Category: Sculpture

If you’re hitting the Mike Kelley show at MoCA…

Mike Kelley's Chinatown Wishing Well at MoCA

The Mike Kelley show at MOCA Geffen has a whole lot of everything going on: child nightmare videos, weird banners, scary stuffed animal sculptures, night-light installations of the fictional Kandor, and architectural models of every school Kelly ever went to. There’s also his “Chinatown Wishing Well,” above, his tribute, to a similarly garish fountain located in L.A.’s Chinatown.

It’s a lot to absorb. But while you’re at it, don’t forget to take a peek under and inside many of his pieces, since they often seem to contain little surprises. Under the architectural models, you’ll find a mattress; a pink dresser hides books about sex and a packet of birth control pills; and inside the “Wishing Well” is a mattress, a box of Kleenex, some candles and tub of Vaseline. (This latter space he once described as a “crawl space/fuck room.”)

All of it certainly gets at aspects of the forbidden he often explored in his work. But they also serve as a reminder that if you’re just looking at the literal surface of his pieces, you’re missing a good chunk of the story.

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Calendar. 04.02.14.

Rose Quartz Eroded Tire, 2014 by Daniel Arsham
Rose Quartz Eroded Tire, 2014, by Daniel Arsham. Part of the artist’s solo show, Kick the Tire and Light the Fires, at OHWOW Gallery. Opens Saturday at 6pm, in Beverly Hills. (Image courtesy of the artist and OHWOW.)

  • Pasadena: Face It: The Photographic Portrait, at the Norton Simon Museum. Opens Friday.
  • L.A.: Javier Téllez, Games Are Forbidden in the Labyrinth, at REDCAT. Opens Saturday at 6pm, in downtown.
  • L.A.: Antonia Wright, Suddenly We Jumped, at Luis de Jesus. Opens Saturday at 6pm, in Culver City.
  • L.A.: Roberto Gil de Montes, Hecho en México, at Lora Schlesinger Gallery. Opens Saturday at 4:30pm, in Santa Monica.
  • L.A.: Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas, at the Fowler Museum. Through July 20, in Westwood. Related: Artists Judithe Hernandez and Alma Lopez have a conversation about Saints, Warrior and Women at the museum this Saturday at 2pm.
  • S.F.: Elise Ferguson, Striped Knot, at Romer Young Gallery. Opens Friday at 6pm.
  • NYC: Chicago in L.A.: Judy Chicago’s Early Work, 1963-74, at the Brooklyn Museum. Opens today, in Brooklyn.
  • NYC: Are Your Motives Pure? Raymond Pettibon Surfers, 1987-2012, at Venus Over Manhattan. Opens Thursday, on the Upper East Side.
  • NYC: Dan Witz, NY Hardcore, at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Opens Saturday, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Moving Murals: Henry Chalfant’s and Martha Cooper’s All-City Graffiti Archive, at the City Lore Gallery. Opens Thursday at 6pm, in the East Village.
  • NYC: Sometimes We Explode: An Exhibition of Underground NYC Through Video Games and Hip Hop, at Babycastles Gallery. With a special performance by Ratking. Opens next Tuesday at 6pm, on 14th Street. Follow this link to RSVP for the opening.
  • NYC: Joe Sola, American Sex Room and Other Works, at Blackston Gallery. Opens Sunday, on the Lower East Side.
  • NYC: Parallax Reveries: Stereoscopic Collage by Joel Schlemowitz, at Microscope Gallery. Opens Saturday at 6pm, in Bushwick.
  • Toronto: Susana Heller, at Olga Korper Gallery. Opens Saturday, at 2pm.
  • Toronto: Eva Kotátková, at Art en Valise. Opens Thursday.
  • Online: Nikki Darling, Ascension, at Light & Wire.
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Calendar. 03.26.14.

Untitled, 2012-13, by Helen Pashgian
Untitled, 2012-2013, by Helen Pashgian. Part of the artist’s solo show, Light Invisible, at the L.A. County Museum of Art, in Los Angeles. Opens Sunday, in Mid-Wilshire. (Courtesy of Helen Pashgian. Photograph by Josh Morton.)

