Issue 35 February 2024

Issue 34 November 2023

Issue 33 August 2023

Issue 32 June 2023

Issue 31 February 2023

Issue 30 November 2022

Issue 29 August 2022

Issue 28 May 2022

Issue 27 February 2022

Issue 26 November 2021

Issue 25 August 2021

Issue 24 May 2021

Issue 23 February 2021

Issue 22 November 2020

Issue 21 August 2020

Issue 20 May 2020

Issue 19 February 2020

Letter from the Editor –Lindsay Preston Zappas
Parasites in Love –Travis Diehl
To Crush Absolute On Patrick Staff and
Destroying the Institution
–Jonathan Griffin
Victoria Fu:
Camera Obscured
–Cat Kron
Resurgence of Resistance How Pattern & Decoration's Popularity
Can Help Reshape the Canon
–Catherine Wagley
Trace, Place, Politics Julie Mehretu's Coded Abstractions
–Jessica Simmons
Exquisite L.A.: Featuring: Friedrich Kunath,
Tristan Unrau, and Nevine Mahmoud
–Claressinka Anderson & Joe Pugliese
Reviews April Street
at Vielmetter Los Angeles
–Aaron Horst

Chiraag Bhakta
at Human Resources
–Julie Weitz

Don’t Think: Tom, Joe
and Rick Potts

at POTTS
–Matt Stromberg

Sarah McMenimen
at Garden
–Michael Wright

The Medea Insurrection
at the Wende Museum
–Jennifer Remenchik

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Mike Kelley
at Hauser & Wirth
–Angella d’Avignon
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Issue 18 November 2019

Letter from the Editor –Lindsay Preston Zappas
The Briar and the Tar Nayland Blake at the ICA LA
and Matthew Marks Gallery
–Travis Diehl
Putting Aesthetics
to Hope
Tracking Photography’s Role
in Feminist Communities
– Catherine Wagley
Instagram STARtists
and Bad Painting
– Anna Elise Johnson
Interview with Jamillah James – Lindsay Preston Zappas
Working Artists Featuring Catherine Fairbanks,
Paul Pescador, and Rachel Mason
Text: Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos: Jeff McLane
Reviews Children of the Sun
at LADIES’ ROOM
– Jessica Simmons

Derek Paul Jack Boyle
at SMART OBJECTS
–Aaron Horst

Karl Holmqvist
at House of Gaga, Los Angeles
–Lee Purvey

Katja Seib
at Château Shatto
–Ashton Cooper

Jeanette Mundt
at Overduin & Co.
–Matt Stromberg
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Issue 17 August 2019

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Green Chip David Hammons
at Hauser & Wirth
–Travis Diehl
Whatever Gets You
Through the Night
The Artists of Dilexi
and Wartime Trauma
–Jonathan Griffin
Generous Collectors How the Grinsteins
Supported Artists
–Catherine Wagley
Interview with
Donna Huanca
–Lindsy Preston Zappas
Working Artist Featuring Ragen Moss, Justen LeRoy,
and Bari Ziperstein
Text: Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos: Jeff McLane
Reviews Sarah Lucas
at the Hammer Museum
–Yxta Maya Murray

George Herms and Terence Koh
at Morán Morán
–Matt Stromberg

Hannah Hur
at Bel Ami
–Michael Wright

Sebastian Hernandez
at NAVEL
–Julie Weitz

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Alex Israel
at Greene Naftali
–Rosa Tyhurst

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Issue 16 May 2019

Trulee Hall's Untamed Magic Catherine Wagley
Ingredients for a Braver Art Scene Ceci Moss
I Shit on Your Graves Travis Diehl
Interview with Ruby Neri Jonathan Griffin
Carolee Schneemann and the Art of Saying Yes! Chelsea Beck
Exquisite L.A. Claressinka Anderson
Joe Pugliese
Reviews Ry Rocklen
at Honor Fraser
–Cat Kron

Rob Thom
at M+B
–Lindsay Preston Zappas

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age
of Black Power, 1963-1983
at The Broad
–Matt Stromberg

Anna Sew Hoy & Diedrick Brackens
at Various Small Fires
–Aaron Horst

Julia Haft-Candell & Suzan Frecon
at Parrasch Heijnen
–Jessica Simmons

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Shahryar Nashat
at Swiss Institute
–Christie Hayden
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Issue 15 February 2019

