Just wanted to give you a quick update about some stories that I’ve recently written for other magazines and newspapers.
Now is a good time to watch a movie. At least it is if you’re in the greater Los Angeles area, where repertory and arthouse cinemas are experiencing a revival. I wrote about the resurgence of in-person movie screenings, focusing mainly on Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz and The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana for Premium, which is the magazine Southern California News Group newspaper subscribers. Click here for a gift link to read the story.
e eye love by Corita Kent at Corita Art Center in Los Angeles (Photo: Liz O.)
Corita Kent was L.A.’s own pop art star. Back in the 1960s, when she was still a nun and known as Sister Mary Corita, she was named one of L.A. Times’ women of the year and landed on the cover of Newsweek. While she was creating serigraphs with social justice messages, she also taught at Immaculate Heart College and became head of the school’s renowned art department. Kent continued making art long after she left her religious order and moved to Boston. In fact, her best known work was the massively popular U.S. postal stamp that read “Love,” which was released in 1985, one year before her death.
Last week, on International Women’s Day, a new home for Kent’s legacy opened in the Arts District. A few days prior to that, I headed to the new Corita Art Center for a press preview. During my visit, and in the days that followed, I kept thinking about one specific piece. It’s called e eye love, which is part of a series called circus alphabet. In it, an eye is superimposed on a capital letter E. Underneath it is a snippet of a quote from the philosopher and writer Albert Camus, “should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.” Kent made this piece in 1968, a tumultuous year in U.S. history. More than 55 years later, I’m looking at it in a gallery-like setting thinking, “Same.”
Neyva live at Leiminspace on August 3, 2024 (Pic: Liz O.)
It was a quiet Saturday night in Chinatown. Out on Broadway, all the shops, as well as many of the restaurants, were closed by 8 p.m. The day-trippers had long gone and the club crowd was yet to arrive. In that strange in between time, though, the scene on Lei Min Way, a small, pedestrian-only street inside Central Plaza that tourists always miss, was a vibe.
The crowd gathered in and around art gallery Leiminspace wasn’t large, but it was high-quality. That’s the thing people often don’t understand about events— maybe because real life doesn’t translate well on social media— the size of a crowd doesn’t determine whether or not something is worthwhile. What matters is how engaged people are with what’s happening in that IRL space. And it was clear from the first note of Neyva’s set that people were rapt by both the music and the performance.
Yoskay Yamamoto’s installation “Moonage Daydream” with painting by Luke Chueh in the background at Giant Robot Biennale 5. (Pic: Liz O.)
It’s a been a minute, but the Giant Robot Biennale is back. Between 2007 and 2015, the group exhibition developed by Erik Nakamura and the Japanese American National Museum popped up roughly every other year, bringing together a cross-section of artists that you might recognize from shows at the GR2 Gallery in West L.A., or from the pages of the magazine Giant Robot, which ran from 1994 until 2010 and helped introduce audiences to artists like Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara.
An installation of wild animal sculptures by Camilla d’Errico for “Nurtured by Nature” at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, September 2023. (Pic: Liz O.)
If you’re interested in new contemporary art, you really should visit Corey Helford Gallery. Founded in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and television producer Bruce Helford, this hub of pop surrealism, street art, new figurative art and related styles has hosted shows from the likes of Eric Joyner, D*Face, Kristen Liu-Wong, Brandi Milne and so many others. But, what’s really cool about CHG is that the frequent shows here are accessible whether or not you’re able to buy art.You don’t need to wait for an opening or make an appointment to visit. They have regular, open hours five days a week.
Inside L.A. Art Book Fair at Geffen Contemporary at MOCA on August 13, 2023. (Photo: Liz O.)
Late in the afternoon on the final day of Printed Matter’s L.A. Art Book Fair, the line outside of MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary stretched to the Japanese American National Museum. I had just stumbled upstairs from the Little Tokyo Metro station and across 1st Street, which was closed to traffic and lined with people hanging out on the sidewalk. That had nothing to the with the book fair though. It was also Nisei Week and the parade was set to start soon. But, I didn’t know that at the time. I just saw throngs of people, flashed back to the years in which I reported from Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con and groaned.
