Valerj Pobega Presents "Kabuki in Berlin" Fall/Winter 2019 collection

Avant-garde fashion designer and artist Valerj Pobega presented her “Kabuki in Berlin” -Fall/Winter 2019 collection with a site-specific performance in collaboration with dancers, acrobats and a music performance by Lawrence Rothman. Dressed in the designer’s hand-painted silk creations from “Kabuki in Berlin” her collection was inspired by the hybrid identities and androgynous stylings as seen in the Liza Minnelli’s turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and the epicene performances of Lindsey Kemp and David Bowie in their 1970 mimed numbers which had hints of Kabuki theatre. photographs by Mekael Dawson

Claudia Parducci Presents 23 Columns @ Ochi Projects In Los Angeles

The central focus of Claudia Parducci’s exhibition consists of twenty-three 16’, hand-knit jute pillars spanning from floor to ceiling. Arranged in a staggered grid measuring approximately 14 feet square, they reference the twenty-three interior columns of the Parthenon that surrounded the monumental statue of Athena. Over the two years Parducci spent knitting these pillars, she considered the gendered aspects of labor, and the symbolic significance of the physical remnants of Western history. Appearing, but failing to be structurally supportive, Parducci’s knit columns, along with related sculptures and drawings, address the dual nature of societies that build, and then ultimately destroy themselves. Through the substitution of a traditionally feminine craft as the means of production, Parducci considers these recurring cycles in history and wonders about the possibilities of a society built from a female perspective. 23 Columns will be on view through April 27 at Ochi Projects 3301 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Patrick Martinez Presents That Which We Do Not See @ Fort Gansevoort In New York

Through formally painted portraits, Patrick Martinez sheds light on past and current civil rights leaders who would historically be left in the shadows. These portraits are found atop realistically depicted three-dimensional cakes, embodying the celebratory tone that Martinez wishes to portray. Through a study of the lack of diverse representation in historical portrait painting, a medium traditionally used to celebrate ones successes and wealth, Martinez was led to the portrait cake paintings. The cake acts as a globally and socio-economically understood medium of celebration, now featuring the faces of not only white historical figures but the faces of freedom fighters of all races. This series was first inspired by a video of Tupac’s last birthday, which included a cake frosted with his portrait that did not resemble him in the slightest. The cake paintings feature the likes of Angela Davis, James Baldwin, and Malcolm X, and include even lesser known freedom fighters such as Larry Itliong of the Philippines paying respect to Martinez’s mother’s birthplace. Martinez also works with the insignias of civil rights activist groups, such as the Black Panther Party in his piece titled Chocolate Cake for the Black Panther Party. That Which We Do Not See will be on view through April 20 at Fort Gansevoort 5 Ninth Avenue, New York. photographs courtesy of the artist and Fort Gansevoort, New York.

Read An Excerpt Of A Conversation Between Rick Owens and Photographer Rick Castro →

Rick Castro is a legend in the queer underground scene of 1980s and 1990s Los Angeles. It was a time when Santa Monica Boulevard was rich with male hustlers, shirtless in the California sun, and the nightclubs were liminal landscapes of desire and liberation. To those who know him, he is "The Fetish King." Alongside artists like Ron Athey, Catherine Opie, Sheree Rose and Bob Flanagan, Vaginal Davis, Kembra Pfahler, and Bruce LaBruce, Castro utilizes queer identity and the physicality of the body to express themes of marginalization and oppression. Click here to read more.

"Peel" A Group Show @ Ghebaly Gallery In Los Angeles

Peel is a group show featuring works by Farah Al Qasimi, Meriem Bennani, Dora Budor, Oto Gillen, Win McCarthy, Troy Michie, Elle Pérez, Em Rooney and Heji Shin. “All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn’t know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit.” Ulysses, James Joyce Chapter 8: Lestrygonians. Peel will be on view through April 28 at Ghebaly Gallery 2245 E. Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Cassi Namoda Presents The Day a Monkey is Destined to Die All Trees Become Slippery @ Ghebaly In Los Angeles

The Day a Monkey is Destined to Die All Trees Become Slippery is Cassi Namoda’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and explores the mythologies and proverbs of daily life in East Africa from the perspective of a vibrant young storyteller. The Day a Monkey is Destined to Die All Trees Become Slippery is on view through April 18 at Ghebaly gallery 2245 E. Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Kacie Lees Presents Necessary Phenomenon @ O’ Project Space In Los Angeles

