Art Talk

Three Pacific Standard Time Exhibits at LACMA

Hunter Drohojowska-Philp reviews three exhibits currently on view at LACMA as part of Pacific Standard Time.

Be Warned: This Art Makes You Want to Throw Up

Powerful works of art inevitably inspire and surprise. They stir up emotions and, on occasion, even make you indignant and uncomfortable. But to make you want to throw up...?

Do Museums Love Themselves More Than They Love Art?

One of the most despicable things that can happen to a great work art, beyond destruction caused by some terrible calamity, is to be willfully cut in pieces for the greedy purpose...

Twelve Angry Heads

In the last decade, the name of Chinese sculptor Ai Weiwei has become known not only to the art connoisseurs but to a wide public as well...

When Showing Off Is the Name of the [Art] Game

For the last couple of months, friends and colleagues returning from New York kept raving about one particular exhibition, the one at the Metropolitan Museum...

The Road to Art Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions

You've probably seen photos of aspiring actors standing on streets in endless lines, waiting for a chance to audition for a role, no matter how small...

The Majesty of Lucian Freud

Art Around the Clock, Carmageddon Be Damned

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Art has unique power to inspire, to heal and, sometimes, even to triumph over such daunting obstacles as Carmageddon...

Music to Your Eyes

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to a young lady I've been in love with for as long as I remember myself. Not only is she charming and pretty, but...

With Art, There's No Rest for the Wicked

When Russians try to talk sense into an impatient, restless person, they say, "For heaven's sakes, slow down! It seems like you are sitting on a nail!"...

It Takes Chutzpah to Compete with Great Artists of the Past

Compared to the US, everything in Europe seems so close. It took me less than an hour to get from Antwerp to Amsterdam by speed train...

Traveling for Art and Eating Well

Summer is upon us, and many of you are probably traveling. Like everyone else, planning a trip, I ask my smart, artsy friends for advice: what to see and what to eat....

Visiting the Belgium Trifecta of Bruges, Ghent and Mechelen

Trust me, it's not Lady Godiva chocolate or the amazing variety of beers that made me go to Belgium twice in the last five months. In January, I was invited to Brussels...

In a Dark Room. Intoxicated.

My recent trip to Europe ended up in Barcelona... About fifty art dealers from around the world gathered there for Loop, an annual video art fair....

Deathly Fascinating

When I went to the Whitney Museum in December, I had no idea who Paul Thek was...

In Belgium. High on Art.

It's 6 o'clock. I am waiting for a plane and staring in disbelief at the bold, colorful posters of Kandinsky, Sam Francis and Howard Hodgkin — of all places — on the walls of MacDonald's...

The Best and the Worst: The Choice Is Yours

My last program with a reference to the art of super-famous Jeff Koons as "Shiny, Bubbly and Boring..." hit a nerve with listeners. I got quite a lot of responses to this program and you might want to read them on KCRW's website. Here are a few of my favorites...

Shiny, Bubbly and Boring…It Must Be Jeff Koons

Being the student of contemporary art, it’s not difficult to notice the relatively short time in which the rich and famous buy and then put these toys back on the market…

Luxury vs. Squalor: The Choice Is Yours

The story starts in the beautifully appointed room, where a lady of leisure is rolling up her stockings and tying them, just above the knees, with a pink ribbon...

Art! Behaving!! Badly!!!

Last week, in the industrial heart of Downtown L.A., thousands of people were confronted with art and artists behaving badly. Big time. Graffiti and litter...

The Art of Twisting and Turning Reality as We Know It

Strolling through the gardens of the Huntington Library makes me feel as if I am walking through the elaborate set design of a Shakespeare play..

Brutal and Delicate: Artists Throw Punches

Looking at the schedule of art exhibitions here and abroad, one is tempted to say that all roads today lead not to Rome but to David Smith (1906-1965)...

It Sure Isn't Pretty, but Boy Is It Beautiful

If you had a chance to see paintings by Henry Taylor a couple of years ago at the Santa Monica Museum of Art...you definitely would remember the overwhelming impact of the gritty street scenes with their downtown denizens, captured by him so colorfully, so mercilessly but, ultimately, so lovingly on his large canvases...

These Saints and Rascals Look Familiar

The forecast for last weekend was rather grim, so I was crossing my fingers and praying that the group of art aficionados I was scheduled to lead on an art tour in downtown L.A. would not be caught in a storm. Somehow, my prayers were heard...

Impossible, Implausible Story of 'The Desert of Forbidden Art'

This is a story that is almost too good to be true. The story of a young artist who dedicated and virtually sacrificed his life to save the art of hundreds of other artists he admired...

Getty's Turner Is Another Jewel in LA's Crown

Last summer, when the Getty placed the highest bid — $45 million — at London auction, for the rare and beautiful landscape by J.M.W. Turner, many skeptics, including myself, were understandably pessimistic about the chance that this great painting would ever be allowed to leave the shores of England...

Hollywood: Art and Oscars

I wonder if the less than stellar results of the last Oscars, with its low voltage and sagging viewership, will make the Hollywood weasels — clearly in need of help and inspiration — turn to the world of Art...

Great Art Inspired by Homer and Cartoons

However strange it might sound, there is something in common between visiting a particularly good art exhibition and going to that special restaurant for a great dinner with friends. In both cases, the moment you enter the premises, you are charmed and slightly seduced.

Be Warned: You Can't Operate a Vehicle After Watching This Video

Generally speaking, I do not have an addictive personality. Anyway, I’m not a smoker or heavy drinker. But when I feel like getting high, I head to the nearest museum or gallery, or at least grab an art book off of a coffee table.

Welcome to a Big, Small, Strange World of Art

It's not that often that one can find art related news on the front page of American newspapers, except when a big time scandal rattles the status quo . In 1990, the director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati was put on so-called "obscenity" trial for exhibiting provocative photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Now, Mapplethorpe's name is once again front-page news, but this time it marks a happy occasion...