top of page
All posts


“Black Clay”
by Matthew Kangas Arte Noir Gallery , Seattle, Washington Continuing through February 22, 2026 Sasa Aakil, “Joy is a Revolution,” fired and unglazed terra cotta, various dimensions. All images courtesy of Arte Noir Gallery and the artist. The twenty-five artists in the “Black Clay” ceramics invitational hail from Washington, Texas, District of Columbia, California, Illinois, Tennessee and elsewhere, but trace their heritages to Nigeria, Ghana, the Philippines, and other land

Democracy Chain
4 hours ago4 min read


Emigdio Vasquez, “Retrospective 50”
by Liz Goldner Hilbert Museum of California Art , Orange, California Continuing through May 30, 2026 Emigdio Vasquez, “John the Prophet,” 1985, oil on canvas 24 x 36”. All images courtesy of the Hilbert Museum of California Art, Orange, CA. This largest ever retrospective of 50 paintings by Emigdio Vasquez (1939-2024) is long past due. The Orange County artist’s works from 1967 to 2007 include compassionate portraits of OC barrio residents and their neighborhoods. These day l

Democracy Chain
5 hours ago4 min read


Robert Therrien, “This is a Story”
by David S. Rubin The Broad , Los Angeles, California Continuing through April 5, 2026 Robert Therrien, “This Is a Story,” installation view showing late 1970s/early 1980s keystone and coffin-shaped sculptures. Courtesy of The Broad Foundation, Los Angeles. All photos: David S. Rubin. Although the early paintings and sculptures by Robert Therrien (1947-2019) are simple and elemental in form and have at times been associated with Minimalism, this forty-year retrospective revea

Democracy Chain
5 hours ago5 min read


SURVEY: Antony Gormley
by John Zotos Nasher Sculpture Center , Dallas Continuing through January 4, 2026 Antony Gormley, “Quantum Cloud XX (tornado),” 2000, stainless steel, 91 3/4 x 58 5/8 x 47 1/4”. All images courtesy of Antony Gormley and the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. Photos: Kevin Todora. Over the last forty-five years British sculptor Antony Gormley (b. 1950) has remained a consistently major figure on an international level. His work centers on a critical investigation of bodies in sp

Democracy Chain
Dec 24, 20253 min read


Julie Himel, “Awe Struck”
by Matthew Kangas Foster/White Gallery , Seattle, Washington Continuing through December 20, 2025 Julie Himel, “Glitch,” 2025, oil on board, 12 x 12”. All images courtesy of the artist and Foster/White Gallery. Canadian artist Julie Himel presents four paintings measuring at around 4 feet in tandem with nine small oil and mixed-media paintings in her current show, “Awe Struck.” The works obliquely tackle the current issues of climate change, but from the safe, time-honored Ca

Democracy Chain
Dec 24, 20253 min read


The Virtue of Instability
by Bill Lasarow December 24, 2025 Doris Salcedo, “Installation at 8th International Istanbul Biennial,” 2003, 1,550 wooden chairs. Courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York. The Art World is by its very nature unstable, and in that lies much of its value and strength. It thrives on its dual handmaidens, individuality and freedom. If creative originality is a simple ideal, novelty and eccentricity mark its charming failure. It is not consistent with democratic governance, whic

Democracy Chain
Dec 24, 20256 min read


Mae Al-Jiboori, "Settling In"
by Matthew Kangas Blackfish Gallery , Portland, Oregon Continuing through December 27, 2025 Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays

Democracy Chain
Dec 13, 20254 min read


"The Space Between: First Light, Last Light”
by Liz Goldner GW Contemporary , Laguna Beach, California Continuing through January 4, 2026 Salomón Huerta, “Night Pool,” 2025, oil on canvas, 54 x 36 x 1 1/2”. All images courtesy of GW Contemporary, Laguna Beach. Genevieve Williams, owner/curator of this five-month-old gallery, is enchanted by art that reveals abstract aspects of our atmosphere. As curator at the Laguna Beach based Honarkar Art Foundation (now closed), she mounted “Luminaries of Light,” displaying several

Democracy Chain
Dec 13, 20253 min read


Ken Gonzales-Day, History’s ”Nevermade” (USC) and “Afterlife” (Luis De Jesus)
by Jody Zellen USC Fisher Museum , Los Angeles Continuing through March 14, 2026 Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles California Continuing through December 20, 2025 Ken Gonzales-Day, “Ramonacita at the Cantina” from the “Bone-Grass Boy : The Secret Banks of the Conejos River ” series, 1996, C-print, 22 1/2 x 34 1/4”. All images courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Ken Gonzales-Day's mid-career survey “History’s “Nevermade"” moves us through three decades of work. Whi

Democracy Chain
Dec 13, 20255 min read


Yoko Ono, “Music of the Mind”
by Margaret Hawkins MCA Chicago , Chicago, Illinois Continuing through February 22, 2026 Clay Perry, “Yoko Ono with Half-a-Room,” 1967. All images courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono Yoko Ono is one of those artists whose persona overshadows her artwork, which never quite reemerged publicly in the U.S. after the 1980 murder of her husband, John Lennon. But all along she ha

Democracy Chain
Nov 24, 20255 min read


Rajni Perera, “Dhum Lōkaya (Smoke World)”
by George Melrod Rajiv Menon Contemporary , Los Angeles Continuing through December 13, 2025 Rajni Perera, “Primitive,” 2025, acrylic gouacher, aluminum, glass and semiprecious stone beads, mother of pearl beads, and charcoal on polyester, 60 x 84”. All images courtesy of Rajiv Menon Contemporary, Los Angeles. Born in Sri Lanka and based in Toronto, Rajni Perera draws from traditional and contemporary influences to create her own strikingly immersive personal mythology, invit

