Articles by Lily Simonson

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Landmarks

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Landmarks

Lily Simonson looks at Jennifer Bolande’s survey exhibition Landmarks, on view at Cal State Los Angeles’ Luckman Gallery.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Mash Up: Collage from 1930 to the present at L & M Arts

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Mash Up: Collage from 1930 to the present at L & M Arts

Lily Simonson reviews a group show featuring collage works by Art21 artists John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Mark Bradford, and Paul McCarthy.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | An Interview with Vishal Jugdeo: Making “Goods Carrier” for Made in L.A.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | An Interview with Vishal Jugdeo: Making “Goods Carrier” for Made in L.A.

Lily Simonson talks to an LA artist whose recent video installation evokes the domestic tension of familial and romantic relationships.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | A Live One: Painting Joan Quinn

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | A Live One: Painting Joan Quinn

Fresh off her solo exhibition in LA, Lily Simonson has the opportunity to paint a portrait of Joan Quinn, the legendary West Coast editor of Interview magazine.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Sparks Fly from MOCA for Cai Guo-Qiang’s Sky Ladder

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Sparks Fly from MOCA for Cai Guo-Qiang’s Sky Ladder

Lily Simonson confronts mortality and the expansive scale of the universe on viewing Cai Guo-Qiang’s “Sky Ladder” at MOCA Los Angeles.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | LACMA’s Rock Star

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | LACMA’s Rock Star

Lily Simonson looks at Michael Heizer’s 340 ton sculpture “Levitated Mass,” and wonders why relatively few female artists have produced large-scale public works.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | CAA #ProTips from an Adjunct Pro

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | CAA #ProTips from an Adjunct Pro

Lily Simonson offers some valuable advice for newbies navigating the annual CAA conference, held this week in Los Angeles.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Andrea Fraser’s Men on the Line

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Andrea Fraser’s Men on the Line

Responding to the legacy of the Woman’s Building, Fraser’s new performance revisits 1970s-era gender issues and evaluates feminism’s progress.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Top 5 of 2011: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Top 5 of 2011: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists

Simonson counts down the Top 5 celebrities who also maintain avid art-making practices.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | ASCO and Activisim in Pacific Standard Time

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | ASCO and Activisim in Pacific Standard Time

  When I moved to LA from Northern California, my Bay Area friends accused me of taking up with a city that was historically cultureless and apolitical.  If Pacific Standard …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Working for The Man: Building Burning Man’s Infrastructure

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Working for The Man: Building Burning Man’s Infrastructure

  When I first found out about the Black Rock City Department of Public Works, it was like finding out that Santa Claus did not exist. I was disappointed, and …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | “Rethink/LA” Exhibition Envisions Future Transformation

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | “Rethink/LA” Exhibition Envisions Future Transformation

  Los Angeles has a reputation for not only its excess, sprawl, and exploding population, but also for its unruly, anarchic and highly changeable landscape.  Rethink/LA: Perspectives on a Future …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Curators Gone Viral: “Chain Letter” at Shoshana Wayne

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Curators Gone Viral: “Chain Letter” at Shoshana Wayne

Did you receive any unusual email forwards this month?  Unrelated to funny cats?  Initially sent out by Christian Cummings and Doug Harvey, a chain letter has been circulating among artists …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Revealing “Unfinished Paintings”

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Revealing “Unfinished Paintings”

The nature of painting – its objecthood, its permanence — demands a level of resolution and wholeness to which other more ephemeral art practices need not always answer.  Hence the …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Nicole Eisenman and Wynne Greenwood

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Nicole Eisenman and Wynne Greenwood

Digging through Nicole Eisenman’s current show at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, one begins to understand why it’s so perfect that the artist presents us with 77 different titles for …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Flat Affect

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Flat Affect

As I was walking through William Leavitt: Theater Objects, the LA-based artist’s first museum retrospective, a MOCA security guard stopped me. “Are you a writer?” It took me a moment …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Vija Celmins’s Visions of Violence