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Letter to the Editor
Men on Women
Geena Brown
Eyes Without a Voice
Julian Rosefeldt's Manifesto
Christina Catherine Martinez
Seven Minute Dream Machine
Jordan Wolfson's (Female figure)
Travis Diehl
Laughing in Private
Vanessa Place's Rape Jokes
Catherine Wagley
Interview with
Rosha Yaghmai
Laura Brown
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring: Patrick Martinez,
Ramiro Gomez, and John Valadez
Claressinka Anderson
Joe Pugliese
Reviews Outliers and American
Vanguard Art at LACMA
–Jonathan Griffin

Sperm Cult
at LAXART
–Matt Stromberg

Kahlil Joseph
at MOCA PDC
–Jessica Simmons

Ingrid Luche
at Ghebaly Gallery
–Lindsay Preston Zappas

Matt Paweski
at Park View / Paul Soto
–John Zane Zappas

Trenton Doyle Hancock
at Shulamit Nazarian
–Colony Little

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Catherine Opie
at Lehmann Maupin
–Angella d'Avignon
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Issue 14 November 2018

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer and Figurative Religion Catherine Wagley
Lynch in Traffic Travis Diehl
The Remixed Symbology of Nina Chanel Abney Lindsay Preston Zappas
Interview with Kulapat Yantrasast Christie Hayden
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring: Sandra de la Loza, Gloria Galvez, and Steve Wong
Claressinka Anderson
Photos: Joe Pugliese
Reviews Raúl de Nieves
at Freedman Fitzpatrick
-Aaron Horst

Gertrud Parker
at Parker Gallery
-Ashton Cooper

Robert Yarber
at Nicodim Gallery
-Jonathan Griffin

Nikita Gale
at Commonwealth & Council
-Simone Krug

Lari Pittman
at Regen Projects
-Matt Stromberg

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Eckhaus Latta
at the Whitney Museum
of American Art
-Angella d'Avignon
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Issue 13 August 2018

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Letter to the Editor Julie Weitz with Angella d'Avignon
Don't Make
Everything Boring
Catherine Wagley
The Collaborative Art
World of Norm Laich
Matt Stromberg
Oddly Satisfying Art Travis Diehl
Made in L.A. 2018 Reviews Claire de Dobay Rifelj
Jennifer Remenchik
Aaron Horst
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring: Anna Sew Hoy, Guadalupe Rosales, and Shizu Saldamando
Claressinka Anderson
Photos: Joe Pugliese
Reviews It's Snowing in LA
at AA|LA
–Matthew Lax

Fiona Conner
at the MAK Center
–Thomas Duncan

Show 2
at The Gallery @ Michael's
–Simone Krug

Deborah Roberts
at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
–Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi

Mimi Lauter
at Blum & Poe
–Jessica Simmons

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Math Bass
at Mary Boone
–Ashton Cooper

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Condo New York
–Laura Brown
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Issue 12 May 2018

Poetic Energies and
Radical Celebrations:
Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger
Simone Krug
Interior States of the Art Travis Diehl
Perennial Bloom:
Florals in Feminism
and Across L.A.
Angella d'Avignon
The Mess We're In Catherine Wagley
Interview with Christina Quarles Ashton Cooper
Object Project
Featuring Suné Woods, Michelle Dizon,
and Yong Soon Min
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos: Jeff McLane
Reviews Meleko Mokgosi
at The Fowler Museum at UCLA
-Jessica Simmons

Chris Kraus
at Chateau Shatto
- Aaron Horst

Ben Sanders
at Ochi Projects
- Matt Stromberg

iris yirei hsu
at the Women's Center
for Creative Work
- Hana Cohn

Harald Szeemann
at the Getty Research Institute
- Olivian Cha

Ali Prosch
at Bed and Breakfast
- Jennifer Remenchik

Reena Spaulings
at Matthew Marks
- Thomas Duncan
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Issue 11 February 2018

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Museum as Selfie Station Matt Stromberg
Accessible as Humanly as Possible Catherine Wagley
On Laura Owens on Laura Owens Travis Diehl
Interview with Puppies Puppies Jonathan Griffin
Object Project Lindsay Preston Zappas, Jeff McLane
Reviews Dulce Dientes
at Rainbow in Spanish
- Aaron Horst

Adrián Villas Rojas
at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
- Lindsay Preston Zappas

Nevine Mahmoud
at M+B
- Angella D'Avignon

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960- 1985
at the Hammer Museum
- Thomas Duncan

Hannah Greely and William T. Wiley
at Parker Gallery
- Keith J. Varadi

David Hockney
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (L.A. in N.Y.)
- Ashton Cooper

