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, inviting viewers into what the artist calls “a charged, mythic ecology.” Titled “Dhum Lōkaya (Smoke World),” Perera’s first solo show in the United States runs an ambitious gamut of mediums, while hairlike markings made directly on the wall weave among the disparate works in wispy strands to conjure the vaporous dominion of the title. But it is Perera’s lush, bodily lexicon that really unites and defines the show, imbuing it with an earthy elegance that offsets hints of feral abandon couched within its cryptic feminine narratives. Approaching the female form as a vessel for adaptation, growth and transformation, the work feels at once delicate and visceral, a dichotomy that the artist employs to often potent effect. “Primitive” is the exhibition’s signature work, as well as its most disarming. It depicts a squatting naked woman specked with flies against a washy pink field. Her head is encased by (or transmuted into) a lavish bulblike flower, which extends behind her like a wake. The woman’s face is obscured by a knot of tiny elements sewn onto the flower’s base, including bits of wire and semiprecious stone beads. Its shiny black and green coloration suggests a tactile gathering of flies, an effect at once startling and frankly pretty unnerving. Turning its verdant floral iconography into something far more menacing, the work posits the female body as a site of fecund natural overgrowth but also decay, captive to an untamed nature. Rajni Perera, “Dark Matter,” 2025, acrylic gouache, polymer clay, polyester thread, glass pearls on polyester, 84 x 120”. The large horizontal painting titled “Dark Matter” depicts a woman with a basket on her back, leaning forward in a diving pose against a muddy maroon field, while her rump is transformed into the glaring face of a beast. All around her, a large python-like snake curves through the frame. Only on drawing up close to the painting does one notice that its many orange, diamond-shaped scales are separate elements that have been hand-sewn to the surface, along with numerous milky pearls punctuated by a single sculpted orange rose at the top of the figure’s head at the center of the painting. Adding to these works’ tactile immediacy is the fact that they are painted on thin, translucent polyester, which allows us to see through them to the wall and supporting armature. The effect is subtle but transformative, puncturing the illusory nature of Perera’s scenes. Instead of seeing the paintings as representations on a two-dimensional plane, one also confronts them as hybrids, with textured real-world elements affixed to the surface of delicate membranes. The extra hint of bodily self-awareness they evoke only adds to the works’ corporeal frisson and enhances their destabilizing vision. Rajni Perera, “Artifact 2,” 2025, charcoal on metallic marble mulberry stock, 30 x 20”. Several works on paper lure us deeper into Perera’s elegant miasma, overlaying charcoal drawings of sensual abstract elements variously recalling vulvas, jewels or hairpins projected onto sinuous metallic marble stock. Conflating references to sexuality, decoration and spirituality, they exude totemic stature despite their indeterminacy. A set of three works on blue marbled paper offer studies of her “Swampgirly” sculpture: a segmented, serpentine entity that bobs across the concrete waterline of the gallery floor in scaly humps, finally emerging with the face of a female amphibian. In “Durian” a standing female figure is merged with a spiky durian fruit; in “Be Prepared” a nude woman poses cheerfully with a teapot for a head, as if ready for service. Perhaps the most dramatic hybrid is a sculpture titled “Bittergourd,” made of glazed terra cotta and set outside the gallery. The image posits a hollow female figure striped and stippled like a vegetable, holding up two incense bowls, suggesting a more benign and docile type of fungal transmutation such as might frequent the dystopian HBO series “The Last of Us.” Rajni Perera, “Swampgirly,” 2025, foam with steel armature, coated with a layer of polymer clay paint, an additional layer of wax, and beads, dimensions variable. Melding images or narratives derived from stories from her childhood in Sri Lanka along with others culled from science fiction and her own personal mythology, Perera’s works may well include nuances or motifs that elude the grasp of Western observers, myself included. Yet for all their specificity, the works remain both relatable and compelling in their yearning to discover new models of identity that transcend or subvert proscribed roles and labels imposed on women in contemporary culture — whether Western, Eastern or that vast multicultural cross-current in between. Rajni Perera, “Bittergourd,” 2025, terra cotta, under glaze, incense, 35 x 35 x 40”. A kindred counterpoint might be the Baghdad-born Kurdish-Swedish painter Hayv Kahraman, whose elegantly stylized depictions of women often address issues of women’s roles, gender politics and migrant identity in a highly precise ritualistic language. But unlike Kahraman, Perera displays no deference to polite society. Instead she embraces a ‘running with the wolves’ sensibility that derives a sense of liberation from throwing off the shackles of social decorum and reverting to some primitive, even monstrous state — or perhaps, ironically, evolving into one. And yet despite their liminal, at times abased condition, Perera’s characters always seem to embrace a biological imperative, to adapt, to survive, perhaps even thrive. Like her sinuous snaky mermaid, Perera’s vision is distinguished by its embrace of fluidity, freely blurring the lines between fact and fiction, past and future, civilization and wilderness, comfort and menace (and not least, between animals, vegetation and humanity). Alternately hopeful, rueful and bountiful, her works repeatedly straddle boundaries in unexpected ways. Whether or not you want to make that leap with her, you can’t help but appreciate their fierce, inventive spirit. George Melrod has written hundreds of articles on contemporary art and culture for such publications as ARTnews, Art in America, World Art, American Ceramics, Details, and Vogue, among others. In the 1990s, he was the New York critic for Sculpture magazine, and wrote a regular contemporary art column for Art & Antiques, for whom he worked as a Contributing Editor. A native New Yorker, he moved to LA in 1998, and has since contributed to websites such as artcritical and artillery. From 2007-2017 he served as editor-in-chief of art ltd. magazine.