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Vija Celmins’s Visions of Violence

Last Saturday, March 19—the day that the US began air strikes in Libya—I passed an anti-war demonstration while driving to LACMA to see Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966. It …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Ephemerality and Eternity in “All of this and nothing”

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | Ephemerality and Eternity in “All of this and nothing”

“It’s really about the magical and the mysterious in the everyday,” says Hammer senior curator Anne Ellegood, in the online video introducing the museum’s newest exhibition, All of this and nothing.  …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | The California Biennial: Collectives, Conversations, and Collaborations

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles | The California Biennial: Collectives, Conversations, and Collaborations

I first experienced the California Biennial in 2008 as a participant in Mary Kelly’s Flashing Nipple Happening.   Kelly had recruited around five dozen young women to gear-up in black …

Looking at Los Angeles

(Looking at Los Angeles) Top 10 of 2010: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists

Looking at Los Angeles

(Looking at Los Angeles) Top 10 of 2010: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists

Since last year’s Top 10 list was posted, we have seen the passing of two individuals who have greatly impacted both the art world as well and entertainment world.  Dennis Hopper …

M.A. Peers, Valentina. 1996 Oil on found sofa upholstery fabric (vinyl), foam stuffing 123 x 74 inches. Image via Rosamund Felsen Gallery.

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Whippet Good! M.A. Peers at the Pomona College Museum of Art

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Whippet Good! M.A. Peers at the Pomona College Museum of Art

During last week’s panel discussion in conjunction with M.A. Peers‘s exhibition at the Pomona College Museum of Art, Peers recalled a pivotal moment during her graduate studies.  Painter Linda Day told her …

Cal Poly Pomona students and staff march to the CLA building as they respond in an uproar to last weeks recommendations to cut the fine arts program at the school May 4, 2010. Image Via The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Looking at Los Angeles

Students, Faculty, and Community Members Fight for Fine Art as University Administrators Question its Value

Looking at Los Angeles

Students, Faculty, and Community Members Fight for Fine Art as University Administrators Question its Value

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Monica Majoli. Hanging Rubberman #1, 2006. Watercolor and gouache on paper. 123 x 51 in. Photo: Brian Forrest. Image via hammer.ucla.edu

Looking at Los Angeles

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

Dark Undercurrents in the Hammer Contemporary Collection

Looking at Los Angeles

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

Dark Undercurrents in the Hammer Contemporary Collection

Last week, Art21 treated Angelenos to the very first preview screening of William Kentridge: Anything is Possible at the Hammer Museum‘s Billy Wilder Theater.  As Art21’s executive director Susan Sollins …

Furries reclining in Marnie Weber's "Furry Womb" at "A Night of Growth and Discovery." Image via For Your Art.

Looking at Los Angeles

Burn, Baby, Burn: Furries Join Baby Ikki on a Voyage of Growth and Discovery

Looking at Los Angeles

Burn, Baby, Burn: Furries Join Baby Ikki on a Voyage of Growth and Discovery

Last month, I opened my email to find a “Call For Furrie Interns.” The call came from LA artist Marnie Weber and was forwarded to me by a mutual friend …

John Baldessari, 'The backs of all the trucks passed while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara...', photography, 1963. Courtesy a-n.

Looking at Los Angeles

Baldessari 2.0: Jumping the Lobster

Looking at Los Angeles

Baldessari 2.0: Jumping the Lobster

Upon entering Pure Beauty at LACMA, I overheard a fellow museum-goer tell his companion, “That’s cool — it looks like a lot of my iPhone pictures.”  The viewer was responding …

Tim Hawkinson Apples and Bananas, 2010 Apple cores, banana peels, grape skin, twist ties, bread tabs, orange peel and bronze 9 1/2 x 4 x 3 1/2 inches. Courtesy Blum & Poe.