Kacie Lees is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY who uses video, neon, sculpture & installation as tools to explore theories of the void and source pathways to underdeveloped senses. Her practice builds on the experimental legacy of new media with an expansion towards fluid notions of space. Necessary Phenomenon will be on view through April 14 at O’ Project Space 2618 Pasadena Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Guy Yanai Presents "The Conformist" @ Praz Delavallade In Paris

Guy Yanai’s practice is fueled by fables, stories and hymns - each painting is a reflection of the pragmatic side of our life. In his isolated moments, one may find a smiling child, a big splash, a lonely banana, a bristling cactus, a modernist lamp, a singing bird or a tiny boat gliding on placid waters below a clear sky. These individual vignettes bleed into one another and could continue forever, suspended in time and forming a timeless ensemble. Many of Yanai’s subjects are intentionally recognizable and commonplace, rendered in a pixelated appearance. The Conformist is on view through May 25 at Praz Delavallade 5 rue des Haudriettes, Paris. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Lia Halloran "Double Horizon" @ Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles

Double Horizon presents Passage, a new group of photographs that expand upon Lia Halloran's Dark Skate series alongside the artist's first immersive three-channel video installation, Double Horizon (2019), which offers footage of the artist aerially exploring the space above Los Angeles. Her ongoing investigations into the personal, physical, psychological, and scientific exploration of space are the primary focus of these new works as the viewer encounters Halloran both skateboarding the vast urban landscape of Los Angeles and flying above and around its dynamic terrain. Lia Halloran "Double Horizon" will be on view from March 30 to May 4 at Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. photographs by Summer Bowie

Harmony Korine Presents "Young Twitchy" @ Gagosian In New York


”The works were re-created in oil paint on canvas from images I constructed on my iPhone. I usually took these photographs around my home in Florida, and then painted over them with different characters. These light creatures hang out with the dogs, or dance on the abandoned boat dock. I would sit outside alone by the water and create alien-like friends on a low-key cosmic tropical playground.” —Harmony Korine. Young Twitchy is on view through April 20 at Gagosian 980 Madison Avenue, New York. photographs courtesy of Gagosian

Gabriel Rico Presents "The Discipline of the Cave" @ The Aspen Art Museum In Colorado

Combining aesthetic traditions associated with the Arte Povera movement and influenced by scientific, philosophical, and geometric principles, Rico collects the fragments, found objects, and materials of contemporary existence. Using culturally manufactured items like neon, taxidermy, concrete, and coins, as well as such natural elements as tree branches, stones, and fruit, he recontextualizes and arranges each in ways that both captivate and confound viewers through their poetic, wry, jarring relationships. Through juxtapositions of objects and an artistic process that fuses the natural and kitsch, Rico elicits a further investigation of our human environment and the natural world via non-mathematical equations using elements that reflect and illuminate a fundamental human urge to achieve balance.The Discipline of the Cave, on view through June 16 at the Aspen Art Museum 637 E Hyman Ave, Aspen. photographs by Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

Rikkí Wright Presents 'SIS' @ Nous Tous Gallery In Los Angeles

SIS is a solo exhibition by Rikkí Wright analyzing the themes of the sibling relationship and exploring how it shapes the future of those involved in it. “This series of images are based around a subject matter that’s dear to me, sisterhood. Analyzing the themes of the sibling relationship and exploring how it shapes the future of those involved in it.” - Rikkí Wright. SIS is on view through March 29th at Nous Tous 454b Jung Jing Road, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modification Paintings @ Petzel Gallery In New York

Situated in the context of the first thrift store paintings altered by Danish artist Asger Jorn, Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modifications Paintings is a group show of over 30 prominent international artists investigating multifarious appropriation methods spanning from the mid-1960s to the flourishing techniques of the 1980s, up to the present day. Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modification Paintings features works by Enrico Baj, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Vidya Gastaldon, Wade Guyton/Stephen Prina, Rachel Harrison, Ray Johnson, Jacqueline de Jong, Asger Jorn, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Lee Krasner, Albert Oehlen, Francis Picabia, Stephen Prina, R.H. Quaytman, Arnulf Rainer, Julian Schnabel, Jim Shaw, Gedi Sibony, Alexis Smith, Daniel Spoerri, John Stezaker, Betty Tompkins, and David Wojnarowicz. Strategic Vandalism is on view through April 13 at Petzel Gallery 456 W 18th Street, New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary @ California African American Museum In Los Angeles