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 has been making new work. “Music of the World” is a comprehensive show highlighting seven decades of creative productivity. Ono, now 92, was a serious and widely recognized artist before she ever met Lennon, and continued to be one after he died. “Yoko Ono's Secret Piece,” 1953, from typescripts for “Grapefruit.” Courtesy of Yoko Ono via Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The show is roughly chronological and the works are mostly conceptual. Beginning in the 1950s, it foregrounds ideas over objects. The best work combines them. I found myself smiling the whole 90 minutes it took me to traverse the show. I’d forgotten how sweet Ono’s art is, how earnestly instructive. The earlier pieces capture the mood of the 1960s. Seen at the time as provocative, dangerous even, the work feels rather polite now. Then, most people didn’t like Ono. They thought she was abrasive. She was an outsider in America, with a distinct Japanese accent. She threatened people’s sense of gender appropriateness, as an equal, sometimes dominant partner to her famous, adored husband. She made dissonant recordings that sounded ugly and vaguely sexual, and not in a titillating way. She wasn’t a tall silent Barbie doll with smooth hair. She talked too much. And she broke up The Beatles — or so it was widely believed. (More recently music historians have pointed out that she in fact encouraged Lennon to remain with the group). She was regarded strident, but now her work seems more beseeching than scrreching. Still from “Bed Peace” interview video. Newly-weds John Lennon and Yoko Ono kick-off a bed-in for peace on Mar. 25, 1969, in their suite at the Hilton Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Keystone/Hulton Archive—Getty Images. Much of Ono’s work looks remarkably uncontroversial in retrospect, even corny in some cases. She was advocating peace in a time of war, collaboration in a time of polarization. She vaunted the power of imagination to make things better. Some of Ono’s best works are her “Instructions for Paintings,” from her 1964 artist book, “Grapefruit.” Short sentences direct readers to make something, usually in their minds but sometimes in the physical world. “Painting to Shake Hands” tells us to punch a hole in something and thrust an arm through to shake hands with somebody on the other side. What a perfect image. A punctured canvas was set up in the gallery and, when I was there, two noisy fourth-graders on a field trip obliged. Yoko Ono, “Add Colour (Refugee Boat),” 1960/2016. © Yoko Ono. Courtesy of the Tate Modern, London. Photo: Margaret Hawkins. I was struck by how understandable Ono’s work is. Unlike much conceptual art that followed during the early 60s, Ono’s work doesn’t offer — or require — wordy explanations. “The Blue Room Event” (1960) consists of an empty white room with handwritten instructions posted at eye-level telling viewers to imagine that the room is blue, tat it glows in the dark while they sleep, that “This is not here.” And of course some of the work is funny. The “Bed Peace” (1969) video shows Yoko and John being interviewed in bed by a stodgy journalist who declines their invitation to climb in with them. Clearly embarrassed, he congratulates them on proving to the world that they have pubic hair. John and Yoko are kind to the guy, but I felt sorry for him, dressed as he was in his suit. This is a time capsule, totally of the 60s, pitting the cool kids against the (stuffy old white) man. Yoko Ono, “Cut Piece,” 1964, photograph of performance at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, NY, March 21, 1965. © Yoko Ono. Photo by Minoru Niizuma. Much of the work is participatory. The last gallery, which is the most visually stunning, features “Add Colour (Refugee Boat)” (2016). In this piece an empty boat sits in an empty, formerly white room. Viewers are invited to write their hopes and beliefs anywhere, with markers in shades of blue. And they have. Scrawled graffiti covers every reachable surface. The idea — empathy, refugees are just like us! — is clear and beautiful. The most powerful piece in the show, a 1964 video of one of the first performances of “Cut Piece,” is still edgy 60 years later. Ono sits motionless the spotlit onstage as audience members approach and snip off pieces of her clothing. One by one they remove chunks of fabric. Then a young man climbs onstage and begins to cut her slip. The scissors pass close to her skin. He continues, moves to her other side and cuts more, removing her slip, exposing her bra. This seems like more than his share of cutting but after a pause he leans in again, snips her bra straps. The bra falls; she raises her arms and clutches her breasts. Yoko Ono, “Wish Tree for Stockholm,” 1996/2012, installation view. Courtesy of Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2012. © Yoko Ono. Photo: Moderna Museet/Åsa Lund. Though Ono has invited this, it feels like assault. We watch her face; surely that is a flicker of fear we see in her eyes, the twitch in her jaw a flash of anger. Ono has said that the piece is about giving and taking. But mostly it feels like taking, a pointedly feminist statement on being used, exploring the blurry lines between vulnerability, passivity, and complicity. The piece invites the audience to do as they please, and the young man does, illustrating a fact of life for women that couldn’t have been better performed if it had been scripted. Ono’s work is all about vulnerability. She tells us to wish for things, imagine them, create change through belief. But “Cut Piece” enacts the other side of that virtue. This show won’t feel groundbreaking to anyone who has walked into an art museum in the past 50 years. Conceptual art has moved on, and at times Ono’s work is pointedly naïve. But I loved the defiant innocence of this show, its idealism, its humor, its accessibility, its sweetness and, in the case of “Cut Piece,” a little taste of bitterness. Margaret Hawkins  is a writer, critic and educator. Her books include “Lydia’s Party” (2015), “How We Got Barb Back” (2011) a memoir about family mental illness, and others. She wrote a column about art for the Chicago Sun-Times, was Chicago correspondent for ARTnews, and has written for a number of other publications including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Art & Antiques and Fabrik. She teaches writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Loyola University. Visit  Margaret Hawkins’ website.

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 exhibiting them over light boxes. They essentially combine the formats of Jeff Wall, who revolutionized photography by mounting transparencies over light boxes starting in 1978, and Faith Ringgold (1930-2024), who created her first story quilt in 1980. Whereas Wall’s intent was to imbue a photograph with cinematic grandeur, and Ringgold’s aim was in great part to tell stories using a craft technique traditionally associated with women, Gschwandtner’s art effectively achieves both. Whether in color or black-and-white, her film quilts appear jewellike in a darkened gallery space through their sheer luminescence. The stories embedded within each are the tiny frame-by-frame narratives of her source material, archival filmstrips with a feminist bent in that they are usually from movies by and about women. Such content is the focus of “Absinthe, Smoke, Sugar, Choice,” which is centered on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the history of representations of pregnancy in motion pictures. Specifically, the new film quilts are all constructed from archival film footage used in making a time-based “video quilt,” an expanded approach Gschwandtner introduced into her oeuvre in 2017. Playing in a separate gallery space on a continuous loop, Gschwandtner’s video “Absinthe, Smoke, Sugar, Choice” weaves together fragments from two female-directed films depicting pregnancy that the artist found while looking for examples made prior to the 1934 Hays Code, which among other censored subjects banned childbirth and abortion from movies for nearly three decades. Along with these Gschwandtner included sections of a vintage documentary explaining the rules of the code and an interview with her mother, who had an abortion in 1967, six years before it became legal. Linking the different segments together are hand painted text frames with words implanted within diamond-shaped modules that replicate the patterning of the film quilts. Some sections of the appropriated film footage are also presented using the same patterned matrix. Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Absinthe, Smoke, Sugar, Choice,” 2025, video, color, sound, 9 minutes, 9 seconds. The video opens with footage about the Hays Code. This is followed by the first archival film, Marvin Breckinridge’s 1931 documentary, “The Forgotten Frontier,” about the Frontier Nursing Service. The film includes scenes of midwives traveling on horseback to Appalachia and preparing for the delivery, as well as of the new mother holding her newborn. The second film is Alice Guy-Blaché’s 1906 short, “Madame’s Cravings,” which shows a pregnant woman sucking a lollypop, drinking absinthe, and smoking tobacco, while her partner tends to their other child. All of this culminates with her giving birth in public. Using colorful text frames, Gschwandtner then explains that the overturning of Roe v. Wade made her realize that she had taken her bodily autonomy for granted. Next, the artist’s mother candidly reveals the circumstances of her abortion, which she had done in complete secrecy at a cost of $1,000. The film ends with a question about what reproductive agency might look like when the artist, who is in her forties, reaches the age her mother is today. Sabrina Gschwandtner, “The Forgotten Frontier (Kentucky Star),” 2025, 35mm black-and-white polyester film, polyester thread, LEDs, 27 3/8 x 27 1/8 x 3” While the issues that unfold in the video are troubling, especially in light of the current political climate, there is nevertheless a tenor of joy that is expressed through the cinematic aesthetics. For one thing, Gschwandtner is a master of cut up. Additionally, the wall mounted film quilts in the adjacent gallery literally glow with pride over the heritage of the American folk quilt. Viewed from a distance, they also resemble geometric abstractions by high modernists such as Josef Albers (1888-1976) and Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). Each work has been handcrafted with care; the contours and positioning of the filmstrips are slightly jagged, like the patchwork of an actual quilt, and stitching is visible. Additionally, the stories embedded in them, while minuscule in scale, reveal that there is more to the imagery than initially meets the eye. Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Madame’s Cravings: Sweet, Bitter, Smoky,” 2025, 35mm black-and-white polyester film, polyester thread, etching ink, LEDs, 19 x 19 x 3”. For the two film quilts that were sewn together using footage from “The Forgotten Frontier,” Gschwandtner chose the “Kentucky Star” pattern, an eight-pointed star that is based on traditional Native American designs and which became popular in the early 1930s, around the time that the film was made and the Hays Code was soon implemented. In the other quilts, all of which employ filmstrips from “Madame’s Cravings,” the artist employed variations of the “Log Cabin” rhombus-filled pattern, which can be traced to the Civil War era and was a popular staple by 1906, the date of Guy-Blaché’s film. Additionally, Gschwandtner hand-painted several of the filmstrips according to a system of coding, using green for those depicting the protagonist consuming absinthe, and yellow, red, and blue for passages where she is shown with the lollypop. Beyond relating to the content, the addition of color significantly enhances the form. Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Madame’s Cravings (color),” 2025, 35mm black-and-white polyester film, polyester thread, etching ink, LEDs, 45 x 68 1/2”. Taken together, Gschwandtner’s video and wall works maintain a thoughtful conversation about relationships between technology and craft. Ultimately, however, they pay tribute to the strength and endurance of women through the generations, even in times like the current moment, when rights and liberties are once more being restricted. David S. Rubin   is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous  exhibition catalogs , and his curatorial archives are housed in the   Smithsonian Archives of American Art . For more information: www.davidsrubin.com .

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 Japan, where her initial creative forays focused on graphic design and fashion. Having shifted from commercial endeavors to exploring spiritual realms, Yabuki has spent more than two decades blending the visual culture and philosophies that undergird the dualities in her own experiences and creative expressions. In monumental paintings and smaller works in various media, the artist sets a cosmic stage with a cast of mythological characters. With her futuristic humanoids, commanding creatures, and potent natural forces from wind to water, Yabuki invites us to feel the energies within and between them, all interacting to shift our accustomed trajectories of time, space, and existence. Yuko Yabuki, “Alchemy of the Universe,” 2025, acrylic paint on stretched canvas, 50 x 30 x 1.5”. Seventeen of Yabuki’s works created between 2002 and 2025 comprise “Duality,” in which discrete segments are displayed in pairs. “Magician/Creator” and ”Beast/Destroyer” (2019), depict dragons embellished with blocks of gold leaf that signal the central role of this ontology. Ink drawings of dragons titled “Duality” (2019) are all black and white save for a single gold orb positioned near one of the dragon’s talons. These dragons, among other things, are a collision between the dramatic realism of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and the modern-day pop culture phenomenon “Game of Thrones.” Between the flawless draftsmanship and implied narratives, Yabuki’s fantasy world draws us in as the show progresses. Among the strongest works are “Alchemy of Universe” and “Movement of Energy” (both 2025), which are about monumental shifts in the global order and America’s own political landscape as well as the extreme ravages of climate catastrophe from wildfires to flooding. In the former, a small red salamander is positioned atop a tree-shaped form that is rooted in a red pool of fire. It’s all surrounded by a dark sky with columns of descending gold squares that transition into white tears or droplets of rain after passing through a white expanse of water or clouds. In the latter, a blue dragon is curved above the white expanse, and a red dragon is curved below it. Their tails are loosely intertwined to form the number eight, which can represent growth and the expansion of prosperity in Japanese culture. Blue and white diamonds in the upper part of the composition become white rain or teardrops below. With their delicate curved lines and bold colors having different meanings in various cultures, the imagery and its execution inspire us to imagine our own narratives.  Yuko Yabuki, “Duality (Ink Beast),” 2019, ink on paper, 20 x 15 x 1”. Beyond dragons — a mythological creature often associated with wisdom, strength, and protection in Japanese culture, but also commonly aligned with chaos or evil attributes such as greed or lust in Western culture — Yabuki’s cosmos includes an array of creatures that populate land, water, and sky. Octopi, jellyfish, cats, mice, pangolins, birds and other animals each carry their own symbology. It adds up to a meta-narrative of divergent forces working against or in tandem with one another to propel forward universal energies and the collective unconscious. Yabuki renders fantastical humans as well, but here they are presented in smaller scale artworks. In that respect these humanoids actually counter the anthropomorphism common to Western ideologies. “Black Orchid” (2023) depicts a figure embracing a black swan surrounded by seven purple orchids and two green totems of stylized cactus. The image channels Yabuki’s identity as someone rooted in two cultures. Yuko Yabuki, “Magician/Creator,” 2019, mixed media on paper, 53 x 64”. Four of the larger works suggest an evolving cosmos that undergoes an infinite repetition of cycles rather than movement towards a terminal point in time. “World” (2003) is a dark, chaotic scene anchored by a black octopus with glowing yellow eyes surrounded by a miasma of red liquid. Below the octopus, an eye weeps. In one tentacle, the octopus appears to hold a yellow Manji , a common Buddhist symbol associated with peace, harmony, and good fortune, but more familiar to us as the Nazi swastika. The meanings could hardly be more different, but the recent history of the latter corrupts our perception of the former. Sea creatures in “Transition” and “New Beginning” (both 2012) are rendered with lighter colors and a delicate touch. For “Successor” (2025), an enormous eagle in flight holds a snake in its talons — the national symbol of Mexico — though it’s not clear which, if either, will prove triumphant. Yuko Yabuki, “Love Warrior,” 2022, acrylic paint on wood-board, 30 x 24”. Taken together, the paintings of “Duality” prompt reflection on climate crises and shifts in geopolitical power. Yabuki’s animal-based symbolic language includes an array of eyes, stars, teardrops, and a DNA helix covered in thorns. Gold tritons appear on the body of a jellyfish. Elsewhere, the Roman numeral “XV,” or 15, appears. As a whole the exhibition embodies Yabuki’s gradual construction of her own unique visual alchemy. Beyond the intriguing nature of her iconography, there’s another compelling element that recommends this exhibition. The dragon scales, bird feathers, and snake skins are rendered in precise, meticulous detail that conveys a gentle strength and meditative quality. Throughout the exhibition, Yabuki’s disciplined line work is replete with movement that transmits the very energy she assigns to the cosmos and its inhabitants. Although in Yabuki’s universe epic battles that threaten to undo the delicate balance of the cosmos are clearly underway, the artist’s style conveys a sense of optimism about their ultimate outcomes. In “Pangolin Forever” (2023), she paints the profile of a person holding a small anteater. The presence of this animal serves as a symbolic reminder that mass extinctions are not inevitable. In “Love Warrior” (2022), a figure with long red hair is surrounded by blue birds and monarch butterflies atop a unicorn poised to descend a stairway much like a warrior might storm a citadel. One imagines the artist herself assuming that role, using line, form, and color as her weapons of choice. But the presence of weapons and weaponized objects is not meant to advocate for violence and war. Rather, throughout her art, Yabuki works to move our vision of the cosmos towards harmony, balance, justice, and peace. Lynn Trimble  is a Phoenix-based art writer whose work ranges from arts reporting to arts criticism. During a freelance writing career spanning more than two decades, over 1,000 of her articles exploring arts and culture have been published in magazine, newspaper and online formats. Follow her work on Twitter  @ArtMuser  or Instagram  @artmusingsaz .