  • L.A.: Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Illumination at the Culture Crossroads, at the Getty Museum. Through June 22, in West L.A.
  • L.A.: (en)Gendered (in)Equity: The Gallery Tally Poster Project, at ForYourArt. Opens Saturday at 6pm.
  • L.A.: Allen Ruppersberg, Drawing and Writing, 1972-1989, at Marc Selwin. Through May 17, in Beverly Hills.
  • Torrance: Prep School: Prepper & Survivalist Ideologies and Utopian/Dystopian Visions, at the Torrance Art Museum. Opens Saturday.
  • Miami: Anselm Kiefer, at the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. Through April 26, in the Wynwood District.
  • NYC: When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South, at the Studio Museum. Opens Thursday, in Harlem.
  • NYC: Matthias Bitzer: Saturnine Swing, at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Opens Thursday, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Heather Rowe, William Monk, Richard T. Walker, at James Cohan Gallery. Opens Thursday, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Daniel Canogar, Small Data, at Bitforms. Opens Thursday at 6pm, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Allan Wexler, Breaking Ground, at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. Opens Saturday at 6pm, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: 1st 20 Years, at Adam Baumgold Gallery. Opens today at 6pm, on the Upper East Side.
  • Madrid: Eltono, Amalgama, at Slowtrack. Opens Thursday.
  • Belgium: Stephan Balkenhol, at Deweer Gallery. Opens Sunday at 3pm, in Otegem.
  • Hong Kong: Billy Childish: Edge of the Forest, at Lehmann Maupin. Opens Thursday.
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Calendar. 01.22.14.

William J. O'Brien, Untitled, 2011. Collection of Howard and Donna Stone. Image courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York.
Untitled, 2011, by William O’Brien. Part of the artist’s solo show, William J. O’Brien, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, opening Saturday. (Image courtesy of the artist; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York.)

  • NYC: Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, at the Guggenheim Museum. Opens Friday.
  • NYC: The Little Prince: A New York Story, at the Morgan Library & Museum. Opens Friday, in Midtown.
  • NYC: tranzit, Report on the Construction of a Spaceship Module, at the New Museum. Opens today, on the Lower East Side.
  • NYC: Antonio Canova, The Seven Last Works, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Opens today, on the Upper East Side.
  • NYC: Guy Ben Ner, Soundtrack, and Austin Lee, Ok Ok Ok Ok…, at Postmasters Gallery. Opens Saturday at 5:30pm, in Tribeca.
  • NYC: Ferran Adrià, Notes on Creativity, at the Drawing Center. Opens Saturday, in SoHo.
  • NYC: Sol LeWitt: Horizontal Progressions, at Pace. Opens Friday, on 25th Street, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Girls Against God magazine hosts Wolf Moon Gathering, an afternoon performance, at MoMA PS1. This Sunday at 3pm, in Queens.
  • NYC: Wayne Herpich, New Vision Display, at Blackston Gallery. Opens Thursday at 6pm, on the Lower East Side.
  • Ithaca, N.Y.: Beyond Earth Art, at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. Opens Saturday.
  • Chicago: Wordless!, a performance featuring the work of Art Spiegelman and Phillip Johnston, at Logan Center Performance Hall, at the University of Chicago. This Saturday at 3pm.
  • Fort Worth: Focus: Fred Tomaselli, at The Modern. Through March 2.
  • L.A.: Tea and Morphine: Women in Paris, 1880 to 1914, at the Hammer Museum. Opens Sunday, in Westwood.
  • L.A.: Timothy Walker, at the Craft & Folk Art Museum. Opens Saturday, in Mid-Wilshire.
  • L.A.: Kaz Oshiro, Chasing Ghosts, at the Charles White Elementary School Gallery. Opens Friday, in Westlake/Macarthur Park
  • L.A.: Corporeal Impulse, at the Vincent Price Art Museum. Through April 12, in East L.A.
  • L.A.: Blinding Desire: Unfolding Artists, at Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis. Opens Saturday, in Westchester.
  • Santa Barbara: Alice Aycock Drawings: Some Stories are Worth Repeating, at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Opens Sunday.
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Calendar. 12.18.13.