Edgar Arceneaux
at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (L.A. in S.F.)
- Hana Cohn
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Issue 10 November 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Barely Living with Art:
The Labor of Domestic
Spaces in Los Angeles
Eli Diner
She Wanted Adventure:
Dwan, Butler, Mizuno, Copley
Catherine Wagley
The Languages of
All-Women Exhibitions
Lindsay Preston Zappas
L.A. Povera Travis Diehl
On Eclipses:
When Language
and Photography Fail
Jessica Simmons
Interview with
Hamza Walker
Julie Wietz
Object Project
Featuring: Rosha Yaghmai,
Dianna Molzan, and Patrick Jackson
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos by Jeff McLane
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA
Reviews
Regen Projects
Ibid Gallery
One National Gay & Lesbian Archives and MOCA PDC
The Mistake Room
Luis De Jesus Gallery
the University Art Gallery at CSULB
the Autry Museum
Reviews Cheyenne Julien
at Smart Objects

Paul Mpagi Sepuya
at team bungalow

Ravi Jackson
at Richard Telles

Tactility of Line
at Elevator Mondays

Trigger: Gender as a Tool as a Weapon
at the New Museum
(L.A. in N.Y.)
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Issue 9 August 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Women on the Plinth Catherine Wagley
Us & Them, Now & Then:
Reconstituting Group Material
Travis Diehl
The Offerings of EJ Hill
Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi
Interview with Jenni Sorkin Carmen Winant
Object Project
Featuring: Rebecca Morris,
Linda Stark, Alex Olson
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos by Jeff McClane
Reviews Mark Bradford
at the Venice Biennale

Broken Language
at Shulamit Nazarian

Artists of Color
at the Underground Museum

Anthony Lepore & Michael Henry Hayden
at Del Vaz Projects

Home
at LACMA

Analia Saban at
Sprueth Magers
Letter to the Editor Lady Parts, Lady Arts
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Issue 8 May 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Kanye Westworld Travis Diehl
@richardhawkins01 Thomas Duncan
Support Structures:
Alice Könitz and LAMOA
Catherine Wagley
Interview with
Penny Slinger
Eliza Swann
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
taisha paggett
Ashley Hunt
Young Chung
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews Alessandro Pessoli
at Marc Foxx

Jennie Jieun Lee
at The Pit

Trisha Baga
at 356 Mission

Jimmie Durham
at The Hammer

Parallel City
at Ms. Barbers

Jason Rhodes
at Hauser & Wirth
Letter to the Editor
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Issue 7 February 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Generous
Structures
Catherine Wagley
Put on a Happy Face:
On Dynasty Handbag
Travis Diehl
The Limits of Animality:
Simone Forti at ISCP
(L.A. in N.Y.)
Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi
More Wound Than Ruin:
Evaluating the
"Human Condition"
Jessica Simmons
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
Brenna Youngblood
Todd Gray
Rafa Esparza
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews Creature
at The Broad

Sam Pulitzer & Peter Wachtler
at House of Gaga // Reena Spaulings Fine Art

Karl Haendel
at Susanne Vielmetter

Wolfgang Tillmans
at Regen Projects

Ma
at Chateau Shatto

The Rat Bastard Protective Association
at the Landing
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Issue 6 November 2016

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Kenneth Tam
's Basement
Travis Diehl
The Female
Cool School
Catherine Wagley
The Rise
of the L.A.
Art Witch
Amanda Yates Garcia
Interview with
Mernet Larsen
Julie Weitz
Agnes Martin
at LACMA
Jessica Simmons
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
Analia Saban
Ry Rocklen
Sarah Cain
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews
Made in L.A. 2016
at The Hammer Museum

Doug Aitken
at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA

Mertzbau
at Tif Sigfrids

Jean-Pascal Flavian and Mika Tajima
at Kayne Griffin Corcoran

Mark A. Rodruigez
at Park View

The Weeping Line
Organized by Alter Space
at Four Six One Nine
(S.F. in L.A.)
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Issue 5 August 2016

Letter form the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Non-Fiction
at The Underground Museum
Catherine Wagley
The Art of Birth Carmen Winant
Escape from Bunker Hill
John Knight
at REDCAT
Travis Diehl
Ed Boreal Speaks Benjamin Lord
Art Advice (from Men) Sarah Weber
Routine Pleasures
at the MAK Center
Jonathan Griffin
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
Fay Ray
John Baldessari
Claire Kennedy
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews Revolution in the Making
at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel

