Entertainment
Chicana feminist Judithe Hernández draws complex humanity at the Cheech
In a revealing video interview that accompanies her captivating 50-year survey at the Riverside Art Museum’s Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, artist Judithe Hernández recounts how she became the anomalous fifth member of Los Four, the groundbreaking L.A. art collective. Following the group’s ambitious 1974 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hernández prevailed upon them to admit her into their ranks.
An activist colleague and friend of Los Four’s Frank Romero, Beto de la Rocha, Gilbert “Magú” Luján and, especially, Carlos Almaraz, the painter with whom she had been among just five Chicano students at Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art & Design), she pressed an irrefutable point: Being all male, Los Four was inherently compromised in its insistence on full Chicano equality in American life. Hernández provided them with a portfolio of her work, so Los Four could see that it was artistically satisfactory.
“She draws like a man,” Los Four approvingly decided, happily accepting her entreaty to join the group. Hernández, in a deadpan recounting of that rationale in the video, offers up an affectionate and knowing smile.
The wry anecdote underscores two qualities of her work that run throughout “Judithe Hernández: Beyond Myself, Somewhere, I Wait for My Arrival” at the Cheech. First, a feminist framework structures everything. Second, drawing is fundamental. The exhibition demonstrates, as if proof were needed, that social activism and individual artistic freedom are anything but incompatible.
In more than 80 drawings and several sketchbooks, which date from the 1970s to the present, women are almost always pictured. Men turn up in just a tiny handful — a 2010 series on the Christian origin story of Adam and Eve — but only to clarify the structural foundations of routine, often unacknowledged chauvinism.
Adam’s body is a chilly blue in Judithe Hernández’s 2010 series on the Genesis origin story, “Adam and Eve.”
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
She renders Adam as a veritable boy-toy, handsome and naked, like a Madison Avenue model picked to sell cologne. Hernández often employs iconic compositions for her work, with just one or two figures shown frontally or in profile and located in a shallow, often decorative space. In “The Surrender of Adam,” the first man reclines naked in a tangle of deep green vegetation, Eden now a knot of San Pedro cactus.
In “The Birth of Adam,” he lies on a ground strewn with pebbles and lily pads, born of the soil that gave him his name (the Hebrew adamah). His eyes are shut, a flower pressed against his chest. His skin is blue, at once chilly but also the color of divine favor, from Hinduism’s Vishnu to Christianity’s mantle for the Virgin Mary.
“The Beginning of Sin” shows Adam from behind lying stock-still on top of Eve, his arms spread wide across the page and beyond its edges, in what can only be described as a prophecy of crucifixion. With her arms wrapped around him, she wears the mask of a luchador — a theatrical Mexican professional wrestler — crowned with branching horns. It’s like Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait as a wounded deer but without any injurious arrows to be seen. This Eve is robust, not distressed. She’s no martyr.
Lying on her back, she stares straight past Adam’s adjacent head and into the viewer’s eyes, wholly indifferent to the deadly red-and-black striped coral snake slithering nearby. Her lips are as crimson as the demonic serpent. Hernández is a brilliant colorist, the vivid hues sometimes functioning in suggestive symbolic mode while always reveling in pure decorative joy.
The decorative element is as feminist as her subject. For whatever reason, a pejorative implication always shrouded decoration in the modern era — even around such an important artist as Matisse. (It’s one reason Matisse was foolishly regarded for so long as secondary to Picasso.) But not here. Hernández, like other artists as different from her and from one another as Valerie Jaudon and Merion Estes, empowers decoration in the service of empowering women. She remade the Genesis story into a colorful visual narrative of complex humanity, rather than a fall from grace.
Judithe Hernández, “Soy la Desconocida,” 2022, pastel on paper.
(Riverside Art Museum)
Hernández was born in Los Angeles in 1948. At 22, her arrival at Otis coincided with the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, the huge antiwar demonstration in East L.A. that forged a broad-based coalition of Mexican American groups in opposition to the Vietnam conflict. Her mentor at Otis was Charles White, the esteemed Black artist whose 1946 study with David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera at Mexico City’s Taller de Gráfica Popular (the People’s Print Workshop) cemented his commitment to socially and politically conscious graphic art.
The exhibition, organized by the museum’s artistic director, María Esther Fernández, is divided into four loosely thematic sections, rather than unfolding in a strict chronology. “The Evolution of the Female Archetype” is the closest to providing background — unfortunately, publication of a reference catalog is not expected until the fall — with observant if generally uninspiring genre scenes of humdrum daily life.
