Every woman makes a decision, even by not making one, on what lengths she'll go to uphold her youth and beauty, whether for herself or someone else. In Rachel Hovnanian's current "Power and Burden of Beauty" at the Jason McCoy Gallery, her installation includes drawings, sculptures and film stills...

Rebecca Campbell, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, 2009, avocado tree, steel, velvet, and fiberglass, Windex, glass, and bronze, 13' x 16 ' x 18', image courtesy of LA Louver Gallery

There is a passage in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables...

Luscious. Naughty. Saturated. Decadent.
Such is the moment we are immersed in when we stand in front of the art of Marilyn Minter. Los Angelenos can be in that moment when her show opens at the Regen Projects Gallery this Saturday night. Just like the oozing green je...

My father, Leonard Shlain, passed away three weeks ago. I wrote about the vigil my family had been holding for him the night before he died.

We buried him the next day in a plain unlined pine box -- a green burial -- in a beautiful hillside that...

Sunday, May 10

As I write this, my father, Leonard Shlain, is dying of a brain tumor. A couple of weeks or months ago, I might have said "living with a brain tumor." But now that is just not the case. I write from the top floor of the...

In 2005 during the Avian Flu hysteria, I wrote a column here called "Curb The Avian Flu: Lose the American Handshake". I had just come back from living in India with my family and found myself enthralled with the practice of Namaste -- pressing both palms together and making a...

Every now and then an artist so vividly articulates a quiet fear that it takes my breath away. Fresh from the celebration of Earth Day, a year long celebration, I wanted to share with you "Deep North" by artist Chris Larson.

Chris Larson,...

My first real introduction to inane plastic over-usage was having children. There's nothing quite like the mountains of toys and bits and pieces that only seem to be enjoyed during the "opening" portion of a birthday present. Then I'd notice curiously that my kids would receive far more hours of...

As I navigate the web, both as an artist and a new media person, I think about the images we use to present ourselves. Other than movie stars and professional personalities such as Oprah and Martha, real estate agents were actually the first profession to use headshots as...

There is a riot of color issuing forth from the First Lady's closet and I cannot wait to see what she wears next. Say what you will about whether or not it was "appropriate" to wear a cardigan to meet the Queen or whether that balloon skirt was flattering, Michelle...

I walk into Paul Kopeikin's new gallery in West Hollywood and what do I see? I see the fantasies (realities?) of Iran and North Korea. I see Alan Greenspan's testimony that he found a "a flaw in the model ... that defines how the world works." I see the...

My parents divorced when I was fourteen and I used to play evil tricks on my father for the years he was dating and I still lived at home. When a woman called and said "Is Lenny there?" I would say in the sexiest voice "No, I'm sorry, he's busy...

I didn't expect to laugh as hard as I did when I watched Will Farrell's "Your Welcome, America" this Saturday night featuring himself as George Bush. It felt great.

It is almost the sixth anniversary of the start of shock and awe campaign of the Iraq war this...

We are fresh from the loud popping noise of yet another bubble, where cash once coursed through veins and every other day a headline included "The Gilded Age" with a colon after it, no doubt documenting yet another one hundred room mansion in the Hamptons with it's own heliport, usually...

I received an email recently notifying me that I was "tagged" in a facebook entry called "25 Things You Don't Know About Me" from an old friend. We actually went on a few dates many many years ago and I haven't seen him in about three years, but we've remained...

We've come a long way since books were hand copied treasures mostly locked behind the libraries of the monastaries by the clergy before Gutenberg set them free with his printing press. Books, arguably the most revolutionary technology to hit the scene before the internet, allowed our brains to short circuit...

"When I have something to say that is too difficult for adults, I write for children. They have not closed the shutters. They like it when you rock the boat." - Madeline L'Engle

During a time when we are passing bills the size of mountains that our children and...

Every weekend morning, my friend, writer Karen Clark and I take our dogs for a long walk along Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. We talk about our work, listen to each others dreams, talk about our children, our families, the meaning of life.

This Saturday, as we walked I...

I just returned from attending Miami Basel for the first time and a week later all I can still say is WOW.

In seven short years Miami Basel has become one of America's most important art fairs with a huge international audience and it turns out that the...

If every cell in my body had a face, it would resemble that of Edvard Munch's "The Scream", with each of the mouths getting wider and wider until November 4th is over with.

As an artist, I have, like the rest of my...