Top ten art shows of 2011

1. Kenneth Anger at the LAMOCA. Wow! What a cool installation this was. His films were projected on screens hanging in a eerie red room with big red curtains. The man is the father of subversive filmmaking, and it's about time he had a retrospective!

2. "Art in the Streets" at the Geffen Contemporary, Los Angeles. This was a great, crowded survey of graffiti art movements. The installations were over the top!

3. Michael C. McMillen "Train of Thought" at the Oakland Museum. What a treat to see a retrospective of McMillen's installations, paintings and films. It was like being transported into a haunted trailer park in the middle of a museum.

4. Ann Magnuson performs at the SFMOMA! Magnuson put on a dazzling performance of David Bowie and Jobriath songs, interspersed with her psychedelic monologues. She really utilized the dynamic museum entry space to full effect. It was like a rocknroll version of a Kenneth Anger film.


5. Nicole Eisenman at Suzanne Vielmetter gallery, Los Angeles. Great selection of new, large scale narrative paintings by the master! I felt really lucky to see this show.

6. "Five Car Stud, 1969-1972 Revisited" by Ed Keinholz at the LA County Museum. This powerful installation about racial hatred has been in storage for 40 years and now is finally restored and displayed beautifully at the museum. Being able to walk through this life-size piece is so unnerving. You look right into the eyes of the creeps.

7. Tracey Snelling "Ten Year Retrospective" at Rena Bransten gallery, San Francisco. It was such a treat to see so much of her detailed, intricate work all in one space. She combines sculptural constructions with film and photography to create a realistic looking fantasy world of strangeness.

8. William Leavitt "Theater Objects" at the MOCA, Los Angeles. I loved his painting of the Olive Motel.

9. "Hell" by Robyn O'Neil. I was lucky enough to see this epic artwork in person, which took her years of work to complete. It is three massive panels of graphite drawing, with thousands of hand-drawn cut-out figures forming the mountain shapes in this desolate landscape.

10. Matt Borruso at Steven Wolf gallery, San Francisco. I loved these intricate, sci-fi collages and his disturbing yet delicate drawings of deformed faces. Also, his film on display in this show was a two-panel projection of cinematic fight scenes on the subject of vision.