I’m working on a new series of large oil paintings depicting the ubiquitous palm trees of Los Angeles, set on fire and blazing away against L.A.’s photochemical sunsets. The works allude to the intrinsic wildness of my city, where every year the surrounding hills are swept by fire, a phenomenon experienced by no other major metropolis on earth. It is…
On April 13, 2025, the antediluvian punk rock band from Los Angeles, the Circle Jerks, performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Singer Keith Morris, a co-founder of the Jerks, told the concert goers: “What we do encourage, what would be totally f**king happening, would be an army of Luigis!“ Keith Morris founded the Circle Jerks in 1979,…
Storefront for Art and Architecture is a non-profit organization in New York that prides itself on being one of that city’s few alternative groups focused upon architecture and urban design. Established in 1982, the group seeks to advance innovative architecture through education, artist’s talks, film screenings, forums, and exhibitions. For the first time the group is conducting an event outside…
Back in early September of 2005 I received an e-mail from Columbia Pictures that expressed their desire to use one of my artworks in the film, The Pursuit of Happyness. The letter politely informed me that the studio was interested in my “Free South Africa poster and using it as background set dressing in the movie.” At the time the…
“People are crushed under the wardrobe. Without lifting up the wardrobe it is impossible to deliver whole peoples from their endless and unbearable suffering. It is terrible that even one person should be crushed under such a weight: to want to breathe, and not be able to. The wardrobe rests on everybody, and everyone tries to lift up the wardrobe,…
In January of 2002, then Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft, censored a pair of classic Art Deco statues located in the Great Hall of the Justice Department. I wrote about this ridiculous act of Taliban-like extremism at the time it happened. Ashcroft, a Christian fundamentalist, was made terribly uncomfortable by the statues. In order to protect western…
