Our collections are curated sets of material that explore topics chosen by the editors.

America Deserta Last updated: June 12, 2025
Following Reyner Banham’s classic 1982 travelogue Scenes in America Deserta, this selection of essays, interviews, and historical documents locates the desert as a puzzling critical…
Artists at Work Last updated: June 3, 2025
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…
Hollywood Elegies Last updated: February 26, 2025
“On the hill, giant letters spell ‘Hollywoodland,’ but this is only another advertisement. It is silly to say that Hollywood, or any other city, is…
Coming Out at Night Last updated: September 5, 2024
For as long as they have existed, gay and lesbian bars have been vital pillars for the LGBTQ+ community. By nature they are ephemeral, strained…
A School Based on What Artists Wanted to Do: Early Years at CalArts Last updated: October 27, 2021
CalArts was created as a legal entity in 1961 and slowly came into being during the following decade. It began offering classes in 1970 and…
Utopia For Some Last updated: October 26, 2021
Since the Gold Rush Americans have been traveling across country to California in search of a better life; seeking riches, health, or spiritual transcendence. A…
Deep Like the Rivers Last updated: October 26, 2021
From the 1910s onwards, in response to the Jim Crow regime in the Southern States, Black Americans began to move north in increasing numbers, and…
Getting the Word Out: Artists' Magazines in Los Angeles Last updated: February 15, 2021
Throughout the 20th Century artists across the globe staked out claims and arguments in small run publications, “little magazines” and manifestos. We can think of…
Promoting the Modern Last updated: June 7, 2020
It is easy to forget that Los Angeles didn’t have an art museum until the mid-1960s. Movies were big business, but art was marginalized, distrusted.…
Museums in Crisis Last updated: May 12, 2020
The idea of the dedicated art museum came late to Los Angeles – LACMA, the County Museum of Art, was incorporated as a stand-alone entity…
The Real City Last updated: August 13, 2019
As Los Angeles grew from small town to major city during the 20th Century, it became a living laboratory for all aspects of urban design,…
The Experimental Impulse Last updated: August 13, 2019
In conjunction with The Experimental Impulse exhibition, presented at REDCAT as part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA, 1945-1980, this selection of commissioned essays,…
Against the Wall Last updated: July 3, 2019
From Renaissance Italy to post-Revolutionary Mexico, mural painting has been understood as a privileged art form that revels in grand, philosophical narratives, carefully built to…
Second Life Last updated: December 13, 2018
For our Second Life series, we work with writers and publishers to present selected essays, magazines, ephemera, and other previously published material that is out…
Some Place Chronicles Last updated: August 6, 2018
The Some Place Chronicles is a creative placemaking project set in four unincorporated communities of Los Angeles County. Numerous and varied engagements with the people…
Epic Waves Last updated: July 31, 2017
Experiments in broadcast media.