “Serra” attached; and they would have denied the Watts Towers if they’d had the chance. They don’t get folk art, and never have. In Fullerton, the arts commission that oversees the small percent of developer money that must go to public art has approved hideous statues of girls doing rhythmic gymnastics, and I think that in itself should DQ all arts commissions for good.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012 / 9:09 am
Earth Justice: Ann Calhoun On Duty
Cloth bags vs. plastic: did you think about germs?
by Donna Schoenkopf
Tags: recycling | Ann Calhoun | paper vs. plastic | earth justice
Ann Calhoun, vigilant citizen, wordsmith and smart ass has a blog that reports the various goings on in her hometown of Los Osos, California and its environs, which include San Luis Obispo.
Does she get mad? You BET she does. Can she rant like nobody else? Uh huh!
This time she takes on the insidious forces that put profit before the health of our planet. And, boy, does she make mincemeat out of the liars and fakes who are on the wrong side of this issue.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012 / 5:00 am
Harry Gamboa Jr. Tagged LACMA
The founding member of ASCO on “Spray Paint LACMA,” Obama Administration deportations, and raging against the machine.
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Tags: art | LACMA | Harry Gamboa Jr.
It was almost 40 years ago that the members of ASCO tagged the outer wall of LACMA, declaring the museum to be their own.
Harry Gamboa Jr. talks to us about the curator who brought ASCO’s wrath down—and why he’s still driven by political rage.
