August Editors’ Picks

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ As we break from Snap Reviews for the summer, enjoy monthly picks from Carla’s editors across art exhibitions, books, food, and more. ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

Gil Yefman, It Ain’t Necessarily Soft (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and Shoshana Wayne Gallery.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Gil Yefman at Shoshana Wayne Gallery ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

Gil Yefman’s exhibition at Shoshana Wayne Gallery traffics in undertones. Don’t get me wrong, overtness abounds, too, like in Tumtum (2012), a large, tangled orb of knitted phalluses and labia that hangs from the ceiling. The artwork’s kitschy flair and bright pinks, reds, and golds belie its nuanced undertones—Tumtum, a Hebrew word meaning “hidden,” was used in biblical times to refer to a person with ambiguous genitalia, although, in modern day, the word is often deployed to mean “stupid.” This slippage of language points to deeply-seated prejudices, a theme that continues across the exhibition as Yefman, an Israeli artist based in Tel Aviv, approaches another sinister topic: the Holocaust.

A pair of Carnation condensed milk cans, felted in opposite color schemes, feel lighthearted enough (a Warholian gesture), yet a supplementary text at the gallery informs that Yefman is referencing the cans that were given to Holocaust survivors at Buchenwald after the liberation. Similarly, a large woven tapestry, Human Tapestry (2015), contains a kaleidoscopic, grey-toned image which, upon closer look, is revealed to be subtly figurative. Limbs and faces intertwine to create shapes that repeat to form psychedelic patterns. This work, too, is not quite as it seems, as the figures are pulled from archival images of murdered Buchenwald prisoners —upon learning this, the spirited pattern of piled bodies turns ice cold.

Part of what heightens the covert nature of Yefman’s subject matter is the soft materiality of his pieces. Historically, of course, fibers have been associated with domesticity and craft; still, there are plenty of precedents for subversive knitted and felted works (Womanhouse, et al). It’s almost a shock that in 2023 we are still surprised that a soft thing can speak to hard truths. And yet, this slippage is what gives Yefman’s work, rife with layered meaning and association, such powerful resonance.

It Ain’t Necessarily Soft runs through September 15, 2023.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Reading ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

I just finished Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?, and much like the novel itself (which is vaguely based on Heti’s life), Heti seems more interested in loose ends than in narrative—micro-dramas between friends lead the main character (also named Sheila) to ponderous epiphanies about the nature of life and becoming the best version of herself. “Why did it seem like our greatest failures were caused by perversions in our souls?” she asks dramatically. This milieu of thinking is coupled with the fact that many of the characters in the book are creatives, each of whom longs for more intimacy with their creative practice and at times battle creative blocks. The wandering plot allows you to wade into this vaporous cloud of writing and thinking and let it wash over you, as if you too are part of the messiness that the characters stew within.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Eating ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

I recently went out to dinner at Mirate in Los Feliz, and as the hostess walked us down into a recessed outdoor patio area surrounded by lush plants, I had the profound feeling that I had suddenly been transported to vacation. The mezcal-heavy menu helped too. My husband and I shared a sampling of tacos, a luscious cochinita pibil, and a huitlacoche quesadilla, but the standout was the skillet jalapeno cornbread served with honey butter (a.k.a. perfection).

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Around Town ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

Fluffy McCloud’s, a new ice cream shop on Sunset, mixes loose inspo from old-fashioned ice cream parlors (lace curtains are draped in the windows, a jukebox plays esoteric covers) with a Willy Wonka flair—the large fabric light fixture looks like an overturned UFO and an orange bear reclining amidst a field of flowers is painted on the window in lieu of defining signage. The menu features frozen grapes and affogatos, and the ice cream is delightful. I went with the nutty, refreshing, and cheekily-named “Pistschiyoyoyoyoyoyo,” but wished I had ordered two scoops, including the flavor of the month, “La Banana Bread.” Hot tip: check out our newest issue of Carla for a coupon for a free scoop! ☺

Pamela Ramos, El Castillo Interior (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and New Low. Photo: Evan Walsh.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Pamela Ramos at New Low  ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

The primary-colored plastic tarps that encase the gallery walls of photographer Pamela Ramos’ El Castillo Interior conjure an array of regionally specific images—striped termite fumigation tents, open-air markets, and the temporary shelters of L.A.’s massive unhoused population—transforming the interior of New Low’s small MacArthur Park gallery into a humid, womb-like space. But for Ramos, the space recalls the visceral memory of the sea of quilted tarps and tents that in 2006 overtook the colonial architecture of Oaxaca’s zócalo as the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) demanded the governor’s resignation under accusations of corruption and electoral fraud.¹ At 12 years old, Ramos left Oaxaca with her family amidst the unfolding conflict—three years before she would first pick up a camera.²

At New Low, Ramos sequesters the viewer not in the space of a demonstration or a market, but in the collaged, constructed image of it, using new photographs to fill in gaps and bridge the space between past and present, between things photographed and things remembered. Several vertical 5×7 pictures in aluminum frames and smaller tarps custom-printed with photographs are installed atop the large tarps. Taken between 2016 and 2023 in Oaxaca and Los Angeles, where Ramos now lives, the richly-colored images include as their subjects an out-of-focus cat with glossy, lime-green eyes; dripping animal bones; a pile of tamales wrapped in banana leaves; and a massive grasshopper trapped beneath a kitchen strainer. All tightly cropped and a bit off-kilter, the vernacular images are frenetic but thoughtfully composed. They offer little context to the wider scenes they were taken within, and generally exclude signifiers of time, making them feel foggy, like excerpts from a dream. In the installation, the images bleed into one another—framed photos are layered on top of the photographic tarps without obvious, direct logic. One of the tarp images rolls out onto the gallery’s checkered floor.