Carl Cheng
at Cherry and Martin

Joan Snyder
at Parrasch Heijnen Gallery

Elanor Antin
at Diane Rosenstein

Performing the Grid
at Ben Maltz Gallery
at Otis College of Art & Design

Laura Owens
at The Wattis Institute
(L.A. in S.F.)
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Issue 4 May 2016

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Moon, laub, and Love Catherine Wagley
Walk Artisanal Jonathan Griffin
Reconsidering
Marva Marrow's
Inside the L.A. Artist
Anthony Pearson
Mystery Science Thater:
Diana Thater
at LACMA
Aaron Horst
Informal Feminisms Federica Bueti and Jan Verwoert
Marva Marrow Photographs
Lita Albuquerque
Interiors and Interiority:
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Char Jansen
Reviews L.A. Art Fairs

Material Art Fair, Mexico City

Rain Room
at LACMA

Evan Holloway
at David Kordansky Gallery

Histories of a Vanishing Present: A Prologue
at The Mistake Room

Carter Mull
at fused space
(L.A. in S.F.)

Awol Erizku
at FLAG Art Foundation
(L.A. in N.Y.)
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Issue 3 February 2016

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Le Louvre, Las Vegas Evan Moffitt
iPhones, Flesh,
and the Word:
F.B.I.
at Arturo Bandini
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Women Talking About Barney Catherine Wagley
Lingua Ignota:
Faith Wilding
at The Armory Center
for the Arts
and LOUDHAILER
Benjamin Lord
A Conversation
with Amalia Ulman
Char Jansen
How We Practice Carmen Winant
Share Your Piece
of the Puzzle
Federica Bueti
Amanda Ross-Ho Photographs
Erik Frydenborg
Reviews Honeydew
at Michael Thibault

Fred Tomaselli
at California State University, Fullerton

Trisha Donnelly
at Matthew Marks Gallery

Bradford Kessler
at ASHES/ASHES
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Issue 2 November 2015

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Hot Tears Carmen Winant
Slow View:
Molly Larkey
Anna Breininger and Kate Whitlock
Americanicity's Paintings:
Orion Martin
at Favorite Goods
Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal
Layers of Leimert Park Catherine Wagley
Junkspace Junk Food:
Parker Ito
at Kaldi, Smart Objects,
White Cube, and
Château Shatto
Evan Moffitt
Melrose Hustle Keith Vaughn
Max Maslansky Photographs
Monica Majoli
at the Tom of Finland Foundation
White Lee, Black Lee:
William Pope.L’s "Reenactor"
Travis Diehl
Dora Budor Interview Char Jensen
Reviews Mary Ried Kelley
at The Hammer Museum

Tongues Untied
at MOCA Pacific Design Center

No Joke
at Tanya Leighton
(L.A. in Berlin)
Snap Reviews Martin Basher at Anat Ebgi
Body Parts I-V at ASHES ASHES
Eve Fowler at Mier Gallery
Matt Siegle at Park View
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Issue 1 August 2015

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
MEAT PHYSICS/
Metaphysical L.A.
Travis Diehl
Art for Art’s Sake:
L.A. in the 1990s
Anthony Pearson
A Dialogue in Two
Synchronous Atmospheres
Erik Morse
with Alexandra Grant
SOGTFO
at François Ghebaly
Jonathan Griffin
#studio #visit
with #devin #kenny
@barnettcohen
Mateo Tannatt
Photographs
Jibade-Khalil Huffman
Slow View:
Discussion on One Work
Anna Breininger
with Julian Rogers
Reviews Pierre Huyghe
at LACMA

Mernet Larsen
at Various Small Fires

John Currin
at Gagosian, Beverly Hills

Pat O'Niell
at Cherry and Martin

A New Rhythm
at Park View

Unwatchable Scenes and
Other Unreliable Images...
at Public Fiction

Charles Gaines
at The Hammer Museum

Henry Taylor
at Blum & Poe/ Untitled
(L.A. in N.Y.)
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Central
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Ed Bereal Speaks

Ed Bereal in his Studio in Los Angeles (1964). Image courtesy of Ed Bereal. Photo: Jerry McMillan.

Ed Bereal in his Studio in Los Angeles (1964). Image courtesy of Ed Bereal. Photo: Jerry McMillan.

 

Ed Bereal is a crucial figure in the history of Los Angeles art and activism. Known for his early assemblage sculptures of 1960s, he took a long hiatus from the art world to focus on politics: education, video production, and guerrilla theater. I sat down to talk with him about his return to art on the occasion of his recent survey show Disturbing the Peace: Assemblage, Sculpture, and Painting 1963-2011 at Harmony Murphy Gallery. What follows are Bereal’s words, excerpted from an edited transcript of the conversation.

