Architecture & art
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 ...
Arts in San Diego: From the visual to the hard-to-find
Movies, theater, artsy spots, special nonprofits, textiles, classical music, dance
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 ...
Deep, unusual Mexico in photos
Our Lady of Guadalupe, drug-war dead, the border from above, filthy rich girls
Modern Masters from Latin America reminds us, if we need to be reminded, that Modernism knew no borders. Point/Counterpoint, a compelling selection of 19 contemporary Mexican photographers currently at the Museum of Photographic Arts, has ...
Eyes of O.B. Pier
Guerrilla artist comes forward, explains dragon tears project
Jann Manning says, “One day when I was walking on the [O.B.] pier, which I love to do, I noticed there were a lot of holes in the pier [concrete] and it was kind of ...
La Jolla's version of Henry Darger
The corkscrew-childlike inner life of Santiago
A recent exhibition of works by the artist known as Santiago — aka Charlie Chimpo, aka “the Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s Retard Grandson” (a self-applied sobriquet) — during a festival at La Jolla’s Mary Star ...
Twelve Bellini holy pictures at the Getty
A precious event so close to San Diego
Pictures sometimes become devotional objects or pilgrimage destinations. Their contents have the feeling of secular-sacred spaces. The room called the Living Hall in New York’s Frick Collection houses several robust portraits, Titian’s force-of-nature Pietro Aretino ...
Liberty Station gallery shows crossover power of comics
Feeds and is fed by popular culture
“The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” says San Diego Comic Art Gallery manager TJ Shelvin, “are unlike anything else. On the one hand, you’ve got this major machine that it became” — six movies, six TV ...
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The Baja coastline from a restaurant patio in Puerto Nuevo.
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