The Power & Vitality Of The Image: Read Our Interview Of Controversial Artist Darja Bajagic →

Where the political left was once the clear bastion of free speech and expression in the U.S., it could be argued that the new left silences thought and speech perceived as antithetical or offensive to its values almost as much as the right wing does, or did. This is a problem for culture, and evidently, for art. “Political correctness,” says Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek, “is a desperate attempt by the public norms to tell you what is decent, what is not.” What Žižek suggests here is that political correctness can be harmful in its ability to obscure the truth and dilute public discourse; by sanitizing rhetoric we sanitize cultural meaning. This climate of over-the-top, politically correct theatrics has infiltrated the art world; art’s job is ultimately to push back on societal taboos and interrogate prevailing norms. Good art is almost always offensive to someone. Click here to read more

Exhibition Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature @ Van Gogh Museum In Amsterdam

Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature demonstrates the influence of Van Gogh on Hockney’s work, exploring both artists’ fascination with nature, their use of bright, contrasting colors and their experimentation with perspective. This exhibition is the first extensive monographic Hockney exhibition to be organised in the Netherlands. The exhibition features works representing all of the techniques in his oeuvre. None of the works have been on display in the Netherlands before. Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature will be on view through May 6 at the Van Gogh Museum 1070 AJ, Amsterdam. photographs courtesy of Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)

Robert Duran: 1968–1970 @ Karma In New York

Robert Duran in his studio, 431 Broome Street, New York, c. 1968. Photograph by Stephanie Chrisman

Robert Duran: 1968–1970 presents a selection of Duran’s earliest paintings, which were born from a time when the then young artist concurrently experimented in minimalist sculpture. Closely examining Duran’s practice within these years, one can recognize the forms and structures of his sculptures loosely illustrating the paintings surfaces, as if tracing the evolution from his sculptural pursuits to the lyrical style of painting that he became known for. Robert Duran: 1968–1970 will be on view through March 31 at Karma 188 E 2nd Street New York

Color Out of Space Group Show Inspired By H.P. Lovecraft @ Lowell Ryan Projects in Los Angeles

Lowell Ryan Projects presents Color Out of Space, a group exhibition inspired by the eponymous short story of H.P. Lovecraft that brings together works by Mark Flood, Nasim Hantehzadeh, Kysa Johnson, Laurie Nye, and Galen Trezise. In Lovecraft’s story, a meteorite crashes in a remote farm and, as it shrinks, releases globules of “impossible to describe” colors that have mutative effects on the surrounding plants, animals, and humans. No solution is found. No motive is uncovered. “Do not ask me for my opinion,” the unnamed narrator concludes. “I do not know—that is all.” Color Out of Space will be on view until April 6 at Lowell Ryan Projects, 4851 West Adams Blvd.

Meredith Monk Performs "Cellular Songs" At Royce Hall In Los Angeles

Meredith Monk performed Cellular Songs on March 2nd at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Following the celebrated On Behalf of Nature, which offered a liminal space questioning the precarious state of our global ecology, Cellular Songs turns attention inward to the very fabric of life itself. Joined by the women of her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble, Monk combines some of her most adventurous vocal music to date with movement, light, instrumental music and film, as well as a video installation designed specifically for each space. photographs by Julieta Cervantes

Meredith Monk will also be performing at the LA Phil on June 11 &12.

Inspired by the life of explorer Alexandra David-Néel, Meredith Monk’s three-act “quest opera” uses Monk’s inimitable and hypnotic style to explore the loss and rediscovery of our inherent wonder. More than 20 years since Atlas first made its impact, Yuval Sharon will conceive and direct this landmark new production.


Silke Otto-Knapp Presents "Land And Sea" @ Regen Projects In Los Angeles

Silke Otto-Knapp’s Land and Sea presents six watercolor paintings that wrap around the walls of the gallery like a sweeping horizon line. Spaced apart from each other, and installed low on the wall, the paintings achieve a weighted physical presence, and depict a group of seascapes. In the center of the gallery, a configuration of freestanding walls display vertically oriented multi-paneled paintings scaled in relation to the human form. One tableau features numerous figures activating the pictorial plane in their engagements with geometric shapes. Another larger work portrays a sequence of dancers in different positions. Each composition shifts between alternating positive and negative figure-ground relationships, creating the illusion of movement. Land and Sea is on view through March 30 at Regen Projects 6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles. photographs by Evan Bedford, Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Cristian Răduță: The Diamond Hunters @ Nicodim Gallery In Los Angeles

Cristian Răduță’s animals march in droves. A Noah’s Ark of improvised genetic anomalies populate Nicodim Gallery like an emergency spawning ground, but no two are paired or exactly alike. Apelikenesses can be seen from one angle and a shuffle of animalian ciphers from the other. Răduță is their shepherd, bringing to each form a unique trembling glory. This harmonious pattern of origin stories—both raw and cooked—ludically swirl in the artist’s grand tale of a double helix. His creatures are echos of archetypes, songs from a golden record played deep in outer space. Cristian Răduță: The Diamond Hunters is on view through April 13 at Nicodim Gallery 571 South Anderson Street. photographs provided by Nicodim Gallery

