Latest news, critical reviews, and listings for visual art in the Western & Midwestern States

Joined January 2009
3,810 Photos and videos
We all know that art presentation has been significantly altered due to COVID. We present this overview by @jdbeltran, who both cites a range of specific solutions and assesses what they imply for the future of the arts. conta.cc/2Ms4PnY
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"Splatter painting may open up a sea of possibility, but it also teaches humility." Read more in @blasarow's column, "Splatters Against the Pandemic": visualartsource.com/index.ph…
"Tod Bailey's brand of figuration possesses a sense of urgency that exudes exceptional emotional and sexual energy." Read more in @DonnaTennant's review of the show at Bill Arning Exhibitions: visualartsource.com/index.ph…
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"Robert Irwin uses minimal materials to deeply contemplate ideas pertaining to color, light, perception, space, environment and illusion." --Jody Zellen on the artist's show at @KGCgallery: visualartsource.com/index.ph…
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"The word for the days following the January 20th inauguration has been 'relieved.' The contrast between normal and deranged has never been less private." -- @blasarow in "An American Resurrection": visualartsource.com/index.ph…
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"Exactly twenty years after his death, Italo Scanga is not forgotten. But his influence and role in contemporary art from the 1980s on, in New York as well as the West Coast, have not been fully appreciated." Matthew Kangas discusses the artist: visualartsource.com/index.ph…
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"Chicago museums are closed again. I miss them, the walking and looking, the way the body in motion links to the mind and the eye... Instead, every morning I walk my dog." --Margaret Hawkins in "Lawn Art": visualartsource.com/index.ph…
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"Ann Morton's works remind us that trauma fueled by recent police brutality, a raging pandemic and political propaganda has historical antecedents that reverberate in the absence of systemic change." -@ArtMuser on Morton's show at @MesaArtsCenter: conta.cc/2KicrIE
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"Thanks to Stacey Abrams and her hardworking team, as well as to multitudes of volunteers, Georgia has finally turned blue. Also deserving some credit, is San Antonio artist David Alcantar." --David S. Rubin in "Heroes: Superman and Jackie O." conta.cc/2KicrIE
"The Prison Bars of Righteousness," a poem by Andy Brumer: conta.cc/2KicrIE
Looking for some art? Check out Jeffrey Gibson at @RPLAgallery, 1/9 – 2/20, and shows at: @fosterwhiteart @CClarkGallery #RhonaHoffman @asgallerysf #203FINEART @CalabiGallery #JamesHarrisGallery @ThinkspaceArt @LindaHodges19 @GKuceraGallery conta.cc/3ns9OSk
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This week's VAS Newsletter features a message from our publisher, @blasarow, "Celebrating the End of a Difficult Year and the Start of a Much Better One": conta.cc/3ronBMK

"This book, which came out too soon to have been based on the pandemic yet with a weirdly prescient title, is about helping someone in the last stages of cancer who wants to end things on her own terms." -Margaret Hawkins in "What Are You Going Through?": conta.cc/3noE6G0
"While the Covid-19 pandemic has caused many to feel depressed or exasperated from isolation and boredom, Dakota Noot, a young LA artist, has found lockdown to be liberating." --David S. Rubin in "Dakota Noot’s Performative Explorations of Queerness": conta.cc/3noE6G0
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"'Larger Than Memory' demonstrates that consideration of works by indigenous artists can lead to a greater understanding of this moment in American life, including the Trump phenomenon." -@ArtMuser in "Indigenous Artists Elucidate the Trump Era": conta.cc/3noE6G0
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"As a critic who has covered the Bay Area scene for years, I wondered how the gallerists in Oakland & Berkeley were faring..." --DeWitt Cheng in "The Oakland Art Scene: In Place": conta.cc/2JU4BEo
"There is a substantial contingent of Trump supporters in the High Desert, but the artist/creatives communities are sizable and arguably more visible." --Michael Shaw in "Cultural Tensions in the High Desert": conta.cc/2JU4BEo
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"Few among us could compete, athletically, with Loretta Claiborne and, given my tiny slice of Rafer Johnson’s story, if I have something to share about him, it is inextricably bound up with her." -@blasarow in "Rafer Johnson and the Special Olympics": conta.cc/2JU4BEo
Looking for some art this week? Check out Andy Moses, 12/5-2/10 at @turnergallery, and shows at: @craigkrull @LindaHodges19 @TransGallery #IkonLtd @fosterwhiteart #SkidmoreContemporaryArt @loislambertGFA @GeorgeBillisLA conta.cc/2Vs2kms
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"The portraits are pared down so only essential features remain, imbedded in solid, polished, colors... But it’s through the eyes that Maruyama lifts them into an ethereal realm." --John Zotos on "Yasuyo Maruyama: Mind’s Eye" at @Ro2Art: conta.cc/39ftG7N