Next comes “Ni una más: Bearing Witness,” which gets up to speed fast. The section emphasizes work related to the shocking serial murders of women in and around the Mexican border city of Juarez, which has seen bloodshed for more than 30 years. (Appropriately, in September the Hernández survey will travel to the El Paso Museum of Art, just across the border from Juarez.) “Reimagining Eve” then pictures women as something other than subordinates — forget about Adam’s rib — while a final gallery marked by hallucinatory and dreamlike probing looks at the “Surrealist Landscape” as a dominant psychic, sociocultural context for Hernández. The organization works well.
Hers is a world where logic does not reign, independence is essential and the unconscious is a mechanism for self-knowledge. Mysterious outside forces are evoked by a red hand that, in numerous works, intrudes on the scene from the picture’s edge. The fateful hand reaches toward Eve on her final night before expulsion from the garden, for example, and elsewhere wields a knife blade to cut a flower rising from the sea next to a floating body.
One lush drawing shows a woman sleeping on the ground before a formidable wall of prickly pear cactus, an entangled piñata floating above like a tantalizing, delight-filled dream that is just out of reach. In the United States, California has always held promises of self-reinvention, and Hernández brings Chicana feminism into the enterprise.
More than 80 pastel drawings are in the 50-year Judithe Hernández retrospective at the Cheech.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Mexican mysticism, inflected by pre-Columbian and Catholic cultures, informs much of the work. Most notably, the young woman standing before a hot pink wall in the coming-of-age icon “Juarez Quinceanera” sports enormous Aztec spools in her ears. The spools frame her mask-like open mouth, decorating voids in the human skull that signaled the soul’s vivacity in pre-Columbian culture. She’s crowned with an elaborate, off-kilter sculptural headdress reminiscent of the dragon-like feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, the creator deity. A pair of calla lilies grasped in her hands acknowledges fertility.
Yet amid all the elaborate cultural festivity around the girl’s arrival at womanhood, there’s a sobering catch. White is the traditional color for an extravagant quinceanera dress, but hers is a funeral black. Behind her she casts a looming dark shadow against the bright pink wall. The fateful red hand that intrudes into other works here smears blood on that wall, as if left behind by a slumping body. For “Juarez Quinceanera,” life and death collide and intertwine.
What makes this and many other Hernández works especially compelling is their medium. These are drawings. The show surveys pastels, their details sometimes inflected with colored pencil, meticulously drawn on large sheets of paper or canvas. Hernández gives her drawings a scale more commonly encountered in easel paintings, but the form is marked by a visual intimacy different from paint applied with a brush. Drawing is about touch, the hand pressed directly to the sheet. Touch holds your eye, inviting close scrutiny.
Hernández is often referred to as a painter, and she has in fact painted numerous public murals. Yet, like her late mentor Charles White, drawing represents her most powerful gift. The urgency of her subject matter is given voice. Hernández doesn’t draw like a man; she draws like an important artist.
Judithe Hernández, “Santa Desconocida,” 2016, pastel on paper.
(Riverside Art Museum)
‘Judithe Hernández: Beyond Myself, Somewhere, I Wait for My Arrival’
Where: The Cheech Marin Center at the Riverside Art Museum, 3581 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside
When: Through Aug. 4. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. 12 p.m.–5 p.m. Sunday
Info: (951) 684-7111, www.riversideartmuseum.org
The sixth outing in the director’s chair for filmmaker Kirk Jones, I Swear dramatizes the real-life story of touretter John Davidson (played by Robert Aramayo). Tourette’s Syndrome, for those unfamiliar with the condition, is a nervous system disorder that causes various tics, the most prolific being erratic and explicit language. However, as I Swear expertly showcases, the syndrome is far more than ill-timed outbursts of curse words. Davidson’s story is one of societal frustration, finding your people (both with and without the condition), and using your voice to help others rise. The subject and subject matter are handled with absolute care and understanding under Kirk’s measured vision and Robert Aramayo’s BAFTA-winning performance.
The film kicks off with the greatest exclamation to democracy ever uttered (*%#! the Queen!), as a nervous John Davidson prepares himself before entering an awards ceremony hosted by Britain’s royal family. Right away, the film tells us what it is: a triumph over adversity that blends humor and human drama with education. It’s an important setup, as the film flashes back to Davidson’s 1980s youth, where we see his time as a star soccer recruit flatline as his condition takes hold. Davidson’s life spirals from there. Some aspects, like school bullying and accidental run-ins with authority figures, are expected but important to empathizing with young Davidson’s (young version, played with heart by Scott Ellis Watson) new everyday life. The more tragic, a complete meltdown of his family system, is unsettling if quick. His father (Steven Cree) is never given enough screen time to explore his alcohol coping tendencies. However, his mother Heather’s descent into easy fixes and blaming is crushing and convincing. Harry Potter series actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) gives a layered performance as Heather. Someone who loves her son, but also feels cursed by him as the entire family exits the picture. It’s bitter, she’s tired, and fills each conversation with ‘only medication and your mother can save you’ energy.