"FOCUS: Agnes Martin" @ Lévy Gorvy In London

FOCUS: Agnes Martin is an exhibition that places the artist’s sole completed film, Gabriel (1976), in conversation with an intimate selection of her abstract paintings. A screening room and adjoining gallery of paintings creates an immersive, meditative environment that highlights the relationship between Martin’s work and her conception of joy. “I thought my movie was going to be about happiness,” Martin commented on the production of the film, “but when I saw it finished, it turned out to be about joy–the same thing my paintings are about.” The exhibition will mark the second of the FOCUS series, which encourages sustained contemplation of landmark artworks by artists rooted in the gallery’s program, alongside related selections from their oeuvres. FOCUS: Agnes Martin will be on view through April 13 at Lévy Gorvy 22 Old Bond Street, London. photograph courtesy of the gallery

HELEN FRANKENTHALER: SELECTED PAINTINGS @ Yares Art In New York

Helen Frankenthaler, New York City, 1974. Photograph by Alexander Liberman

Source: International Center for Photography

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is one of the most important and influential postwar painters, whose abstract compositions, featuring brilliant expanses of color and light, have inspired generations of artists and changed the course of art history. She led the way from Abstract Expressionism to a new and vital form of painterly lyricism that heralded the Color Field movement. On view in this exhibition are some twenty major large-scale paintings that celebrate the New York-born artist’s formidable, six-decade career. A classic Frankenthaler work, Swan Lake II (1961), filled with ethereal pools of electric blue, grays, and deep red, against a neutral ground, is a quintessential example of her unparalleled achievement. Helen: Frankenthaler: Selected Paintings will be on view through May 18 at Yares Art 745 5th Ave.

American Artist's "I’m Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die)" @ Koenig & Clinton In New York

I’m Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die) reconfigures the exhibition space into an imaginary seminar room for law enforcement personnel. Upon entering, visitors encounter what initially resembles a classroom with desks, black board, and an instructional video. In a nod towards the Blue Lives Matter countermovement that has developed in response to Black Lives Matter, American Artist has sculpturally reconfigured the first two elements. Fortified school desks barricade the video screen, while blue police fabric prevents those sitting in desks from seeing the film. The black board, outfitted with the same familiar blue cloth, only allows those reading from it to speculate on the prominence of blue. Onscreen, in place of an instructional video, visitors instead find a speaking digital character. Fabricated by Artist, the character’s speech interweaves imagined and quoted statements taken from two characters, one fictional, one real. I’m Blue (If I Was █████ I Would Die) is on view through April 13 at Koenig & Clinton 1329 Willoughby Ave. Images courtesy the artist, Koenig & Clinton, Brooklyn. Photo: Jeffrey Sturges, New York

Jorge Pardo Presents "Eccentric Reflexivity 1988-1994" @ Petzel In New York

Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994 is a solo show of works by artist, sculptor and architect Jorge Pardo. In essence, Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994 is a non-nostalgic remembrance, appreciation, and documentation of the process of becoming an artist, featuring works imagined, created and produced during a specific period in Jorge Pardo’s life while and just after he was a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. The exhibition explores and investigates Pardo’s playful aesthetic, while offering sly anti-Duchampean commentary on what can transform everyday objects, or ready-mades—many imbued with symbolic, art historical and autobiographical references—into art. Eccentric Reflexivity 1988-1994 is on view through April 20, 2019 at Petzel 35 East 67th Street, New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Carol Rama: Eye Of Eyes @ Lévy gorvy In New York

Carol Rama: Eye of Eyes celebrates the symbolic language developed by this luminary of the Italian avant-garde. Presenting works made over a nearly six decade span, the exhibition encompasses watercolors, paintings, and works from the highly-charged Bricolage series, in which Rama incorporated personally significant objects and materials into her paintings. Carol Rama: Eye of Eyes is on view through March 23 at Lévy Gorvy in New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Teo Hernández Presents "Shatter Appearances" @ Villa Vassilieff In Paris

Teo Hernández: Shatter appear­ances is the result of a long-term cura­to­rial research around this film­maker’s work and archive. Between 1968 and 1991, he pro­duced approx­i­mately 160 films, ranging in time and for­mats (8mm, Super-8 and 16mm). The exhi­bi­tion includes mate­rials not only from his per­sonal archive, but also from his close col­lab­o­ra­tors, friends and rel­a­tives. Centered around three themes (The Self Filmed, Bodily Vertigo; Intimate City), the goal is to empha­size his rad­ical inten­tion to pro­duce a tac­tile cinema informed by per­forming arts and con­tem­po­rary dance, in order to to invoke future bodies and real­i­ties. This pro­ject does not pro­pose a canon­ical inter­pre­ta­tion of his work, but rather offers the expe­ri­ence of some of Hernández’s con­cerns, obses­sions, and desires cir­cling iden­tity, the body and the city. Shatter Appearances will be on view through April 27 at Villa Vassilieff Chemin de Montparnasse 21 avenue du Maine, Paris. photographs by Aurélien Mole