 


 

I grew up in Riverside, California. Riverside’s divided down the middle, geographically. The population is divided probably into thirds. A third white, a third black, a third Mexican-American. I don’t remember any kind of problem or disagreement between Mexicans and Blacks, because, you know, your next door neighbor was Mexican. We swapped lunches all the time. “Hey, you want a ham sandwich? ‘Cause I want that taco.” It was a small town. So junior high school, grade school, all of that was pretty much segregated. And I could remember some swimming pools and bowling alleys and so forth that were segregated. You couldn’t go in there. It wasn’t a violent thing, or anything, it was just like that.

My first exposure to the art world was illustration. Norman Rockwell was being pushed at everybody. Coming through high school, this was the mid fifties, and it was commercial stuff… I never saw, really, fine art. I still love that aesthetic. It was illustrations, comic books. And I love jamming it right into the face of really fine art painting, too. So naturally, I wanted to go to Art Center School, and be an illustrator. I finished high school and I decided to take a year, maybe two, to put a portfolio together to send to Art Center.

I was with two other guys, and we’d gone to high school together, and they were the art guys. I hung with the football guys, but I also hung with the art guys. And I noticed their work wasn’t looking that cool. It was a little wanting. So I took some of my drawings and I put them in their portfolio. I was naive, and also I was pretty arrogant, too. “Hey man, that ain’t that cool. Here!” So they took ’em and we all submitted. They both got accepted and I didn’t. It fucked me up, “What was that?” I was very naïve… “Am I so egocentric, and I think I’m so cool, that I can’t see, I can’t tell what people think is good or not good?” I went with that for a while until I realized, “wait a minute, you’ve got to send them a photograph of yourself with your portfolio!” And they were both white.

Ed-Bereal7

Chouinard Students on roof, Los Angeles (1962). Image courtesy of Ed Bereal. Photo: Mel Edwards.

I ended up having to choose Chouinard Art Institute, not knowing it was the hottest, most incredible place to be at in this country at that time. I walked into Chouinard and I very quickly started to see the whole art world, and also started to see where Art Center School was at… that whole commercial corporate place. Chouinard is like where the artists are. My first experience was taking the illustration course. The illustration teacher said “You know, it takes two days to do a good drawing.” And I’m going “Oh, bullshit.” So I do one of those drawings… a great drawing done in a matter of a couple hours, I get up and leave, but I leave the drawing on my board so everybody else can look at it and go, “Oh, shit, this fucker’s good” you know? I mean, it’s just all kind of bullshit, but that’s where I was at, at that time.

So I’m playing it pretty loosey goosey and learning a lot when I happen to walk by a painting class that Bob Irwin was teaching. What the fuck did I do that for? I’m walking by, and Bob’s in there rapping, which he does. And I’m looking at what they’re painting, and I’m going “whoa, man, this is a lot more interesting than making illustrations.” It was mostly abstract painting, and for the students, really bad abstract painting. But the nature of it, the freedom of it, I guess was what was pulling at me.

Our teachers were all the young guys who New York had just “Bam!” dropped the spirit on. And they’re dropping it on us. So I do get involved, get introduced to Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Kline, and Rothko, and I had a real feeling that I liked it. My first introduction to Abstract Expressionism was a LIFE magazine article on Pollock. Shown next to a Pollock painting was a painting, which they had gotten a monkey to do. They were tearing away at Pollock’s painting. It was scaring a lot of people. Abstract Expressionism was kicking a hole in everything.

With Irwin, we were having these conversations, and he had always talked about certain things that were arbitrary. So I’m painting on this surface, and I’m going “That’s kind of arbitrary”… painting the front, that’s kind of arbitrary, “I could be painting the back.” Well, as I’m painting, I start painting around the side, big move for me. And I go around, and I go “well, that’s… legal.”

Ed Bereal teaching at UCI. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Ed Bereal teaching at UCI. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

There was a place called Standard Brands where you could get a lot of oil paint, cheap. And so I start gobbing it on. Putting a little cornstarch in there, giving it some body. And the paintings start to become somewhat sculptural. Paint started wrapping around, and I loved the shape. They started getting to be bags over stretcher bars, which had to be shaped, with canvas stretched over them. And that’s when they started to get really interesting.

In Riverside I used to work as a mechanic. I loved gears and bolts and brackets and things. California car culture, man… I was deep off into that, but I really questioned the philosophy behind Finish Fetish. I mean, everything can’t be a car fender, right? When John Chamberlin came out from New York I was trying to help him learn how to spray paint and shit. We’d started hanging together, and talked a lot together. I think I modestly had a certain amount of influence on him because I knew how to use my hands.