A detail of Flock in Space, by Ruben Ochoa, in Dallas
The poetry of fence posts and concrete footings. A detail of Flock in Space, by Ruben Ochoa, in Dallas. The piece is part of the city-wide sculpture exhibition Nasher XChange, organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Ochoa’s piece is on view at the Trinity River Audubon Center, through February 16th. For a map of the other commissions, click here. (Image courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Projects.)

  • L.A.: JG: A Film by Tacita Dean, at the Hammer Museum. Opens Saturday, in Westwood.
  • NYC: Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New, at the Museum of Modern Art. Opens Saturday.
  • NYC: Ingrid Calame, Tracks, at James Cohan Gallery. Through February 8.
  • NYC: LA2: A Young Collectors Exhibition, at Leila Heller Gallery. Opens Thursday, in Chelsea.
  • Online: Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990, a show of archival photography.
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Calendar. 11.13.13.

Specimen Series: 348 West 22nd Street, APT. New York, NY 10011, USA - Bathtub, 2013 polyester fabric
Specimen Series: 348 West 22nd Street, APT. New York, NY 10011, USA — Bathtub, 2013, by Do Ho Suh. Part of the artist’s solo exhibit at Lehmann Maupin in Hong Kong, opening tomorrow. (Image courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin.)

  • NYC: Drawing Time, Reading Time, at the Drawing Center. Opens Friday, in SoHo. Opening reception to take place on Thursday, November 21, at 6pm.
  • NYC: Liz Magic Laser, Absolute Event, at Paula Cooper Gallery. Opens Thursday, at Cooper’s 197 Tenth Avenue space in Chelsea. Performances will be held on Thursday and Saturday, beginning promptly at 7pm. (More about the artist here.)
  • NYC: Para-Real, at 601 Artspace. Opens today, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Water, Water…8 Strange Days in the City That Never Sleeps, a group show, at Kianga Ellis Projects. Opening reception this Thursday at 6pm. Exhibition runs through November 19, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Faceshifting: Masking the Spirits, at Cavin-Morris Gallery. Opens Thursday, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Travis LeRoy Southworth, A Fancy Machine is the Perfect Centerpiece, at Mixed Greens. Opens Thursday at 6pm, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Luke DuBois, Sex Lies & Data Mining, a Pratt Digital Arts Lecture. Today at 12:45, at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
  • NYC: Barbara Macfarlane: Mapping, at Rebecca Hossack. Opens today, in SoHo.
  • NYC: Jeff Williams, New/Used/Wet/Broken, at Jack Hanley Gallery. Opens Friday at 6pm, in Tribeca.
  • NYC: Provisional Space, at Brooklyn Fireproof. Opens Friday at 6pm, in Bushwick.
  • NYC: Guerilla Girls Broadband, at Interference Archive. Monday at 7:30pm, in Gowanus.
  • Salem, Mass.: Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion, at the Peabody Essex Museum. Opens Saturday.
  • Chicago: Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture and Cuisine, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Through January 27.
  • Palo Alto: Flesh and Metal: Body and Machine in Early 20th Century Art, at the Cantor Arts Center. Opens today, at Stanford University.
  • San Jose: Around the Table: Food. Creativity. Community., at the San Jose Museum of Art. Through April 20.
  • L.A.: Licketh the Rainbow, at Jaus. Opens Friday, in Santa Monica.
  • L.A.: A special screening of Andy Warhol’s Sleep, at HRLA. This Saturday from midnight to 7am, in Chinatown.
  • L.A.: Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, at the Getty Center. This Sunday, at 3pm.
  • L.A.: Independent scholar Elena Phipps gives a talk about Peruvian textiles at the Fowler Museum. Next Wednesday, at noon, at UCLA.
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Calendar. 08.24.13. Better late than never edition.

