My theory is Los Angeles, a fractured but vibrant city full of people from elsewhere, all grasping for a voice and a firm identity amongst its contingent and fickle spaces, matches the nature of the arts in general at the moment. L.A. is a free-for-all and so is contemporary art.

When artist Steve Cruz decided he wanted to open an art gallery that provided an alternative space for underrepresented artists, he didn’t really have a business plan. Instead, Cruz says, he started with an amalgamation of loose ideas coupled with blind impulse.

Art Review
Polly Lanning Sparrow and Leslie Wilkes at the Barry Whistler Gallery

Art Review
In The Finest Tradition at Light and Sie, and The Face of Texas at Photographs Do Not Bend, photographers Daniel Mirer and Michael O’Brien use portraiture to talk about the relationship between individuals and space.

Art Review
A Meadows Museum exhibit highlights the controversial cubist phase of storied Mexican artist Diego Rivera.

Art Review
An estranged identity unveils through stereotypes and pop culture in The Return of the Yellow Peril: A Survey of the Work of Roger Shimomura, 1969–2007 at The Crow Collection of Asian Art

Art Review
Heyd Fontenot’s figures in the show Get Your Wood On at the Conduit Gallery play an interesting card: they are entirely self-absorbed, not in it for the pleasure of the act so much as the
gaze of an audience.

ART DIALOGUE
Peter and Lucia Simek discuss Jelf Zilm’s cinematic creations in 7023629730 at Marty Walker Gallery and the group show Femme Fatale at Holly Johnson Gallery, featuring the work of five female artists: Virginia Fleck, Sharon Louden, Kim Cadmus Owens, Kim Squaglia, and Sarah Walker.

Photo Essay
The original Parkland Hospital on the corner of Maple and Oaklawn once housed a mental ward, a morgue, quarantined tuberculosis and chronic illness patients, and served as overflow jail space for Dallas County’s corrections department before it was finally shuttered in 1975.

If D Magazine Publisher Wick Allison finds I took his editorial about D Art Slam personally, it was only insofar as I am sensitive to the delicate balance that exists between art-making and art-selling and the strange complexities that marry the two.