Democracy Chain
Nov 24, 20255 min read


Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Absinthe, Smoke, Sugar, Choice”
by David S. Rubin Shoshana Wayne Gallery , Los Angeles Continuing through January 10, 2026 Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Absinthe, Smoke, Sugar, Choice,” installation view. All images courtesy of Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Since 2009, when Sabrina Gschwandtner acquired a collection of archival film footage that had been deaccessioned from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, she has been making geometrically patterned “film quilts” by sewing together filmstrips and exhi

Democracy Chain
Nov 24, 20254 min read


R. Crumb, “Tales of Paranoia”
by Michael Shaw David Zwirner Gallery , Los Angeles, California Continuing through January 10, 2026 R. Crumb, “Rabbit … Is My Dome Too Dominant?” 2019, gouache ink, and graphite on paper, 7 x 9 1/2”. All images courtesy of David Zwirner, Los Angeles. Spoiler alert: R.Crumb is an anti-vaxxer. And a conspiracy theorist. But Crumb’s probing, self-critical dive into why he’s gone down this path, including some very specific re-creations of conversations he’s had (one with a docto

Democracy Chain
Nov 19, 20254 min read


Yoshida Chizuko, Retrospective
by Matthew Kangas Portland Art Museum , Portland, Oregon Continuing through January 4, 2026 Yoshida Chizuko, “Shoreline,” 1950, oil on canvas, 31 3/16 x 25 9/16 x 1 1/16”. All images courtesy of the Portland Art Museum and the Estate of Yoshida Chizuko. This retrospective of Japanese painter and printmaker Yoshida Chizuko (1924-2017) coincides with the museum’s acquisition of 80 works by the postwar artist. Accompanied by an international symposium in October, a full-length c

Democracy Chain
Nov 19, 20254 min read


Yuko Yabuki, “Duality”
by Lynn Trimble Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum , Mesa, Arizona Continuing through January 4, 2026 Yuko Yabuki, “Beast,” 2019, mixed media on paper, 62 x 52”. All images courtesy of Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum. Imagine a cosmos swirling in dualities, where the interplay of opposing forces creates a constant state of personal, ecological, and metaphysical balance. That’s the expansive, ever-changing reality presented by Yuko Yabuki, an Arizona-based artist born and raised in J

Democracy Chain
Nov 19, 20255 min read


Alan Lau, “Walk Along the Kamogawa”
by Matthew Kangas ArtXContemporary , Seattle, Washington Continuing through November 15, 2025 Alan Lau, “in the peach orchard,” 2001, Sumi ink, watercolor and pastel on rice paper, 53 3/4 x 54”. All images courtesy of ArtXContemporary, Seattle. Alan Lau’s current exhibit is both straightforward and complicated. His variously scaled Sumi paintings are based on reminiscences of and experiences in Kyoto, where he spends part of each year in the family home of his wife, art criti

Democracy Chain
Nov 19, 20254 min read


James Casebere and Jose Dávila, “The Poetic Dimension”
by Jody Zellen Sean Kelly , Los Angeles, California Continuing through November 1, 2025 Jose Dávila, “Joint Effort,” 2024, concrete, boulder, and ratchet strap, 92 13/16 x 26 1/2 x 22 5/8”. All images courtesy of Sean Kelly, Los Angeles. “The Poetic Dimension” pairs photographer James Casebere with sculptor Jose Dávila, linking them together because of their shared interests in Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán. Barragán (1902-1988) was a revered figure in architectur

Democracy Chain
Nov 19, 20254 min read


OCMA's Demise is UCI’s Gain Through a Major Merger
by Liz Goldner Richard Jackson, ''The Laundry Room (Death of Marat)'' (detail), 2009, acrylic, metal, wood, linoleum, aqua resin, plastic, fabric, computer, washing machine, 47 1/4 x 224 3/8 x 224 3/8''. Photo: Stephan Altenberger Photography, Zurich. Two remarkable collections of 20th century California art are now joined together, thanks to the merger in September of the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and UC Irvine’s Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of Calif

Democracy Chain
Nov 19, 20255 min read


Tamara Johnson, “Get Me, Don’t Get Me”
by John Zotos Keijsers Koning Gallery , Dallas, Texas Continuing through October 18, 2025 Tamara Johnson, “Fruit Cocktail.” All images courtesy of the artist. In 1960 Jasper Johns’ now famous and groundbreaking cast sculpture of two Ballantine Ale cans, “Painted Bronze” (1960), was hand-painted to resemble the original objects. Johns modified this homage to Duchamp’s readymade precedent by fabricating his own sculpture rather than merely finding a mass-produced object and add

Democracy Chain
Oct 21, 20253 min read


Michael Brophy, “Infandous”
by Matthew Kangas Russo Lee Gallery , Portland, Oregon Continuing through November 1, 2025 Michael Brophy, “Infandous: Mute,” 2025, oil on canvas, 54 x 60”. All images courtesy of Russo Lee Gallery, Portland. The exhibit title, “Infandous,” is an Old English word that means “too odious to be expressed" or "unspeakable; nefarious,” which Michael Brophy happened on to describe the overall imagery of his current exhibition. He also wrote a 26-word, haiku-like poem that accompani

Democracy Chain
Oct 21, 20254 min read
bottom of page