Anyway, I felt that for me, it all goes back to music, back to rhythm and blues, and that kind of thing—that’s funk… down and dirty and raw. And raw and truth seemed for me to kind of come together really well. I was always into jazz and blues and I wanted that feeling, that rawness to be in there, in the art.

When it gets to the German thing, I’d had a lot of Jewish people go “How can you do that Nazi shit?” I say, “Whoa, stop. Number one: look at my swastika, it’s going the other way. That’s an old religious symbol, and you ought to work that out before you accuse me of a lot of shit.” First, of all, I was raised during the second World War and I thought the Nazi imagery was fucking cooler than shit, man. They were more tuned into weaponry, costuming, ceremony, presentation, that whole thing. The Luger was a piece of magnificent art to me. My father had one. He would let me just look at it. Designed in the 1800s, man. Incredible shit. I understand how my stuff is perceived. There is a beauty, and an accuracy in what the German psyche produced during the second world war, and I’m certainly a product of that.

 You can not stand in a crowd, facing 50 feet of curtains, that are 350 feet wide, with a swastika on top, carved out, three dimensional, and an eagle above it, and not take notice. Visually, that is some powerful shit. I think people read me as aggressive because I really like visual power. Not ideologically, but visually.

I stayed at Walter Hopps’s place, in the early days. I saw the show he curated, on the carousel on the Santa Monica Pier. The art was on the carousel and you could stand in one place and the shit would go around. Chouinard was where most of the people from Ferus Gallery were teaching. So there was a natural affinity. Walter was a very unique guy, in a lot of ways—and in many ways that maybe haven’t even been discussed. But he just immediately flashed to me. So I ended up working at Ferus and was one of the first people to handle Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup boxes… looking at them, I thought, “Oh, bullshit. Are you fucking kidding?” My job was doing everything. Painting walls. I was hauling the paint rollers and brushes out the back door, as people were coming in the front door to see the show.
 It was a great graduate school.

In 1965 I had a little studio near the corner of Crenshaw and Venice. I was in Dwan Gallery at the time. They were paying me to stay home and make art. It was my habit to come out each morning, stretch, look at the sun, check it out, take a deep breath, go in, slam down a little food, and start working. I worked for 10 or 12 hours. And then I’d come out, grab a quick snack, and then go to Barney’s Beanery and meet all the guys, who were pretty much doing the same thing I was doing. So we’d sit around, talk about art, talk about racing cars, anything. Just blowing off steam ‘til one or two o’clock in the morning, I’d head back to the studio. Go to sleep. Wake up at 10 or 11 o’clock, and do it all over again.

Ed Bereal with artist George Herms. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal with artist George Herms. Image courtesy of the artist.

I’m coming home from Barney’s one night, and smelling a lot of smoke… I’m also higher than shit, so I’m driving really, really slow. I get to my intersection at Crenshaw and Venice, and fuck man, everything is going crazy. People are running. Police cars are screaming. I’m kind of wasted and I’m not paying much attention to it, and so I go to bed. Well, I didn’t realize that the Watts Riots had started and I’m going “Wow, man, I’m supposed to know about stuff like that.” Because of my background and the way I was raised, you never let the street get too far away. I had gotten sucked up in the art community, and I’d lost some of the context of where I’d come from.

So I’m kind of thinking about all this stuff, and I’m listening to the radio, and watching TV. A couple days later I got up, and the National Guard had been called in and I didn’t know it. When I walked to my door and opened it, there was a Jeep parked across Venice Blvd., so it looked more like a checkpoint. It was right in front of my place, and the Jeep had a 50-caliber machine gun on it. It was pointed right at my door, which is to say, it was pointed right at me. When I opened my door, the National Guardsman who was sitting behind the gun got startled but he snapped to. I’m standing there, and we’re doing this, kind of like you and me, and I’m going oh, fuck man. This ain’t cool at all… cause he’s got license and he can do whatever.

I was doing pretty well in the art world at the time. And I’m thinking, all those articles and things that were written about me, they wouldn’t stop that bullet. If I put Irving Blum and Walter Hopps in front of me, that wouldn’t stop that bullet. And certainly if I put Virginia Dwan of Dwan Gallery in front of me… that’s a 50-caliber machine gun. And when it hits something, it blows it up. I’m standing there going “I should not have been so removed from certain issues, my culture and facts of life, that I could find myself in this situation. If I get out of this, I’m going to have to recheck my whole thing.”

