Architecture & art
Grounded in Charles White
“Because he looked like my uncles and my neighbors, his achievements seemed within my reach.”
The African-American artist Kerry James Marshall, whose retrospective in Los Angeles I reviewed here in 2017, says that his mission and aspiration is to create “a grand, epic narrative with black figures in it.” The ...
Sally Mann wanted imagery that looked bruised by history
Her vintage lenses make Antietam look still punished by the violence
The history of photography tracks the cultural history of childhood and the innocence we like to think abides there. When the inventor of photography, Henry Fox Talbot, made images of his family in the 1840s, ...
RIP local comic book creator Batton Lash (Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre)
Wrote Archie Meets the Punisher and more
His local Exhibit A Press published Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre and others
A certain kind of God
A full-body hit of the gorgeous agressions of late 19th and early 20th-century art.
A certain kind of God
Burgled secrecies
The shots are exposures of exposure, sometimes detailed with bite marks, scars, bruises, and burns.
The first photograph I saw by Brassaï, many years ago, was a 1948 portrait of Jean Genet. Hands in pockets, slight of form, his face an ambiguous index of skittishness and cunning, Genet offers and ...
Beauty built on blood
Teotihuacan 2003 finds at L.A. County Art Museum
In 2003, an archaeologist digging near the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, one of the grand structures at the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico, felt a soft spot in the earth that turned out to ...
San Diego Reader 2018 arts issue
Movies, theater, artsy spots, special nonprofits, textiles, classical music, dance, Rotten Tomatoes
No better musical experience of its kind in the world (!) Opera, symphony, Mainly Mozart, L.J Music Society, Bach Collegium, ProArte Voices. By Garrett Harris Used T-shirts, medical gauze, old hankies — The faction of ...
Plays and actors to look out for in San Diego
Not overwhelmed, but definitely whelmed
Director in demand — Christopher Ashley The La Jolla Playhouse’s artistic director Christopher Ashley won the 2017 Tony Award for best director of a musical, the playhouse’s Broadway hit Come From Away. So, what’s he ...
Dance is all around us, but hard to find
Lux Boreal, Blythe Barton, SD Dance Connect, Mojalet, Malashock, P.A.W., Jean Isaacs, and White Box
San Diego is home to accomplished dancers and choreographers, but not home to many venues appropriate to showcase their works. As choreographer-dancer Blythe Barton explains, “The San Diego modern dance scene is ever-evolving and seems ...
No better musical experience of its kind in the world (!)
Opera, symphony, Mainly Mozart, L.J Music Society, Bach Collegium, ProArte Voices
The San Diego classical music scene encompasses every genre of the artform. Chamber, orchestral, opera, and choral music are well represented. We’ve selected two large organizations, two medium-sized, and two boutique groups. They are the ...
Used T-shirts, medical gauze, old hankies
The faction of San Diego artists who work in textiles
Whether it’s oil painted on canvas, a photograph printed on paper, or a dance performed on stage, an artist’s medium is chosen because it best suits the message the artist intends to communicate. And for ...
Why I joined Rotten Tomatoes
Big world on a big screen
Over a recent weekend, I listened to the audiobook of Patton Oswalt’s memoir Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film. At one point, the actor and comedian recounts a 1996 trip ...
San Diego arts nonprofits on the ground
Open to homeless, recycling, immigrants
Nonprofits nationwide are nervously waiting to gauge the impact of the recent tax overhaul, which reduces the number of taxpayers who qualify for the charitable deduction by about half and is predicted to slash giving ...
Quirky artsy spots sprinkled all over the county
Favorite Color and One Pointed Attention murals, Pigment, Harper's Topiary, S.D. Botanical Gardens, Heritage Park, Spanish Village
Thanks to our constant sunshine, San Diego is one the most photogenic cities in the country. And then there are the views from of our coastlines, inland valley, desert, and mountains. We don’t lack for ...
Familiar muralists, but a lot unfamiliar
The uncanny in Balboa Park
One pleasure of anthology exhibitions is discovering pictures by unfamiliar artists. The English-born artist Leonora Carrington was new to me when I saw a small picture by her in Modern Masters from Latin America, currently ...
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Street musician in Casco Viejo, Panama.
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