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

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 last for centuries. But in Los Angeles, murals have developed as a street art, punchy and direct, concerned with cultural identity and protest. As a result, they tend to be surprisingly fragile and unstable, subject to abuse, neighborhood change, and the bleaching of an unforgiving sun.
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,…
Artists at Work Last updated: July 15, 2019
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…
Museums in Crisis Last updated: March 14, 2019
A selection of essays, historical documents, interviews and op-eds on the controversial history of museums and patronage in Los Angeles—from early censorship debates, protests, and…
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…
America Deserta Last updated: December 13, 2018
Following Reyner Banham’s classic 1982 travelogue Scenes in America Deserta, this selection of essays, interviews, and historical documents locates the desert as a puzzling critical…
Promoting the Modern Last updated: October 10, 2018
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.…
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.
Hollywood Elegies Last updated: September 15, 2014
“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…