Nadine Faraj Presents Get Used To Us @ Anna Zorina Gallery In New York

“Get Used To Us” echoes a historic LGBTQ rights slogan "We're here! We're queer! Get used to us!” Nadine Faraj’s fluid wet-on-wet technique abstracts erotic scenes to reflect an essence of sexual freedom that celebrates the mutability of gender and identity. The artist’s expressive application of pigment creates a blurring of boundaries between her subjects in a way that mirrors the suspension of self when provoked by passion. Get Used To Us will be on view through April 6 at Anna Zorina Gallery 532 West 24 Street, New York. photographs courtesy of Anna Zorina Gallery, New York City.

Zehra Ahmed Curates "Women In Windows" On Chung King Road In Chinatown Los Angeles

Six American women from diverse cultural backgrounds, spanning across South Asia, the Middle East, Puerto Rico and Trinidad, will present video artworks which challenge, both in content and in context, society’s definition of femininity. Videos by Alima Lee, Arshia Fatima Haq, Gazelle Samizay, Jasdeep Kang, Muna Malik and Yumna Al-Arashi are placed throughout the windows and storefronts of Chinatown’s historic Chung King Road by Los Angeles-based curator Zehra Ahmed. Women In Windows is on view through March 17 Windows along Chung King Road in Chinatown, Los Angeles. photographs by Douglas Fenton

David Black Presents "Landscapes" @ The Lodge In Los Angeles

Landscapes is a selection of new work by David Black that explores paranormality and everyday life in Los Angeles. The images displayed in a sequential line present a day to night cyclical narrative of a landscape of our collected dreams. These visual glitches suggest the point of view of a passenger in a fast moving car on the city’s expansive freeway system. Black is interested in capturing opposing forces: light and dark, commercial and artistic, micro and macro, and they fuse to pose questions about illusion, mortality and truth. He also likes to play with archetypes: a dove flutters on the hood of a big car in its dark shadow; sunsets stutter into a strange series moiréd by the artifice of an LED screen from which they radiate. These allusive symbols and characters suggest a twisted storyline that feels fictional but also inherently autobiographical and vulnerable. Landscapes is on view through March 30 at the Lodge 10 24 North Western Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Agathe Pinard

Autre Magazine Hosts A Frieze Week Kickoff & Psychic Salon At The Friend Bar in Silverlake - PART II

A Cat's Meow @ Shrine and Sargent's Daughters In New York

Independent curator Brooke Wise presents A Cat’s Meow, a group exhibition featuring work by Anja Salonen, Misha Kahn, Sam Crow, Thomas Barger and Ana Kraš. The exhibition explores the dichotomy of the interior versus the exterior, the domestic versus the wild, the archetype versus the atypical.

A Cat’s Meow will be on view until March 17, 2019 at Shrine and Sargent’s Daughters, 179 E Broadway, New York. images courtesy of Brooke Wise

Watch Spellling's Music Video “Under the Sun” On The Occasion Of Her Album Release

SPELLLING, the project of Bay-area based Chrystia Cabral, shares a new video for “Under the Sun,” a track off of her forthcoming album, Mazy Fly, due today via Sacred Bones. The video, shot entirely on 8mm camera, is a collaboration between Cabral and emerging filmmaker Catalina Xavlena. A 7-minute surreal dreamscape odyssey into the depths of “Under the Sun,” the video features Cabral herself, surrounded by vivid hues, stunning movement, and cryptic storytelling. This visual boldly pays homage to 70s avant-garde film and 80s iconic music videos. “‘Under the Sun’ is a cosmic prayer for good fortune,” says Cabral. “This epic track celebrates the invisible energies that come together over time to create something radically new, like the birth of a star.”

Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s @ Blum & Poe Gallery In Los Angeles

Blum & Poe’s Parergon, a selected survey exhibition of Japanese art of the 1980s and ‘90s, curated by Mika Yoshitake. Focusing on the themes of abject politics, transcending media, performativity, and satire and simulation, this show will present the work of over twenty-five visual artists including Kodai Nakahara, Tatsuo Miyajima, Kazumi Nakamura, Yukie Ishikawa, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, and Yukinori Yanagi in an array of media spanning painting, sculpture, duration performance, noise, video, and photography. Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s will be on view until March 23 at Blum & Poe Gallery, 2727 La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA. photographs by Oliver Kupper