Looking at Los Angeles

Bikes, Bodies, and Blastulas: Tim Hawkinson Talks About His New Work

Looking at Los Angeles

Bikes, Bodies, and Blastulas: Tim Hawkinson Talks About His New Work

From intimate sculptures to mammoth collages, Tim Hawkinson (Season 2) gracefully creates tension between the playful and the profound.  His current exhibition at Blum & Poe continues longstanding threads while …

Looking at Los Angeles

Breaking the Rules: MOCA Reaches Out to a Younger Audience

Looking at Los Angeles

Breaking the Rules: MOCA Reaches Out to a Younger Audience

Last month, MOCA published a new book dedicated to engaging children with its permanent collection.  Aimed at children age 8-12, Breaking the Rules: What is Contemporary Art? exploring works by …

The Watts Towers, view of 99-foot tower, which contains the longest slender reinforced concrete column in the world. Courtesy www.wattstowers.us

Looking at Los Angeles

Watts Up: L.A. Struggles to Salvage its Public Art Centers

Looking at Los Angeles

Watts Up: L.A. Struggles to Salvage its Public Art Centers

Fifty years after public outcry stopped the city of Los Angeles from demolishing the world-famous Watts Towers, Angelenos once again rallied to rescue the complex from the City Council chopping …

Los Angeles Theatre Marquee 35mm Production Still, Between Science and Magic, 2010. Courtesy the artist.

Looking at Los Angeles

This Magic Moment: Diana Thater, Jeffrey Wells at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

Looking at Los Angeles

This Magic Moment: Diana Thater, Jeffrey Wells at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

The Oscars, aka prom night for Hollywood, are just around the corner! Who does The Academy love more: the noble savage, the noble soldier, or the noble soldier–turned-savage? Are you …

Ed Ruscha, "The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire," 1968, Oil on canvas. Courtesy edruscha.com.

Looking at Los Angeles

If You Can Remember the ’60s, You Weren’t There

Looking at Los Angeles

If You Can Remember the ’60s, You Weren’t There

When I moved from Berkeley to Los Angeles five years ago, I thought I was done living in a town that was devoted to perpetually remembering the ’60s. But I …

Mr Deitch's Summery Treat 2006, Courtesy Saatchi Online Daily Magazine; LA's Museum of Contemporary Art, Courtesy SwankeGallery.com

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Pass the Deitch-ie

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Pass the Deitch-ie

If you’re like me, you’ve already been inundated with a whole range of opinions on MOCA’s announcement this week, and it’s only Thursday. Whether they are ultimately booing or cheering, …

Beyonce and Jay-Z at Art Basel Miami

Top 10 of 2009: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists

Top 10 of 2009: Entertainers Who Moonlight as Artists

In the spirit of my Los Angeles beat, I present to you the most exciting art world interlopers to come out of Hollywood in 2009: 10. Sylvester Stallone is making …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Squeak Carnwath’s Unique Lexicon Channels the Universal

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Squeak Carnwath’s Unique Lexicon Channels the Universal

“Most of life is invisible to the naked eye,” proclaims Invisible, a painting in Squeak Carnwath’s new exhibition at Peter Mendenhall Gallery in Los Angeles.  At first glance, it appears …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: The Public School

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: The Public School

Gold Leafing. Sadism & Masochism. Practical Electro-Mechanisms. The Coming Insurrection. What do these topics have in common? Perhaps with some head-scratching we could ferret out a few threads, but here’s …

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Westward Expansion

Looking at Los Angeles

Looking at Los Angeles: Westward Expansion

In the previous Looking at Los Angeles post, Catherine Wagley explored the still-healing schism of East and West Germany through an Angelino lens. Meanwhile, the premiere last night of Season …

Looking at Los Angeles

The Last Days of Pompeii in LA

Looking at Los Angeles

The Last Days of Pompeii in LA

The Los Angeles art world still has a lot of the laissez-faire approachability that endeared it back in the ’60s, which is why so many artists migrate to L.A. and …