War Babies (1992) Los Angeles. Left to right: Ed Bereal, Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode, Ron Miyashiro. Photo: Jerry McMillan.

War Babies (1992) Los Angeles. Left to right: Ed Bereal, Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode, Ron Miyashiro. Photo: Jerry McMillan.

So, I got out of Dwan Gallery. I closed my studio. I went back to Riverside. I started writing. The writing turned into a theater piece called America: A Mercy Killing. I didn’t know how to write a play. But happily, I was teaching at two places: University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Riverside, and that was the time when black student unions were going and I was kind of a faculty advisor to them. The students wanted to talk about their reality and issues. I suggested that they do a play. To make a long story short, they started doing these short form interactions, and acting them out. And they got pretty good at it. Maybe too good, because I got fired.

Out of that experience came the Bodacious Buggerilla, the guerilla theater group. Some students followed me to L.A., together with picking up a couple of relatives, some neighborhood people, we put together this group that we tried to make socially and politically solid. The group included a husband and wife, my cousin, and the woman that I was living with at the time. I’ll tell you what: roughly ’68 to ’75, ’76 was the most creative period of my life. Unfortunately, there’s very little film or video documentation of that work today. Pull Your Coat, the TV pilot, from 1986, is the last thing we did, but we did a lot of other stuff before that.

Bodacious Buggerrilla Performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Ed Bereal, Cliff Porter, Nathan Ali. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious Buggerrilla Performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Ed Bereal, Cliff Porter, Nathan Ali. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious Buggerrilla Performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Ed Bereal, Cliff Porter, Nathan Ali. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious Buggerrilla Performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Ed Bereal, Cliff Porter, Nathan Ali. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

We did these social/ political vignettes in laundromat parking lots or on church steps. After a while, we got into nightclubs. There was a nightclub on Crenshaw called Mavericks Flats. Richard Pryor used to do his stuff there, the Funkadelics performed there also. We kept everything in the ghetto. We didn’t want to make a big living out of this. We just wanted to talk about the truth of our experiences. So we kept it in the ghetto until we were invited to this left-wing coffeehouse by the name of The Ash Grove, on Melrose near Fairfax. This is when we first came out of the ghetto. We then we started doing places like UCLA, USC, UC San Diego and several California prisons. Our reputation started spreading a lot. We liked seeing ourselves as a kind of Zorro. You know… we’d zip in, we’d do our number, put a “Z” on somebody’s chest, and split. It was getting out there. People would say, “Man, you gotta see these guys, ‘the Buggerrillas’, man, they’re outrageous.”

Ed Bereal, film still from Pull Your Coat (1986). Video, 27 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery.

Ed Bereal, film still from Pull Your Coat (1986). Video, 27 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery.

Ed Bereal, film still from Pull Your Coat (1986). Video, 27 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery.

Ed Bereal, film still from Pull Your Coat (1986). Video, 27 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery.

Different audiences who found us would respond to us very differently. Because of the nature of what we did, in Hollywood, with a predominantly white audience, maybe a vignette would go on for half hour. If we did the same piece in the ghetto at a festival, it would go on for maybe an hour, maybe longer. Because what would happen is, our characters would interact with audiences in the ghetto and it would become an improvisational political education class, on the spot.

We were very close to the Black Panther Party, and close to couple of other paramilitary groups who would critique our performances. At the same time, there were other black cultural groups from a different political perspective, that were also close. So we became kind of the mouthpiece, able to talk about, and maybe even in some ways, unify certain ideological points of view. And it worked out really cool. We were very successful at what we did, so successful that the FBI took notice. They had some theory, some fear of a united front of black groups, brown groups, and decedent white people who were not on board with their official truth. It was called COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). This was aimed at groups like the Bodacious Buggerrilla, Cesar Chavez, El Teatro Campesino, the New Sudan group out of Texas, probably the San Francisco Mime Troup, and possibly the new Amsterdam Theater in New York. I’ve never gotten around to filing a Freedom of Information Act request on myself. Oh, I know something’s there.

Bodacious Buggerrilla performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Tendai Crutchfield, Alice Cooper, Larry Brussard, Cliff Porter. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious Buggerrilla performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Tendai Crutchfield, Alice Cooper, Larry Brussard, Cliff Porter. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious Buggerrilla performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Tendai Crutchfield, Alice Cooper, Larry Brussard, Cliff Porter. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious Buggerrilla performance, Los Angeles (1970). Performers: Tendai Crutchfield, Alice Cooper, Larry Brussard, Cliff Porter. Image courtesy of Ed Bereal.