From there, the viewer and Davidson find refuge in a host of characters. Maxine Peake plays Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend and a retired mental health nurse. Screen vet Peter Mullan plays maintenance man Tommy Trotter. Together, they help Davidson build a life and an understanding of himself that carries the film forward into its second half. After that, the film is primarily a 3-actor show as director Kirk fills the screen with these tour-de-force performances. Peake and Mullan are great vessels to get the film’s main message across: patience, love, and a shared responsibility between the diagnosed and those who understand their struggle can help change the path for people quickly left behind by a normative world. Together, they are the soul of the movie, with the filmmakers clearly hoping the audience will follow their lead after they exit the theater (in my case, the beautiful Oriental Theater for the Milwaukee Film Festival). Both performances are perfectly warm and reflective and shouldn’t be left out in discussions of I Swear.
I say this because the movie is anchored by The Rings of Power actor Robert Aramayo, who leaves Elrond’s elf ears behind to bring an acute naturalism to his performance of main character John Davidson. Aramayo’s physicality and timing of the fitful Tourettes Syndrome never feel out of place or overplayed. In fact, the movie as a whole does an amazing job of never veering into sentimentality. While many moviegoers left with tissues dabbing their eyes, the filmmaking never felt like it was forcing that reaction out of audiences. It straddles the line between feel-good and reality with every story beat and lands squarely on the side of letting the real inform our feelings. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will grasp the film’s message and hopefully take it with them into life.
I Swear continues at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Tuesday, April 21st, and releases nationwide April 24th, 2026, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Several private equity firms and Hollywood power players, including United Talent Agency and longtime agent Patrick Whitesell, have expressed interest in buying parts of Casey Wasserman’s music and sports management firm after it abruptly went up for sale.
Wasserman became ensnared in controversy earlier this year after his salacious decades-old emails to Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, were released as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s trove of Epstein files.
The agency auction is in the early stages, according to three people close to the process but not authorized to comment.
Earlier this week, several interested parties submitted proposals to meet a preliminary deadline in the auction, two of the sources said.
The company, which changed its name to the Team last month, is expected to be valued at around $3 billion.
Providence Equity Partners holds the majority stake. The private equity firm has discussed selling the entire company or carving off Wasserman’s minority interest. Providence also has considered selling the bulk of the firm and staying on as a minority investor, one of the sources said. Another scenario could involve separating, then selling the individual business units that make up the Team.
Wasserman and Providence’s company boasts an enviable roster of music artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. Its sports marketing practice is viewed as particularly lucrative and has potential to grow in value as big dollars flow into sports that draw large crowds.
Wasserman, who declined to comment, has a veto right over any sale of the company that he has spent a quarter of a century building.
UTA, which also declined to comment, is among the most aggressive suitors, the sources said. The Team’s sports marketing and music representation divisions would dramatically boost the Beverly Hills agency’s profile and client roster.
Whitesell, former executive chairman of Endeavor, separately has been motivated to make investments in sports, media and entertainment since last year when he left the talent agency that he and Ari Emanuel built. Whitesell launched a new firm with seed money from private equity firm Silver Lake, and last spring he started WIN Sports Group to represent professional football players.
Whitesell wasn’t immediately available for comment.
European investment firm Permira also has expressed interest, according to a knowledgeable source. Permira declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported that Permira, UTA and Whitesell had expressed interest.
The sales process is expected to stretch into summer, the knowledgeable people said. The auction could become complicated particularly if Providence decides to unwind the business.
For example, UTA could not buy the entire company because of the Brillstein television unit. The agency is bound by an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that prevents it from owning television production.
Investment bank Moelis & Company is managing the sale. A representative of the firm declined comment.
Wasserman also is the chairman of LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years.
Following revelations of Wasserman’s 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.
Wasserman apologized to his staff for “past personal mistakes” and said he would sell the agency.
He had limited dealings with Epstein, flying on the financier’s jet along with former President Clinton for a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa.
Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose legendary grandfather, Hollywood titan Lew Wasserman, helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein, Maxwell — who was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021 — and others, including security agents.
The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, citing his “strong leadership” of the Games.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
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