Liz Hirsch

I made out like a bandit this Mother’s Day! 🙏❤️ @joshuasmith1983 @jonas_sk8s @ysa_sk8s @alice_bag @therealofficialhr @macmiller

My obituary for Steven Durland is now up on @hyperallergic , link in bio. Many thanks to @laxmiamin17 and @hakimbishara . The last photo was taken in 2022 by @khallori_ in North Carolina, when Steve was interviewed for @cherigaulke ’s forthcoming film “Acting Like Women.”

24 hours in Atascadero at the serene, sunlit home, studio, and garden of @xtinamcphee and Terry ❤️

I was honored to speak at the Getty yesterday as part of ‘Performance, Protest, Preservation: The Legacy of High Performance Magazine,’ about the artist Jerry Dreva (1945-1997) and his dialogue with HP. The day was filled with excellent talks and performances that packed the house. One gem was being tied to @joshuasmith1983 as part of a reprisal of Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano’s iconic Rope Piece (1983-84). Many thanks to Samuel Vasquez, @curativeprojects , and @leonjh1111 with @pamuseum_ and @glennrphillips and Thisbe Gensler from @gettymuseum . I hit the tag limit but just want to highlight the ‘Performance as Protest’ session speakers: Kathe Kollwitz of the Guerilla Girls, John Malpede of @lapovertydepartment , @osopepatrisse , @heterogeneoushomosexual , moderated by Sarah Russin of @welcometolace .

Next Friday, April 3, the Getty and PAM host a full day conference on the legacy of High Performance magazine. Free, RSVP to reserve your ticket (https://gty.art/highperformance or see bio). I’m slated to speak about Jerry Dreva at 11:35am. This is Dreva photographed by Suzan Carson in front of Cliff Raven’s tattoo parlor on Sunset Boulevard in 1980. It ran on the back cover of High Performance number 9. The feature on Dreva in that issue remains the most extensive coverage on him published in his lifetime, and still one of the most substantial sources on his work. Dreva (1945-1997) was a life artist and founding member of Les Petites Bonbons, “artists‑in‑residence to the glitter scene,” and proto‑punk figures in Los Angeles. His performance ethos, and the broader context HP documented, continues to reverberate decades later. A really great lineup of talks and performances runs throughout the day next Friday. Love to see some of you there. This convening is part of “High Performance”: A 2-Year Conference, a multi-institutional collaboration between @gettymuseum @pamuseum @welcometolace @highwaysps @18thstreetarts Support provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art @terraamericanart

Really special to see @alice_bag perform at @calstatela with @theeexplodingflower , @candohando , and David O. Jones. Surprise appearances from @thebratmedia and @thelindalindas ! Such a good show ♥️

Liz Hirsch (@ouchithirschts )'s & Nora Kovacs (@koranovacs )'s essays "Curating Around Social Urgencies: How Artists Refuse Quietism" and "Smog and Mirrors: The Versatility of Video Art," from our recent issue are online now!⁠ ⁠ Hirsch writes, "Ultimately, the works that linger in the mind are those refusing to let Los Angeles remain an unnamed backdrop by collapsing the distance between form and lived condition. This is not about political virtue, but instead what curatorial framing, or a lack thereof, can activate or dampen."⁠ ⁠ Kovacs writes, "Through experimentations in perspective, light, and movement—and how these elements correspond to memory, history, and place—several artists in Made in L.A. 2025 reveal an image of Los Angeles that is at once glamorous and mundane: a site of constant reinvention, where process becomes a performance in and of itself."⁠ ⁠ Read the full essay online via the link in our Story ★.

Today is my Double‑Twenty‑One, as a friend put it. If you’re able, please click the link in my bio to send help to @rajabalreefi , founder of @gaza_skate_team . Rajab has never left Gaza. He got a hold of a board in 2015 and says discovering skateboarding was “the deepest feeling of freedom” he’d ever known. He’s since taught many people to skate, including his two children. Even now, through the rubble, grief, hunger, you name it. A skate park was built in 2019, but hit by Israeli missiles last year. The concrete is destroyed and it’s covered in shrapnel, but Rajab says it’s still standing and he hopes to rebuild it. What hurts more are the fellow skaters he’s lost these past 29 months, lives taken in the genocide, but he’s committed to Gaza’s kids and its future. I love watching Rajab’s videos, but I learned all of this context from an interview in @thrashermag by @maenster and @kyleseidler and it moved me deeply. @skate_pal has also offered them critical support along the way. My kids have had the immense privilege of skating in peace in beautiful SoCal parks year round. The world is so uneven. They really look up to Rajab, @hamza._.street , and all Gazan skaters, and so do I. If you can, please donate. Long live Gaza Skate Team and Free Palestine.

Steve Durland passed yesterday. He was an artist, writer, and longtime editor of High Performance magazine, founded by Linda Frye Burnham, with whom he shared his life for more than 40 years. This is the cover of a zine Steve made in the late 1970s and mailed to HP. Active in the international mail art network, Steve was in touch with everyone. He had a sharp wit, a love for animals, and a righteous hatred of Reagan and other fascists. Through CETA (the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act), Steve also worked for a year as a community artist in South Dakota, a job he once told me was the best he ever had. He was clear and incisive in his writing and worked with countless artists to support their work and growth. It was wonderful to see Steve and Linda reunited with their family and friends here in Los Angeles in January for the launch of the two-year High Performance conference. Steve kept this E.B. White quote on his website: “I wake each morning torn between the desire to improve the world and the desire to enjoy it. It makes it hard to plan the day.” Rest in peace, Steve. Thanks for improving the world, and enjoying it. Much love to Linda and their family. @sdurland

My review of Made in L.A. 2025 at the Hammer for @contemporaryartreview.la begins with Alonzo Davis’s Eye on ’84, a mural that can only be understood within the political moment that shaped it. Thank you to editors @loosepleasures and @prestochango for helping me articulate a critique of the exhibition’s evasive framing of politically salient works. The February 2026 issue of Carla launches tonight at @vielmetter (5-8pm).

Farewell Bruce (2011-2026). I’m really glad I got to know you. You were very loved.

2025 1 - Honeysuckle 2 - Walking in Chelsea 3 - @joshuasmith1983 at @fanellis 4 - @jonas_sk8s speech about a Free Palestine 5 - @ysa_sk8s at the decks with @nikkis_la 6 - @trace_on_skates and the kids 7 - Walking Ventura Boulevard on @digitalash ’s birthday 8 - Fuck ICE 9 - Jonas with @nervous_gender 10 - Toquillo tote by @chilchotarose 11 - Corita Kent at @marcianoartfoundation 12 - @taniaelk and @ziadaburish at @calartsredcat 13 - Leaf with a red-lacquer tip by @tuckerwonders 14 - I presented @secacart 15 - Ysa dropping in at Venice 16 - @tomataduplenty at @mutmuzgallery 17 - Met my nephew @tommybalsera at @newartdealers Miami 18 - @839gallery and @centralserverworks in Miami 19 - Jonas and Ysa with the Kermit statue at Henson Studios, since relocated to Atlanta 20 - @vineamericanparty location for over 90 years before it moved around the corner to 901 Vine