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 doctor friend of his particularly stands out), is drawn in his inimitable cross-hatched style. Now 82, that celebrated draftsmanship has been developed and honed over the course of a long career. It makes for a disorienting but well-wrought trip. Crumb is his own harshest critic when it comes to evaluating just how paranoid he is — about vaxxing, 5G networks, and yes, the Deep State — and is nearly as comprehensive questioning his own motives and sanity as he is marshaling his fierce anti-authority tendencies towards his many targets. Given that, his anti-vaxxer posture feels almost forgivable. He’s always been a consummate crank. I’m still disappointed, even a little disconcerted, that Crumb has become this particular kind of crank … but then, it certainly helps keeps his comics — his art — as vital as ever. Aline Kiminsky-Crumb, R. Crumb, and Sophie Crumb, “ Crumb Family Covid Exposé,” 2021, ink and correction fluid on paper in ten parts, 16 7/8 x 14” The works here are for the most part original drawings, framed and hung in clusters such that each has the potential to make up a complete comic book. I happened to begin my viewing — which in this case entails a good amount of stand-up reading — mid-exhibit, with the series “The Very Worst LSD Trip I Ever Had” (2023). It’s an immersive recounting of a bad trip he had in Cleveland in 1966 with his first wife, Dana. Their bad trip was overseen by the individuals who gave them what may or may not have actually been LSD. He and Dana, alerted by a blood-curdling scream down the hall, rushed over to witness a young man curled up in the fetal position, “in an abject state of extreme fear …” with one of the drug givers hovering over him. Crumb’s recounting, in which the young man’s experience feeds into thoughts of his own, is a beautiful mixture of fear, empathy, and rage. It’s storytelling at its best. Much of the rest of the show has Crumb grappling with the powers that be (aka, “Authority!”). They run the gamut from “Deep State Woman” to Dr. Anthony Fauci to all the other co-conspirators attempting to poison him with their bogus drugs and even more bogus information. R. Crumb, “The Very Worst LSD I Ever Had,” 2023, ink and correction fluid on paper in eight parts, each 12 x 9”. Amid all this, there’s the light and amusing patter he maintains with his late wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, who was his collaborator on several works on view and served as the voice of reason and refuge to buffer Crumb’s incessant Questioning of Authority. She draws herself into many of Crumb’s sequences in a way that merges their two very disparate styles (hers much looser and more folksy, verging towards ‘Bad Drawing,’ if that old label still applies). One great panel of thought bubbles reads: (him) “The problem is, maybe I Am crazy … crazy people usually don’t know they’re crazy;” (her) “Maybe he’s not crazy ... Just obsessive compulsive and his Aspergers makes him paranoid an’ alienated … But what the hell! I’m no picnic either.” I can’t help but wonder why Crumb remains one of the few comic-book artists to acquire this level of canonization from the art world. His representation by one of the world’s elite galleries, where he’s shown since 2007, accounts for most if not all of it. Indeed, the entire far wall, opposite the entrance, is dedicated exclusively to the show’s title, painted rather luridly in black text on a yellow background. There’s also a state-of-the-art lightbox that allows us to thumb through pages of Crumb’s sketchbooks digitally without having to bother with archival-friendly gloves, or otherwise risk tainting the valuable drawings. “Crumb,” the 1994 Terry Zwigoff documentary, went a long way towards building his reputation as a massive record collector and music aficionado, his fetish for full-figured women, and his childhood in a deeply dysfunctional family environment. But when it comes right down to it, he’s simply the Original and the Best. R. Crumb, “Cover: Tales of Paranoia,” 2025, ink and correction fluid on paper, 14 1/8 x 10”. His black ink drawings (all of which the checklist readily acknowledges include the use of correction fluid), are profoundly strong objects of craft, as well as art, each with its own aura. It’s hard to think of another living artist whose drawings display more hand-drawn mastery. Pair that with Crumb’s seven-decades-long pop-cultural legacy (“Keep on Truckin’”), his vaunted eccentricities, his dandy-ism, and his quirky charisma. It’s simply hard to find another comic artist who’s as robust a candidate for canonization on the art world’s radar, despite his carefully cultivated old-white-cranky-male persona. The late Christopher Hitchens, whom Crumb draws and quotes in the final panel of one series, sums it up best: “My own opinion is enough for me and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass .” To which Crumb adds below Hitchens’ portrait: “I don’t agree with everything this writer ever said but I’m with him on this.” Michael Shaw  is a Los Angeles-based artist and activist. His work was recently included in the exhibition “ Meshuganah ” at A Very Serious Gallery in Chicago, as well as the exhibitions “ Sociality ” at LA Tate gallery in 2023, and It’s My House!  at the Porch Gallery in Ojai, CA, in 2022, and has been exhibited throughout the U.S. He is the recipient of a Culver City Arts grant in 2023, a Puffin Foundation Grant and the Rauschenberg Emergency Grant in 2022, the Center for Cultural Innovation’s Quick Grant in 2021, and the New Student Award at Hunter College, where he received his MFA. Visit Michael Shaw’s website .