Contemporary dialogues often regard nostalgia and sentimentality as notions that are at odds with “serious” photographic art. But photography plays a crucial and undeniable role as a kind of memory aid, and taking and having personal photographs has always been an exercise in agency. El Castillo Interior asks how to reconcile the unphotographed—how to deal with the sense of loss that comes, most urgently, from migration and gentrification, but also from not having pictures of transformative moments of our lives. 

El Castillo Interior runs through September 2, 2023.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Reading ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

When David Zwirner, et al. started issuing announcements about new outposts in L.A.’s “Melrose Hill,” it felt likely that the PR statements had been written by someone who had spent very little time in L.A. Matt Stromberg’s recent article, “Art Galleries Are Not Reviving a ‘Desolate’ LA Neighborhood,” reports on the way that developers often present neighborhoods “as a kind of ahistorical blank slate,” pointing out that, while many new transplants are touting the locale, the only art space actually in Melrose Hill is nine-year-old artist-run gallery The Lodge. Stromberg seems to maintain a sense of optimism about the arrival of these and other galleries in L.A., but, crucially, spends the latter part of the article asking about their plans to not only engage the dynamic arts community that already exists in this city, but to directly consider, and positively participate in the neighborhoods in which they have decided to open their doors.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Eating ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

My favorite neighborhood taco spot right now is the Tacos La Guera on Hyperion. They set up around 5 PM, but I recommend stopping by closer to 7 PM, when the suadero is ready.  

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Around Town ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

My idea of a perfect summer Sunday involves picking up fish tacos and eating them sans swimsuit at Black’s Beach.

 The 36th Parallel (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artists and Track 16. 

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ The 36th Parallel at Track 16 ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

Throughout history, lines of latitude and longitude have been used as demarcations for territorial claims, so-called exploration, and colonization. Titled in reference to the 36th parallel north, an imaginary line that wraps around the Earth, The 36th Parallel at Track 16 considers the cost of human activity in the age of the Anthropocene.

The exhibition featuring diverse works by seven global artists exploring interrelated themes such as wind patterns and migration; colonial histories of gendered labor; and the relationship between land, technology, and the environment. The heavily saturated hues of Los Angeles-born and Berlin-based artist Liz Miller Kovacs’ photographs make toxic landscapes palpable—In Geamăna Venus (2021), Miller Kovacs appears wrapped head-to-toe in a sky-blue sheath before a lake in Geamăna, Romania. Formerly the site of a village, Geamăna’s residents were forcefully displaced in the late 1970s to make way for the toxic sludge oozing from a nearby copper mine. In the image, the lake behind her takes on a distinctly rusted hue, and in the background, the bark of the decaying trees is stained bright red.

Elsewhere in the gallery, depleted terrains form the backdrop of Oakland-based artist Katie Murken’s collages. Drawing connections between industrial food production and depleted terrains, cut-out coupon pages are superimposed over photographs of California’s crop fields. In works like Resorcery (2022) and Pick Four And Save (2020), the shapes of grocery items like milk, ketchup, bread, and meat are easily recognizable. Juxtaposed with images of dried-out soil demarcated for planting, Murken invites the viewer to consider the environmental and financial cost of foodstuffs and their production.

Though oceans apart, the toxic landscapes in Miller Kovacs’ photographs and the dehydrated earth in Murken’s collages speak to the myriad ways that, during our short time on this planet,  humans have forever altered its landscape. In a sense, these altered landscapes tether us all to one another along imaginary, conscious, and unconscious parallel lines.

The 36th Parallel runs through September 9, 2023.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Reading ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

I can’t totally put into words the warmth I felt while reading Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication, a workbook self-published by Co–Conspirator Press with the support of the Feminist Center for Creative Work. The small spiral-bound book includes all sorts of prompts and activities that facilitate an exploration and understanding of our personal, emotional, and bodily entanglements with ourselves and one another. Though the print workbook is currently out of stock, a PDF version is available for purchase online.

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Eating ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

A cubano, some mariquitas, and a cafecito from El Cochinito is what life is all about. 

⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚ Around Town ⋆｡˚ ⋆｡˚

At the base of the Verdugo Mountains, the Brand Library & Art Center is an ivory marvel.  The Moorish-inspired structure—complete with scalloped arches and minarets—is a lovely site for a slow morning at the park with a coffee and a good book.

Alitzah Oros is an art historian currently based in Los Angeles.

More by Alitzah Oros

Erin F. O’Leary is a writer, editor, and photographer from the Midwest and raised in Maine. A graduate of Bard College, she has lived in Los Angeles since 2018, where she writes about photography and image culture. Her work has appeared in Carla and Photograph, among other publications.

More by Erin F. O'Leary

Lindsay Preston Zappas is an L.A.-based artist, writer, and the founder of Carla. She is an arts correspondent for KCRW. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. Recent solo exhibitions include those at the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (Buffalo, NY), OCHI (Los Angeles), and City Limits (Oakland).

More by Lindsay Preston Zappas