Inspired by the long sequence of interviews with writers, Writers at Work, that has been a feature of The Paris Review since George Plimpton first persuaded E.M. Forster to talk about the way he went about his work, these interviews, conversations and profiles will seek to examine the reality of studio practice and the particular kinds of decision-making that artists confront on a daily basis.
In the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, in an abandoned carport at one end of Tipton Way, a spontaneous memorial to the artist Mike Kelley bloomed soon after the news of his death, growing in the hours, days and weeks that followed.
For nearly fifteen years, Los Angeles–based video artist Michele O’Marah has handcrafted Hollywood remakes and other genre riffs that not only pay a loving homage to their sources and subjects, but also possess a bite sharp enough to pop the hot air out of them.
In 1965, when Larry Bell arrived in New York from Southern California to begin work on the exhibition at the Pace Gallery that would define his career, Minimal art was in full swing. At that time most of the major artists associated with this movement were in New York. The galvanized-steel cubes of Judd, the L-shaped beams of Morris, the die-cut “alloy planes” of Andre...
In 1973, artist Lloyd Hamrol and a group of students constructed Woven Cone, a teepee shaped rope sculpture, on a rise overlooking the rear parking area of the CalArts campus in Valencia, CA. The piece stood there as an iconic presence until this past summer, when it was dismantled following the discovery of a severe termite infestation. Hamrol came to the campus to remember his experiences...
Artist Tom Marioni is best known for early Conceptual works such as The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art (1970), and as the founder of the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA), one of the first alternative art spaces in the United States, which he opened in 1970 and directed until its closure in 1984. He published the first issue of Vision , an extraordinary publication which lasted for only six issues, in 1975. Both MOCA and Vision helped to define new forms of art making and connect artists experimenting in a site-specific or performative vein. Here, Marioni recounts the story of Vision 36 years later.
In 1962, Jean Tinguely was invited by NBC to visit and make an artwork in Las …
"LevelFive is a participatory performance by Brody Condon focused on critically exploring self actualization seminars from …
"An inscription, given to me by a Japanese calligrapher, has hung on my studio wall in …
"Al Ruppersberg is my favorite young artist. This might be an absurd way to describe someone …
A look at Chris Burden's kinetic sculpture in progress, filmed in 2009 at the artist's studio …
From the Los Angeles Times: "In this 1954 photo, Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman unload the kiln …
Theo Ehret spent a good twenty years, beginning in the sixties, as a professional photographer in …
Beatrice Wood (1893-1998) spent the last decades of her colorful life in Ojai, some hundred miles …
Jay DeFeo (1929-1989) was a visual artist and central figure of the Beat Generation in San …
"I really wasn't aware of how flamboyant it ["The Rose"] had become. I had been so …
Artist Monique Prieto interviewed by Thomas Lawson, October 2006.
Second Life
Hollywood Elegies