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 color monograph, and related educational activities, the exhibition manifests a broad effort to place Yoshida within American art history, Japanese modernism, and the global phenomenon of contemporary printmaking. The museum’s curator of Asian art, Jeannie Kenmotsu, has researched the artist thoroughly and makes a strong case for her significance on a number of levels. There is her pioneering role as a woman artist in a male-dominated art culture; her presence in a dynastic printmaking family that she married into, the Yoshida clan (whose works are included); her ties to international modernism, including European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism; and her achievements elevating complicated printmaking techniques which often overlapped with her abstract paintings in the early 1950s. Later, she confronted Pop Art and Op Art. Examples of all of these facets are included. Yoshida Chizuko, “My World,” 1949, oil on canvas, 25 9/16 x 31 1/2 x 7/8”. It is hard to overstate the challenges and prejudices Yoshida faced as a female artist, especially once she began to be admitted to formerly all-male competitive exhibitions that were made co-educational with the introduction of Japan’s post-war constitution. Prizewinning led to membership invitations in the Pacific Painting Society, an important avant-garde group of painters and printmakers, and the Vermillion Leaf Society of women artists. However, Yoshida had to face continued affronts such as the vandalism of one of her exhibited paintings, “Thaw” (1950). Curator Kenmotsu discreetly suggests that the defacing might have been due to the work’s abstract quality, not just the gender of the artist. As a teenager Yoshida wanted to become a dancer, but health concerns pushed her toward art classes instead. As the earliest works here, “Song of the Sea” (1948) and “Shoreline” (1950), suggest, she was completely comfortable combining representational views of nature with geometric and abstract imagery, a development that placed her at odds with many traditional art groups at the time. Fortunately, her marriage to Yoshida Hodaka in 1953 gained her entry into his elite, wealthy family with in-laws who were artists and innovators in woodblock printmaking. Before that, however, she had committed (in her 1948 diary) to following the “path of the avant-garde.” For the next 60 years she remained committed to this course. Yoshida Chizuko, “Rainy Day, Blue,” 1954, color woodblock print on paper, 9 7/8 x 14 3/4”. In 1957, with her husband and mother-in-law, Fujio, Yoshida’s first trip abroad took her to the University of Oregon, where she was exposed to lithography. “Things I Picked Up in the Desert” dates from their residency in Eugene. Its scribbles and impressions of cactus and long-horned cattle confirm her affinity for the varied American landscape, something she would return to repeatedly over the years. While the earliest, pre-Yoshida clan paintings might appear derivative of European modernists such as Joan Miró and Wassily Kandinsky, this is no less true of work from this time by other continental American artists who, in lieu of traveling, took their cues from esoteric art publications. Nonetheless, “My World” (1949) and “Title unknown (Rainy Day)” (1954) are bold formal constructions with spontaneous, improvisatory marks and striking color combinations. Yoshida was a quick study who left oil painting behind to pursue the woodblock discipline of the family she had married into. Yoshida Chizuko, “Jama Masjid,” 1960, color woodblock print on paper, 18 5/8 x 13 1/2”. After Eugene, the couple, along with Fujio (who acted as translator) continued on a year-long trip around the world, touching all the bases and world capitals still popular with Japanese tourists today: Paris, Rome, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Egypt and India. Many of the artist’s color woodblock prints (some of which combine collagraphs, lithographs, and photo-etchings) recalled the artist’s stays in Seattle, Southwest Arizona, Venice (“Lido—Venice”), Greece (“Mediterranean Sea”) and India, especially vivid abstractions of “Red Fort,” “Jama Masjid” and “Impressions from India” (all 1960). While Yoshida’s most commercially successful artworks involved variations on her butterfly imagery, more challenging works that were daringly subjective such as “My Inner Self No. 2” (1961) and “Red Whirlpool” (1964) strengthen the case for her stature as an artist who crossed the hyper-traditional boundaries of Japanese printmaking. One need only regard her father-in-law Hiroshi’s 1931 print of the Taj Mahal to see the distance she had to travel as an avant-garde artist, as a woman artist in Japan, and as the daughter-in-law within a family of well-known artists. Later works that attempt to emulate Pop Art, Op Art, and Minimalism are less convincing visually but commendable for their valiant efforts at transforming the tightly structured medium in which she chose to work. Areas left uninked, called “blind embossing” or intaglio, do their best to accentuate the basic starting point of Yoshida’s work: the blank page about to enter the press. 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, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on  Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas .

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 critic Kazuo Nakane. The dozen works on paper are straightforward, impressively beautiful in their variations and their implementation of the Sumi-ink technique, which Lau studied in Japan with Nirakushi Toriumi in 1972-74. Before we consider the artworks, though, it is necessary to mention the complicated part: Lau’s overwhelming wraparound of words attached to the otherwise completely independent imagery. Not only is there a book accompanying the exhibit that includes the artist’s poetry, there is a long artist’s statement in the form of a memoir, and an extensive essay by Claire Cuccio. Not content to describe Lau’s techniques — “freehand drips, marks and washes” — Cuccio extrapolates on the artist’s love of jazz and British pop music, his affinity to Chinese calligraphy, his consciousness of the slowly evaporating character of Old Kyoto, and even a detailed lineage linking Lau to an 18th-century Japanese musician, poet, painter, and calligrapher. Such an august pedigree is all very well and good, but it comes across as overkill, or over-determination, on the part of the artist and his mini-biographer to control the narrative and interpretation of his art. (His part-time job at a fruit and vegetable stand is also invoked with a straight face.) Alan Lau, “that day by the sea,” 2004, Sumi ink, watercolor and pastel on rice paper, 53 x 53 3/4”. At 76, Lau is unquestionably an innovator with the Sumi technique. He brings more color, more gestures, more imagery to the tradition. His current work offers an illuminating glimpse into his overall accomplishment. It also raises several issues about the direction and overall character of his encounters with the historic medium. For example, with frequent allusions to the Northwest School and those artists’ affinities to Asian art, Lau has channeled the intimate scale of Mark Tobey’s prints and paintings in his seven tiny diptychs, the ”Shimogamo” series. “Typhoon Waters,” “Mountains I Can’t Quite See,” and “Moist Ground” are mostly darkened scenes of nature that transcend Tobey’s tendency toward abstraction. Lau himself struggles with abstraction to the extent that he retains explicit allusions to nature. “Small Changes,” however, with its blend of pastel, Sumi ink and pencil, veers closer to complete abstraction and is the stronger for it. Less dense and clotted, areas of the composition are allowed to breathe, enlivening the all-over image and lifting it above the mountain tops or forest floors of the others. Alan Lau, “green impression — a walk in the garden,” 2019, Sumi, watercolor and pastel on rice paper, 53 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 2”. Lau’s use of color is another area of advance from traditionally black ink Sumi painting. “ That day by the sea ” (2004) is an early work with plenty of open air that is scattered and spattered with yellow, pink, blue and green dots. Its size — approximately five feet square — allows the artist a physicality of gesture akin to Pollock that is suppressed in the other paintings, most of which date from 2018 or 2019. Among the largest works, also measuring between four and five feet, churning passages better release energies that have characterized the best of Lau’s paintings in the past. “Heaven” (2018) has an ascending composition of fog and plant stems, but may be just as easily regarded as purely abstract. “In the peach orchard” (2001) is highlighted by a vivid distribution of black-and-white spots with pale green, pinks and yellows. Lau shrewdly keeps this and other compositions in motion. The strongest works are “green impression” (2019) and “ living in this city where you can never fine me ” (2018). Each offers varied treatments of black inks joined by wider palettes, although Lau never uses more than three or four colors at a time. “Green Impression” uses green to enrobe black blotches in its center, while the latter is all horizontal slabs of black intermeshing with blue, yellow and gray. Like overlooked Abstract Expressionist Bradley Walker Tomlin, Lau has here employed the rounded-corner rectangle to set up a field of activity that revolves and spins before our eyes. 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, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on  Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas .

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 architecture worldwide. His buildings, many of which are residential, are filled with light and color. He melded the traditional aesthetics of Mexico with modernist principles to create spaces that were about form, structure and the relationship between inside and out. Both Casebere and Dávila are themselves modernists whose formal practices delve into the relationships between planes of color and the spaces created between objects — both real and constructed. Seeing their works presented together under the umbrella of Barragán's architecture makes for a wonderful trio of interrelationships. Jose Dávila, “Fundamental Concern,” 2025, concrete and bolder, 75 9/16 x 47 1/4 x 26 7/8”. Dávila trained as an architect but later turned to sculpture and installation. Using a wide range of materials, he fashions objects that are simultaneously beautiful and uncanny. In the gallery are four recent sculptures that investigate structural equilibrium and restraint. “Joint Effort” (2024) juxtaposes two pale terra-cotta cuboids. One serves as a base for a rounded boulder and the other rests on top of the stone. The entire work is encircled and held together by a white canvas strap and metal ratchet. The work is sturdy, yet precarious. “Fundamental Concern” (2025) is equally playful and solemn. Four light blue concrete rectangles are balanced on top of each other, one placed at ninety degrees to the other three. The top two blocks are perched at an angle that bites down on a small cream-colored rock resembling an outstretched tongue. “Acapulco Chair Stack” (2022) combines a collection of Acapulco chairs that have been stripped of their netting so all that remains are the blue-green frames. These metal lines are intertwined to support three stones that both tumble through and anchor the interior space. James Casebere, “Vestibule,” 2016, framed archival pigment print mount to Dibond paper, 62 x 44 3/8”. On the walls surrounding Dávila's floor-bound sculptures are Casebere's color photographs. Casebere is best known for constructing and then photographing table-top models drawn from architectural and cinematic sources. The photographs here depict sculptural spaces that have been carefully lit to maximize color and shadow. Whether interior or exterior spaces, these constructions are created with exacting detail, though often designed to be viewed from the specific vantage point at which he places the camera. In “The Poetic Dimension” Casebere uses Barragán's architecture as the point of departure. He does not recreate Barragán's spaces verbatim, but rather captures the formal essence of receding corridors and the shapes of light cast across walls and floors to emphasize transcendence. “Vestibule” (2016) is a seemingly impossible space, with irregularly shaped walls that converge toward the back of the image. On the right, a light pink wall intersects with those that are off white, all in stark contrast to a dark floor. A yellow square and rectangle stand out from the white walls as random shapes that appear to be illuminated by a source beyond the picture plane. It feels evocative and welcoming, but at the same time the space is disorienting. James Casebere, “Courtyard with Orange Wall,” 2017, framed archival pigment print mount to Dibond paper, 64 3/8 x 44 3/8”. An internet search reveals an image of Barragán's actual studio that features a spacious room with a couch and table. The emphasis is on warmth, as the room is flooded with yellow light. In Casebere's rendition, “Empty Studio” (2017), the furniture is gone. The ceiling has yellow beams and the floor is made of simple wooden panels that recede toward the back wall. An evocative geometric shape created by light flooding through the window is positioned near the middle of the composition, hugging the back wall and floor. Other photographs depict exteriors: “Courtyard with Orange Wall” and “El Eco Courtyard” (both 2017) reduce Barragán's architecture to geometric shapes and flat planes of color. The blue sky in relation to a yellow column and light brown facade becomes a geometric abstraction, as do the green and orange shapes in “Courtyard with Orange Wall.” While Casebere's and Dávila's works resonate individually, shown together they become a distinctive and thoughtful homage to Barragán. The exhibition creates a conversation not only about how to interpret the built environment, but how it can be used to inspire abstract art. Jody Zellen  is a LA based writer and artist who creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1989. For more information please visit  www.jodyzellen.com .

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 California Art. OCMA, a venerable 63-year-old institution, has consistently collected and shown first-class modern and contemporary art by regional luminaries such as John Altoon, Joan Brown, Chris Burden, Mary Corse, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Irwin, Catherine Opie, Charles Ray, Betye Saar, Ed Ruscha and James Turrell.  The exterior of the Orange County Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of UCI/Yubo Dong. After many years of thwarted plans to construct a large, free-standing museum building, OCMA finally opened its $93 million, 53,000-square-foot museum on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa three years ago. Its future appeared to be bright. Instead, since that opening, OCMA’s path has been fraught with difficulties. Among these problems, 14 museum trustees resigned from its Board in 2024, and were quietly replaced. But there have been no official statements about how this disruption came about. Perhaps as a consequence, OCMA’s board of directors, including prominent businesspeople and philanthropists, has been dismissed, and OCMA director Heidi Zuckerman will leave the museum in December. Its permanent collection is now owned by UC Irvine, and its entire staff are UCI employees. In addition, UCI is assuming all operating costs of the newly merged institution. OCMA, with its long illustrious history , no longer exists. On the other hand, the former Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art is finally gaining a world class museum facility in which to display its extensive and important collection. Monica Sandoval, “Culture All,” photograph. Featured in the OCMA exhibition “Forms of Identity: Women Artists in the 1990s and 2000s,” 2017. Langson IMCA’s story began in 2017 when the extraordinary Gerald E. Buck Collection of 3,300-plus 20th century paintings, sculptures and works on paper was donated to UC Irvine. Soon after, the former Irvine Museum's 1,000-piece collection of prized California Impressionist Paintings was also gifted to UCI.  