Untitled by Bast at Jonathan LeVine Wooster Collective show
LAST DAY: Untitled, by Bast. Part of the exhibit Ten Years of Wooster Collective: 2003-2013, at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Through today, in Chelsea. (Image courtesy of the artist and Jonathan LeVine.)

  • NYC: American Modern: Hopper to O’Keeffe, at the Museum of Modern Art. Through January 26.
  • NYC: Soundings: A Contemporary Score, at the Museum of Modern Art. Through November 3.
  • NYC: Matthew Miller, Unveiling, at Pocket Utopia. Through August 29, on the Lower East Side. (The gallery is by appointment only for the month of August.)
  • Atlanta, Ga.: Fictional Geographies, at Robert Walden. Through September 7.
  • S.F.: Jennie Ottinger, Members Only, at Johansson Projects. Through September 19.
  • S.F.: Adam Feibelman, Do With Me What You Will, and William Emmert, A Lot of People Do This, at Guerrero Gallery. Through September 7.
  • L.A.: 356 Sculptures, at 356 Mission. Opens today at 6pm.
  • LAST DAY: L.A.: BDX-LAX: Faraway So Close, at Subliminal Projects. Through today, in Echo Park.
  • Mexico City: David Choe, Snowman Monkey BBQ, at the Museo Universitario del Chopo. Through October 27.
  • Copenhagen: Independents, a group show, at V1 Gallery. Through September 7.
  • Plus: It’s the last week for I, YOU, WE at the Whitney Museum. Christian Viveros-Fauné provides numerous reasons for why you shouldn’t miss this show.
  • Plus, plus: Christopher Knight on why Detroit’s art shouldn’t so hastily be sold off. (I’m embarrassingly behind on this story. But if you haven’t followed it and you’re gonna read only one piece about it, make sure this is it.)
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Calendar. 07.10.13

Bong Rips at the Community Ceramics Center by Brion Nuda Rosch
Bong Rips at the Community Ceramics Center, 2011-13, by Brion Nuda Rosch. Part of the artist’s solo exhibit at ACME in Los Angeles, opening Saturday at 6pm in Mid-Wilshire. (Image courtesy of the artist and ACME.)

  • L.A.: My Barbarian, Universal Declaration of Infantile Anxiety Situations Reflected in the Creative Impulse, at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Opens Saturday, in Culver City.
  • L.A.: Fever of Dreams, a group show organized by Robbie Conal, at Koplin del Rio. Opens Saturday at 5pm, in Culver City.
  • L.A.: George Tate, Car Wash, at Craig Krull Gallery. Opens Saturday, in Santa Monica.
  • Santa Fe: Enrique Martínez Celaya, The Pearl, at SITE Santa Fe. Opens Saturday.
  • NYC: Cut ‘n’ Paste: From Architectural Assemblage to Collage City, at the Museum of Modern Art. Opens today.
  • NYC: Dianne Arbus and Lisette Model, Arbus/Model, at Hasted Krauetler. Through August 16 in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Folk Devil, at David Zwirner Gallery. Opens Thursday, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Hair & Skin, at Derek Eller Gallery. Through August 16, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: David Jelinek, Money Down, at Andrew Edlin Gallery. Opens today, in Chelsea.
  • NYC: Acid Summer, at DCKT Contemporary. Opens today at 6pm, on the Lower East Side.
  • NYC: Balls to the Wall, at DODGE Gallery. Opens Thursday, on the Lower East Side.
  • NYC: Judy Chicago, in conversation with Jane F. Gerhard and Saisha Grayson, on the making of The Dinner Party, at the Brooklyn Museum. Tomorrow at 6:30pm.
  • Northampton, Mass.: Eye on the Street: Trends in 1960s and 1970s Photography, at the Smith College Museum of Art. Opens Friday.
  • London: VII, a group show with Cope2, Dave Kinsey, Michael De Feo, and many others, at Stolen Space. Opens Thursday at 6pm.
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