Two ways to support local arts coverage today
on Giving Tuesday

It’s Giving Tuesday, a global day of generosity to uplift the nonprofits that enrich our lives. Art is meant to be discovered, shared, and experienced — but where do you start? For so many the art world can be elusive, overly-complicated, and unwelcoming. I’ve dedicated my career to breaking down those barriers, contributing to or creating platforms that democratize art for all, and providing entry points that loop people into art's immense creative possibilities. 

I have the pleasure of being a part of two non-profit organizations that offer FREE arts coverage, and today, on Giving Tuesday, it’s a great opportunity to get involved and support. One is KCRW and the other is the quarterly art magazine and non-profit organization I founded in 2015, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, or Carla.

Give to Carla today to join Carla’s vibrant community of members. All of Carla’s content is free, including our quarterly print magazine, and our Club Carla members get each copy of the magazine mailed directly to their door. Every page of Carla is an invitation to explore, reflect, and connect with LA art in a way that feels approachable yet profound. If you give now, your dollar will be matched up to $50,000 by a generous Club Carla member. Plus, our members also get access to connective and artist-focused events and you’ll be entered to win some amazing prizes in our giveaway. Discover perspectives that deepen how we experience art and keep local art coverage free for all! 

Give to KCRW today and we’ll use it to power eclectic tunes, thought-provoking news, and stories that matter. And today only, in celebration of Giving Tuesday, your gift will get a special power-up — your dollars will be doubled, up to $25,000, by KCRW Board Member Madhu Pocha and O’Melveny & Myers.

Support Carla and join the club

Support KCRW and become a member

Vincent Pocsik at Nazarian / Curcio

At Nazarian / Curcio, cactuses sprout into strawberries and sunflowers bend gracefully around beer cans. These surreal gestures are part of Vincent Pocsik’s exhibition Could Be Gardens, an exhibition of wooden sculptural works, each an organic form that blends the natural world with the manmade in surprising and satisfying ways. To carve objects in wood is a laborious process, and material energy comes through these works, asking us to slow down.

Central to the show is Bench with Lemons Hands and Ears, a functional bench aptly described by its title. Given a tufted yellow upholstered seat (with small metal lemons subbing in as buttons), the bench is supported at each end with wooden arms, their hands reaching upward as if waiting to hold a would-be bench sitter. The functionality of this work feels integral to the exhibition — as if inviting the viewer in to imagine themselves within the world that Poscik is creating. In Two Gerberas with Hands, delicately carved flower stems curl in graceful arcs before terminating in a pair of hands — suggesting a deep interconnection between people and nature. Poscik’s wooden creations envision a world where humanity and nature are not at odds but coexist in a symbiotic partnership

On view: November 16th–December 21st | Open map

Arthur Jafa at Sprüth Magers

Arthur Jafa is a photographic collagist, someone who collects pop culture media (photographs, films) and stitches them together in new and reimagined ways. His works across video, appropriated imagery, sculpture, and installation highlight pop and music culture while shining a light on Black history as well as violence in America, thus presenting a revisionist kind of cultural history. 

Across the exhibition at Sprüth Magers, images of music legends like Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Miles Davis, and Michael Jackson can be seen alongside violent crime imagery. Motorcycles are a repeated motif across the exhibition suggesting a kind of rebellious quest for personal freedom. Picture Unit (Structures) II is a room-sized Monolithic maze that includes larger-than-life gritty and pixelated appropriated imagery installed within its minimal and shrine-like environment. Central to the exhibition is BG, a 75-minute film that splices scenes of Taxi Driver together with others that Jafa shot, scenes that flip the violence in the original film to befall Black individuals rather than white ones. Throughout the show, Jafa’s complex blending and representation of cultural touchstones dually honors America’s robust creative and cultural history while unabashedly dovetailing with its violent and racialized past.

On view: September 14th–December 14th, 2024 | Open map

Vincent Pocsik started working with wood 13 years ago, as he says, “by accident.” “I was drawn to wood because it was something my hands just immediately understood, there is an energy stored in the material that I think I feed off of,” Pocsik tells me. 

This energy is also something the artist thinks about in terms of how the viewer interacts with his sculptures — he aims to create pieces that welcome people in. “I see working with function in some of my sculptures as a way of democratizing art, instead of ‘do not touch,’ it’s ‘please touch and take a seat,’” he says. “Also, I think including function in a work can break a barrier between the observer, something may be strange, but if it’s a chair they can understand that first and then be more open to the conceptual ideas at play.”