At that time, Dr. Stephen Barker, formerly dean of UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts, became the steward of the approximately 4,500-piece collection. As UCI did not have its own museum — which had been included in architect William Pereira’s original 1962 UC Irvine campus design — Barker determined that the combined collection would become the genesis of a UCI museum to be called the Institute and Museum of California Art. He also announced that an architect would quickly be chosen to design IMCA's projected 100,000-square-foot structure. The Langson family soon donated a significant amount of money for that proposed building (thus the name change). Later that year, UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman approved the formation of IMCA and its future building. Barker also decided that, along with the new collection, UCI would offer PhDs and master’s degrees in museum studies and art conservation. Barker soon proclaimed that the Buck Collection, with art by Larry Bell, Tony DeLap, Lorser Feitelson, Gilbert Lujan, Helen Lundeberg, Agnes Pelton, Peter Voulkos and many others is, “ The greatest collection of California art that nobody has seen .” Chris Burden, "A Tale of Two Cities," 1981, mixed media installation. In the succeeding eight years, in spite of various proposals to fund the construction of the Langson IMCA building, including placing it on the grounds of UCI’s new medical center on Jamboree Road, those plans never materialized. All the while, Langson IMCA had been, and still is, showing work from its now extraordinary collection, along with borrowed work, in its 6,000 square foot facility in the Irvine Museum’s original Von Karman Avenue location. It will continue to show already planned exhibitions through next year. When the proposed merger of OCMA and Langson IMCA was first announced last June, people in Orange County’s art world reacted with surprise, along with hope. UCI will finally have its museum building, albeit a ten-minute drive from the university campus. OCMA, though essentially dissolved, could solve its personnel issues, while it will continue to show its previously planned exhibitions through next year. And during this transition period, a national search for a new director of the combined museums would be conducted, while Rich Aste, currently interim director of Langson IMCA, will lead the new entity. As the OCMA building — which will soon get new signage announcing that it is the “UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art” — is situated more than five miles from UCI, the university is planning to have direct, free bus lines between the two institutions for students and faculty. The new entity, which now owns more than 9,000 works of art, will also continue to offer free admission, a policy implemented following OCMA’s 2022 grand opening. Stephen Barker, formerly Executive Director, IMCA, at Gerald Buck Laguna Beach gallery, on-site storage, November 2017. Photo: Mark Chamberlain. Kevin Appel, Professor and Chair of the Department of Art as well as the Associate Director of the merged venue, has been working with Langson IMCA since its 2017 founding. His role, along with that of colleague Bridget Cooks, has centered on building bridges between the museum and the UCI Department of Art, connecting students, faculty and exhibition programs. “We have helped shape the museum’s overall direction and long-term vision,” he explains. Appel adds, “The merger feels like a long-awaited convergence — the moment when the collections, a new location, and the university’s creative energy came into alignment. The Gerald Buck Collection, which has lived mostly in storage for years, will have a visible public life. This is something we’ve all wanted: for these works to circulate, to breathe, and to be seen." The merger will also enable the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art to function as a laboratory for students and faculty, and as a place to engage directly with the art objects, the curatorial process, and the deeper meanings of the collections. “The merger,” says Appel, “represents a kind of collective renewal, of two institutions with long histories, joining to create something that’s both intellectually rigorous and publicly accessible. It’s an opportunity to think expansively about what a museum in Orange County can be: rooted in research, but open to the world.” Liz Goldner  is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009.  Liz Goldner’s Website .

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 adding a signature. In doing so he complicated Duchamp’s invention of conceptual art. Tamara Johnson, also a curator and educator, updates and improves upon this process. In an artistic practice that deals with mimesis, Johnson has managed to expand her sculptural approach by reflecting on personal experiences, emotions, desires, and memories. Her work is equally a critique of the apparatus of mass production and its related economics of consumption and a demystification of the middle-class American nuclear family.  Tamara Johnson, “Sample Board (Ice Cream: Blue, Green, Yellow and Red).” “Fruit Cocktail” is Johnson’s version of the canned fruit medley that was so popular several decades ago. She remembers it from her childhood as perhaps something that, once opened, meant the party was about to start. Such ironic humor permeates the piece. It was cast in pewter, and a copper sheet wraps around it like a label that’s been applied in oil paint. This label, far from pristine, is made to look like it’s torn and peeling, and the elements of the image are otherwise distorted. Rather than simply replicating the can, Johnson engages with history and memory. She channels desire by depicting sexually anthropomorphic elements among the fruit.    In a tribute to memories of her father, who was a master tiler, “Sample Board (Ice Cream: Blue, Green, Yellow and Red)” recreates something related to his work. He had various color samples of grout that in Johnson’s hands become a cement sculpture with four rows of tufts painted in varied color gradations. They look like delicious scoops of ice cream, as the title confirms, mounted on a board. The pieces are laid out on a grid, while the color scheme addresses the rigidity of color wheel theory with a free-flowing sensibility. Tamara Johnson, “Goldfish Crackers.” Other pieces that channel a culinary fetish are a medley of dozens of “Goldfish Crackers” spread across the gallery floor. A single cast gold example occupies a wall all its own. They are all the same size and shape of the popular cheese-flavored cracker known for the slogan “The Snack That Smiles Back!” In Johnson’s hands the crackers’ zeal and use value has been exchanged for an exhibition value unsympathetic to their normal role as consumable commodities. Tamara Johnson, “Chair with Napkin and Cake.” “Chair with Napkin and Cake” is the show’s capstone piece. Composed of three distinct bronze castings, it depicts a white lawn chair, with napkins and a Hostess cupcake placed on the seat. Details about the handling of the paint and specific aspects of the chair itself reveal that it’s an unfaithful copy meant to appear hand-made, as opposed to pristinely manufactured. It alludes to a suburban American idyll made ambiguous by Johnson’s ensemble. It becomes a lost nostalgic time that is here completely demystified. Many of us grew up eating those cupcakes, but the artist argues that they were never as good as our memory now colors them. John Zotos  is an art critic and essayist based in Dallas.

