PicoBlog

A big part of the reason I left Austin was, ultimately, access to art. We had two great museums there, but there’s no denying LA is a hub of art in a way that almost blows my mind. I feel a little drunk on it, as if the world is hallucinogenic, art and music and books everywhere I turn. I realized I haven’t done enough sharing of that, so I wanted to send out a list of the art I’ve been running into lately.

Let’s goooooo!

When an artist gets as big as Barbara Kruger, you are always waiting for a let-down. Often, when an artist gets big, the work dilutes — they are everywhere, and their shows start to feel a little ho-hum, or maybe a bit divorced from the initial fire that drove their fame in the first place.

So I was not expecting the LACMA show to blow me away. But I was really wrong.

The exhibit ranged from static wall work to dynamic videos that re-contextualized Kruger’s most infamous pieces into the current political conversation.

A perfect example: Her infamous “Your Body Is A Battleground" silkscreen, created when Roe v. Wade was under attack in 1989, took on new life as a video projection that morphed language and meaning before your eyes.

This room offered all of Kruger’s works updated as video, with texts that changed to update the meaning of the art. The videos changed one by one, in quick succession, an impactful way to keep the attention of the viewer and give each piece a moment to breathe.

But my favorite room was the most saturated. A blood red floor covered in Kruger’s iconic white text was paired with work by Kruger that I’d never seen before that was visceral and tied to the body in a way that was evocative and elevated, an evolution of the form she created.

What set this room apart, beyond the vivid colors, was the size of the text. By shrinking the lines and pairing them with close-up photos of organs, Kruger forces you to come closer, to go beyond your own squeamishness to find the meaning.

In both of these pieces specifically, Kruger is requiring us to take a closer look at both our hearts and our brains in order to engage with her work — it was an elevated moment that I found as moving as it was repulsive. So obviously, it was my favorite.

Mika Rottenberg’s self-titled show at Hauser & Wirth runs the gamut from smaller wood-framed pieces to video work to contraptions the viewer must operate with their hands and feet.

Her contraptions all leverage common objects to create a vibe and an energy: ponytails, fingernails, plants, coffee cups and wooden planks all collide into work that is meant to “explore ideas of labor and and the production of value in our contemporary hyper-capitalist world.”

Not to be all Jerry Saltz about it, but I couldn’t help but think: Oh, the MOMA of it all!

I struggle with some contemporary art — often, the artist’s statement and the work before me feel worlds apart, and often seem to assign a weight of meaning to the art which might not actually be there.

And Rottenberg toes that line. Is peddling half of a bicycle to make a ponytail bob up and down while a bamboo plant twirls around and a plastic finger points back at you really a deep commentary of capitalism? Maybe. I’m not entirely sold.

But! There were a few pieces of the show that added enough levity to make me think Rottenberg was winking at me, like maybe she was in on the joke.

Some of the walls of the gallery were set up like raided dollar store shelves, with random bits of flowers and garland and inflatable devices hung up, as if everyone had gotten there before me and taken most of the good stuff. I don’t know why I found these parts compelling — ostensibly, they were not meant to be the focus, but something about the juxtaposition of the playful and the menacing on store shelves worked for me.

Another favorite in the show was a garlanded doorway you had to walk through, which felt like finally getting a moment to feel an entire Party City against your skin. I couldn’t help it — it was too much fun and too glittery to hate.

The real big winner here for Rottenberg was “NoNoseKnows,” a video installation juxtaposing the working and living conditions of women who produce pearls in China with a white woman working an administrative office role in America. Watching the women open shells and remove pearls then sort them by size and worth serves as a much more evocative examination of her artist statement — Rottenberg is at her best when she is directly looking at the source, engaging first-hand with hyper-capitalism, and drawing parallels across cultures, rather than in the small machines.

I hate music festivals, but I moved to Los Angeles and went to This Ain’t No Picnic and had the time of my life. My friend Alana Levinson took me to the first day, and I was hooked so I went back for the second day. I thought my festival days were long over, but it turns out as long as I have guest passes, I can do anything. God, I’m disgusting, I’m sorry, I hate myself, but also I am OLD. I refuse to disclose my age other than it is in the range of 35-40, so you have to understand my festival days have long since been done. HOWEVER — with the right tickets and the right vibe, you really can teach an old dog old tricks.

The first day of the festival was great, but day two really killed it for me. The afternoon sets started out with King Woman howling beautifully in the blazing sun, followed by Philly crew Nothing, always a favorite. We killed some time in the clubhouse before wandering around to see Deafheaven and I popped by Caroline Polachek before eventually my friends convinced me to go see this band Idles.

I’d never heard Idles before, but immediately I felt like I was 15 again and seeing bands back when they really went wild. Idles came out swinging, playing as if it was their last show on earth. Almost immediately, the guitarist was in the crowd, the lead singer was stomping and sweating across the stage, and the rest of the band was going wild alongside them.

All of a person’s life is learning how to resist the impulses they had when they were younger. And one of my strongest impulses is to follow a band around, in an effort to understand them, in a gesture to my long-lost dream of being a Rolling Stone music reporter back when that used to be a real job. From the first note, Idles made me want to quit my job and follow them around America. I spent the rest of the set battling that impulse, even though I already had my phone out and I was already scouring the Internet for their next tour dates, most of which were in America, most of which were sold out, many of which were on a Tuesday, a working person’s nightmare.

In addition to talking myself out of following Idles around, I was also talking myself out of falling in love with 4/5ths of the band, despite my solemn oath never to involve myself with musicians again. “Each one of them looks like a different guy someone would take home for a one night stand,” Alana whispered. That someone was me, years ago.

But what made Idles great? Initially, it was the driving drums for me, but then other aspects began to emerge. The lead singer, Joe Talbot, had a voice that mixed Henry Rollins with Nick Cave and the stage presence of an artistic maniac in casual menswear pants and a button up shirt. The rioting guitar of Lee Kiernan paired well with his erratic thrashing — he was a guitarist it was hard to take your eyes off of, not just because of the music, but also because he seemed to be in his own world where he could throw his body around as much as he wanted, as if no one was even watching.

All of it was giving early Pissed Jeans meets something more refined.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how, as an artist, not being able to see live music has been hard. And I think Idles shows us why: Writing and painting are largely done in private, away from the crowds.

Seeing Idles reminded me of the swagger and drive an artist can and should have about their work — to get up, night after night, relentlessly, and hand yourself over to the creation of the work, to destroy your body and your lungs, to force an entire crowd to pay attention — that is our work, that is what keeps me going. And Idles reminded me to get back to it.

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