ROA wrangles the rats of Los Angeles 2

Visual arts
All-Los Angeles materials — gnarly wooden boards, found rubble, discarded t.v. sets, sheet metal — form the foundation for the visiting Belgian artist ROA’s between-the-cracks, garbage-dumpster-at-night art show at the cool New Puppy Gallery. On these outsized flat surfaces, ROA paints precise portraits of critters and vermin. No, not the denizens of the L.A. art ...

William Eggleston straddles Wilshire Boulevard

Visual arts
Artist Ed Ruscha called him “a blessed rascal.” He influenced filmmakers David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and Sofia Coppola. But more than that, he totally changed the medium of photography, according to William Eggleston expert Carole Thompson in a gallery talk  at Edward Cella Art + Architecture, right across Wilshire Boulevard from LACMA. Cella, relatively new to ...

Happy 100th birthday, Julius Shulman 3

Architecture & Design · Visual arts
In keeping with arts·meme’s devotion to the dearly departed, we’d like to add Uncle Julius to the mix. The great Brooklyn-born, Los Angeles-reared architectural photographer left our midst last year. By most measures, his was a life well lived (1910-2009). He left behind the visual splendor of his timeless photography, which captures and defines California ...

Patrick Graham’s patch of earth 1

Visual arts
Patrick Graham SOMEWHERE JERUSALEM, 1996 oil and mixed media on canvas, 72 x 140 inches “My first memory of drawing was as a child and I remember people talking about me,” said Irish artist Patrick Graham at a crowded art talk hosted by his long time representative, Jack Rutberg, at Rutberg’s La Brea Avenue gallery. ...