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 accompanied the press release. Neither title nor poem is necessary to appreciate the art. Long known as a painter of landscapes who delves deeply into ecological perils, Brophy’s new work is his most alarming yet, as well as his most beautiful. Each painting has a single word at its base, like a page from an old-fashioned explanatory text book. Half of them are quite large (up to 114 by 132 inches) and half are very small (18 by 22 inches), and all contain a mixture of imagery that illustrates impending ecological disasters of one sort or another. Their collective impact is emotionally powerful, yet strangely attractive. “Odious and unspeakable” content is expressed in beautiful painterly brushstrokes and often quick sketchy passages. Michael Brophy, “Infandous: Boundary,” 2025, oil on canvas, 78 x 84”. Art that is so topical and engaged with current social issues runs the risk of becoming dated once the momentary crisis passes. With Brophy, the crisis of the endangered environment not only has not passed, it has increased to alarming dimensions. Another Portland artist, Mark Rothko, called for an art that was “tragic and timeless.” Indeed, Brophy’s depictions of, for example, the aftermath of timber clear-cutting, decayed virgin forests, industrial wastelands, and, this time around, the renewed threat of nuclear proliferation, have become both tragic and timeless in the face of a very real crisis. They constitute a powerful vision of both social and political circumstances, as well as of the perils facing the natural world. Michael Brophy, “Infandous: I,” 2025, oil on canvas, 114 x 132”. To that end, in his large paintings Brophy captures multiple time elements of ongoing disasters by sectioning each painting vertically. At the side of one painting, “Infandous: Boundary” (all paintings are 2025), a verdant forest appears. At the other side, frantic monochrome sketches of flattened wooded areas with meandering rivers and darkened sky seem to have been drawn in under the duress of further cataclysm: there isn’t time to paint in a full picture. A thick tree trunk divides the two sides, acting as both dividing line and bulwark. The effect here, as in several other paintings, is both chilling and exhilarating. Brophy has managed to compress his signs of danger into compositions that allow us plenty of breathing space to take in the whole scenario. With their frequently divided vertical panels, other “Infandous” paintings (“I,” “II,” “Struck,” and “Fire”) chronicle a wide range of manmade problems, each recording a given setback or impending chaos while providing a grandeur of both scale and alarm. Their effect alludes to a long history of ambitious American landscape painting that embraced the “manifest destiny” of privileged settlement and exploitation that set in motion the whole process of unraveling and decay over 150 years ago. Michael Brophy, “Infandous: Hymn,” 2025, oil on canvas, 18 x 22”. For an artist so prolific over a lengthy career, Brophy has been a slippery topic for curators and critics. For example, his 2005 Tacoma Art Museum retrospective focused on what was titled the “Romantic Vision of Michael Brophy.” Twenty years later, Brophy has retained the vocabulary of the sublime associated with Romantic painting and poetry, but has turned it horrific by introducing nuclear bombs at a time when nuclear proliferation has become a more troubling issue than ever. Certain paintings, like “Infandous II,” “Infandous: Hymn,” and “Infandous: Strive,” have tiny mushroom clouds at their top or, in the latter, at its center. Michael Brophy, “Infandous: Strive,” 2025, oil on canvas, 15 x 16”. In this sense, two other aspects of the 65-year-old Portland native emerge. First there is the prophetic feeling of apocalypse throughout the new work. Though they may be small, the mushroom clouds’ positioning at the top of each picture epitomizes the subtlety with which the artist often conveys his warnings. The second quality that makes his frightening images bearable is their lush, painterly execution and relatively restrained treatment of content. We do not immediately apprehend the undertow of ruin, but spending time with each work reveals the powerful presence of that undertow. “Infandous: Mute,” with its faltering, shredded American flag, operates symbolically with well-determined visual coding to make its point. 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, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on  Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas .

by David S. Rubin Matthew Marks Gallery , Los Angeles, California Continuing through November 8, 2025 Luis Jiménez, “American Dream,” 1966, cast fiberglass and automotive paint with epoxy coating, 20 x 29 x 35”. All images courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles. Luis Jiménez (1940-2006) may be best known as the only Mexican American artist associated with New York Pop art in the 1960s, or maybe for the many controversies surrounding his public art later on. But this survey reveals what Jiménez really should be best remembered for: his role as a political satirist and a champion of the Latinx working class. In his early sculptures and drawings the El Paso Chicano was already making pointed commentary on American culture. In later works, he celebrated the gritty, energetic atmosphere of border life. The son of an illegal immigrant who was a neon sign maker, Jiménez learned as a child to work with industrial materials such as fiberglass. During his teenage years, he also spray-painted hot rods. As a young artist he took advantage of his skills and turned to casting fiberglass sculptures. He painted them in several colors of automobile paint and often coated it all with epoxy. Although produced during the same time that the SoCal Finish Fetish artists were using similar materials to create monochromatic, minimal forms that affect one’s perception of physical space, Jiménez’s polychromatic works instead emphasize narrative and are sexually suggestive. Luis Jiménez, “Tank – Spirit of Chicago,” 1968, cast fiberglass and automotive paint, 18 ½ x 35 7/8 x 30”. In “American Dream” (1966) and “California Chick” (1968), which were created during the height of the sexual revolution, voluptuous nude females are shown fornicating with a Volkswagen and a unicycle. While the eroticism of these works could be considered a metaphor for the thrill of drag racing or speeding along open highways, the imagery more importantly serves as a biting response to consumer and media culture and the straight White male’s American dream of making it with buxom sex goddesses adorned in lipstick and heavy eye-shadow. These “biker chicks” parallel the sexualized women of Tom Wesselmann’s Pop paintings, while the slightly angular geometry of their faces is influenced by iconic Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Luis Jiménez, “Rodeo Queen,” 1972, cast fiberglass and automotive paint with nylon hair, 48 x 45 x 23”. Jiménez created two of his most overtly political works in 1968, at the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement. A direct response to the televised police attacks on protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, “Tank-Spirit of Chicago” depicts the splayed bodies of people of color wrapped around a tanker truck that has flattened them. For “The Bomb”, he merged the bulbous blonde hair and breasts of one of his characteristic temptresses with the billowing clouds of an atomic explosion. In the 1970s, Jiménez turned to the subject of the rodeo. In keeping with the tenor of his earlier work, the excitement of horsemanship is represented as orgasmic. The woman riding a rocking horse decorated with a rainbow in “Rodeo Queen” (1972), a dark-haired Latina, straddles the saddle alluringly while staring at its distinctively phallic horn. A slightly different tone, yet no less ecstatic, is seen in “Vaquero” (1978), where a Mexican cowboy commandeering a bucking bronco raises his right arm in a gesture of triumph. Jiménez once noted  proudly that it was “Mexicans (who) developed just the whole notion of being cowboys.” Robust energy is also on display in Jiménez’s portrayals of honky-tonk and fiesta dancers from the 1980s, as well as in his studies for his last public sculpture “Mustang”, a representation of a wild horse with piercing red eyes and posed in an excited rearing position. In “Honky Tonk (diptych)” (1981), a life-size, freestanding sculpture made by mounting oil pastel drawings on board, a man and woman engaged in a lively barroom dance are presented as in a stop-motion freeze-frame, their bodies animated by the gestural drawing that describes them. Similarly, vigorous drawing and brushwork, combined with bold color, suggests a sexual tension between the partners performing the traditional Mexican hat dance in “Fiesta Dancers (Jarabe)” (1989), a large-scale drawing that was one of many studies for another public artwork. Luis Jiménez, “Honky Tonk (diptych),” 1981, oil pastel on paper mounted to board, left figure: 77 x 40 x 3 inches; right figure: 76 ¾ x 48 x 3”. The two lithographic studies for “Mustang” (1993, 1997) are equally bold and expressive, yet they feel particularly ominous in light of the fact that in 2006, while Jiménez was working on his “Blue Mustang” commission for the Denver International Airport , a section of the sculpture fell on him, fatally severing an artery. Completed by his sons and studio assistants, the 32 foot-tall sculpture remains controversial due to its unnatural color, scale and ferocity. Some have perceived it as demonic. Nevertheless, the imagery seems an appropriate monument to the artist himself, who remained fearless and steadfast in his vision of the Latinx community as strong, proud, exuberant, and defiant, qualities more necessary than ever in our current political climate. David S. Rubin  is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous  exhibition catalogs , and his curatorial archives are housed in the   Smithsonian Archives of American Art .  For more information: www.davidsrubin.com .