A prolific painter, printmaker, muralist, draftsman, and photographer whose career spanned more than half a century, Charles White’s artistic portrayals of black subjects, life, and history were extensive and far-reaching. Plumb Line features contemporary artists whose work in the realm of black individual and collective life resonates with White’s profound and continuing influence. The exhibition is on view through August 25 at the California African American Museum 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of CAAM

Maceo Paisley Launches New Book 'Tao Of Maceo' @ NAVEL In Los Angeles

On March 14, Maceo Paisley officially released his book, Tao of Maceo at NAVEL. The book launch was accompanied by a performance with dancer, Brianna Mims and a screening of Paisley’s short film, DYNAMITE, as well as a short Q&A with Maceo & our managing editor, Summer Bowie. photographs by Lani Trock

Fred Wilson Presents "Afro Kismet" @ Maccarone Gallery In Los Angeles

Fred Wilson’s Afro Kismet lays bare questions of visibility: where are Africans in historical accounts of early Europe? How have the narratives institutionalized by museums erased the presence of black individuals of the past and present. Over seven trips to Istanbul, Fred Wilson researched these questions, continuing the project he started in Re: Claiming Egypt and Speak of Me as I Am, his shows at the 1992 Cairo Biennale and 2003 Venice Biennale. In those works, Wilson revealed the black diasporas of each region — histories made obsolete in the Western collective imagination. He continues to interrogate the peripheral treatment of such histories in Afro Kismet, this time mining the history of Istanbul. Afro Kismet is on view through April 27 at Maccarone 300 South Mission Rd, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Tim Hawkinson Presents New Works @ DENK Gallery In Los Angeles

New Works is a new series of sculptural works, and large-format drawings on paper, that continue to explore multidisciplinary artist: Tim Hawkinson's playful and morbid morphologies. The artist disassembles the familiar and stages dysfunctional propositions in which the self repeatedly appears as the only, albeit imperfect, measure of experience and inventive return to obsessive craft in service concept exists in an expanded and embodied field, dramatized by the inclusion of living variables like time, breath (sound), and movement. New Works is on view through March 30 at DENK Gallery 749 East Temple Street, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Pussykrew Presents "The Bliss Of Metamorphing Collapse" @ Postmasters In New York

Pussykrew is a nomadic duo of Polish new media artists Ewelina Alexandrowicz and Andrzej Wojtas. The centerpiece of the show is the artists’ most recent project, the bliss of metamorphing collapse, presented as multiscreen video installation and virtual reality experience. Using real-time animation and VR sculpting tools, Pussykrew create new supernatural scenery as they re-imagine the future post-human landscape, new living beings, and their ecosystem. This multidimensional work is designed to explore speculative life forms that exist within a networked consciousness, beyond synthetic/organic conditions: the fluid entities that transcend traditional hierarchical binary systems. The audience is summoned into the artist-created universe where newly evolved, gender-free organisms become the augmented hybrids of a body, technology, and nature, and the sentient sense of the past. The Bliss Of Metamorphing Collapse is on view through April 13 at Postmasters 54 Franklin Street, New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery


Fondazione Prada presents “Surrogati. Un amore ideale” @ The Osservatorio In Milan

Fondazione Prada’s “Surrogati. Un amore ideale” (Surrogate. A Love Ideal) comprises a selection of 42 photographic works by Jamie Diamond (Brooklyn, USA, 1983) and Elena Dorfman (Boston, USA, 1965.) The project explores the notions of familial, romantic and sexual love. Both artists focus on a specific and unconventional aspect of this universal theme: the emotional link between a man or a woman and a synthetic representation of a human. As explained by Melissa Harris, “together, Diamond’s and Dorfman’s work presented in ‘Surrogati’ vividly and non-judgmentally documents the interactions of humans with their lifelike, inanimate companions.” Both photographers portrayed these lifelike surrogates as desired, fetishized, and idealized beings, “living” as such with their flesh and blood mothers and partners, and sometimes with their immediate families as well. “Surrogati. Un amore ideale” will be on view through July 22 at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Piazza del Duomo, 20123. photographs by Mattia Balsamini