Tagged: L.A. Times

Calendar. 04.25.12.


Times, 2011, by Stanley Donwood. Part of an 18-foot panel showing the destruction of L.A. at the artist’s solo exhibit Lost Angeles, at Subliminal Projects. Opens Saturday at 8pm, in Echo Park. (Image courtesy of the artist and Subliminal Projects.)

  • L.A.: Mickalene Thomas, The Origin of the Universe, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Through August 19, in Santa Monica.
  • Dallas: Erwin Wurm, Beauty Business, at Dallas Contemporary. Through August.
  • NYC: Freehand Jobs, a group show at Pandemic Gallery. Opens Saturday at 7pm, in Williamsburg.
  • NYC: Charles Yuen, at Valentine. Opens Friday at 6pm, in Ridgewood/Bushwick.
  • Plus, see all my latest New York picks over at Gallerina
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Dear L.A. Times: Waaaaassssup?


Get me rewrite! (Image courtesy of Olivander.)

Regular readers of C-Monster.net will know that I’ve spent the last couple of weeks directing evil thought waves at the L.A. Times. This is because roughly a fortnight ago, the paper where I held my first media job (features department assistant — the glamour!), had debuted an arts and culture blog called Culture Monster, which, needless to say, hits a bit close to home. After a couple of rather hysterical posts on the subject, I decided that the best course of action was to write the L.A. Times a very nice letter, asking them to reconsider their blog’s name. Crazy. I know. But I figured that even though I haven’t been part of the blogosphere since its paleolithic days (1998), I have managed to get linked to by one or two well-known arts sites over the course of my short and senseless existence. Besides if there’s one thing I can claim in all of this, it’s my name. Because how “monstrous” is a newspaper arts blog ever truly going to get?

Anyhow, after sending my note (to a battalion of arts editors, writers and even the reader representatives), all I heard for roughly a week was crickets. (Though the reader reps were kind enough to send me a mass-produced form letter thanking me for my thoughts.) Then I got a nice response back from a blog editor saying that my e-mail was being considered and that someone would get back to me with a decision. And ever since then all I’ve heard are more crickets. Last week, I reached a point where I was worn out enough to let the matter quietly drop. But then I figured it’d be far better to go out in a kamikaze blaze. Either that, or I was gonna have to challenge Christopher Knight to a Jell-o wrestling match. (I think I could take him.)

Anyhow, this is all a long way of saying that I’m posting my letter to the Times. (Read it after the jump.) Please forgive the first paragraph, where I talk about how important I am. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the art industry, it’s that being a gasbag usually gets you waaaaaay farther than humility.

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