Bodacious was more than just a theater group. We had a farm out in San Bernardino, where we would raise our food. We thought the revolution was about ten minutes away. We were very naive. So we were raising food, and animals, to sustain ourselves, if we had to. We also had an extensive program for self-defense, which included not only the members of Bodacious but also our family members. We were doing all that self-defense shit. So the FBI started looking at who and where we were coming from. Eventually, because of “Co-Intel-Pro” and their dirty tricks, Bodacious was starting to be pulled apart. It was becoming very difficult to do our performances anymore.

When I got back into making art in the late ‘80s I was kind of floundering around cause y’know, I left it doing one thing with one mentality, now I’m coming back to it and I’m not even the same guy. So I’m trying to figure it out. What do I want to do? I’m a much more political animal than I was before.

In the recent work, I began to ask myself: “Well, what does Miss America look like, from my side of the street?” Then I’m thinking in terms of all the places I’ve been, and all the killing I’ve seen, and how much American armament is responsible for all of that. I guess I was thinking politics and I was thinking, well, Norman Rockwell. Norman Rockwell is one of the most political artists I know. And I’m looking at this world, that he has fucking created out of space. I understand so you would like things to look like that and be like that, but they aren’t. The only place I ever saw it get close was Ireland. ‘Cause there’s old guys working the train stations that look like Norman Rockwells. He loved turned up shoes, and puppies, and popsicles, and red-noses with freckles on them. He loves all that shit. You can actually find that in Ireland. But I’m going: “I have lived in this world for a long time, and my neighborhood was never like that. It didn’t look like that. And if that’s America, then America’s got several sides to it.” And then I’m thinking in terms of all the places I’ve been, and all the killing I’ve seen, and how much American armament is responsible for all of that. And that don’t look like Norman Rockwell. And I kept getting hung up with the Miss America thing, the symbol for this country. We’ve got symbols: Uncle Sam, and Miss America, a lovely thing with a flag draped over it. And I went “what’s she look like, really, from my point of view?” and that’s when she started to develop in those drawings and so forth.

Right now I’m working on a large piece, called The Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The fifth horseman is corporate capitalism, I think properly so. So I have these great big, five-foot steel letters, which I use as frames/ stretcher bars. The letters spell E-X-X-O-N. And I’m doing a horseman in each one. I started buying gas pumps, physical gas nozzles with the head that you turn on. And if you take a gas nozzle, and you mount it like this, and if you take two hand grenades, and you wire them to the nozzle like this, and you attach one to each one of the letters it translates into five dicks with balls. Inside each letter will be apocalyptical imagery, formed by perforated metals and plastics with halftones to see if I can get that whole visual vibration thing happening. Roughly, that’s it. That’s the immediate project. The medium itself is being born in that piece.

This essay was originally published in Carla issue 5.

Bereal and Boys (2004) Los Angeles. Left to right: Ed Bereal, Joe Goode, Larry Bell, Ed Ruscha, Ron Miyashiro. Photo: Jerry McMillan.

Bereal and Boys (2004) Los Angeles. Left to right: Ed Bereal, Joe Goode, Larry Bell, Ed Ruscha, Ron Miyashiro. Photo: Jerry McMillan.

Ed Bereal with his wife, artist Barbara Sternberger, on their farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal with his wife, artist Barbara Sternberger, on their farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal, Homage to LA: Just a lil Sumpthin for the Kids) (1963-1994). Mixed media, 84 x 63 x 32.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, Homage to LA: Just a lil Sumpthin for the Kids) (1963-1994). Mixed media, 84 x 63 x 32.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, Again (Miss America, George Dubya and the Missing Florida Votes) (2002). Oil on composite material, 40 x 51.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, Again (Miss America, George Dubya and the Missing Florida Votes) (2002). Oil on composite material, 40 x 51.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, Location, Location, Location (Iraq/Afghanistan) (2002). Oil on composite material, 74.75 x 43.75 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, Location, Location, Location (Iraq/Afghanistan) (2002). Oil on composite material, 74.75 x 43.75 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, El Producto, a Plumber's Friend (2002). Graphite and collage on paper, 35.5 x 48 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal, El Producto, a Plumber’s Friend (2002). Graphite and collage on paper, 35.5 x 48 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Harmony Murphy Gallery. Photo: Marten Elder.

Ed Bereal's farm in Bellham, Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal’s farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal on his farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist

Ed Bereal on his farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal on his farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ed Bereal on his farm in Washington. Image courtesy of the artist.