An abstraction made from reclaimed lath board by Kinetic Tornado (in benefit of the Konbit Shelter Project).

Jaguar, by Oranit Solomonov.

A full view of Rome, ca. 1970, by the Rev. Samuel David Phillips.

Cowboy Talk, 2008, by Fort Guerin.

John Mullins? (Forgot to note the wall text…)

Untitled (from Gainesville, FL), by Jessie Aaron (1887-1979).

Returning Soldier, 1973, by Purvis Young.

Canton Ginger II, 2010 by Gerard Cambon.

Magnolia Park, by Harry Underwood.

Untitled, by Thornton Dial.

Seenarella Inner Limits by William Scott.

The Outsider Art Fair went down in Manhattan this past weekend, featuring good stuff by outsider and folk artists from all over. Saw some very lovely stuff.

The Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (MADC) in San Jose, Costa Rica is the single biggest, most important center for contemporary art in Central America — with a permanent collection that is focused on the region. I’ve been to the museum countless times, but this time I was lucky enough to stumble into a show of works from their permanent collection. (It’s a small institution, so display areas are usually occupied by temporary exhibits.) Always refreshing to see work by artists operating outside of the Bermuda Art Triangle.

Colección MADC is now on view.

The anecdotes written on Ruiz’s handkerchiefs were wrenching. This one was about a group of people forced to leave an old man to his fate in the hands of the military.

Escaleras blandas, 2003, by Sila Chanto, a Costa Rican artist.

Altar, by Miguel Romero, from Honduras.

A detail of Romero’s Altar.

An installation by Venezuelan artist Maria Elena Alvarez, Observatorio, from 1999.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the wall text on this. The cubes were covered in lists of names from white pages telephone books.

Pasos Pintados de Calle y Azul Cielo, 2003, by Pedro Arrieta, from Costa Rica.

Michele Brody’s Garden-Forest, from 2000. I’m sure that one day this is how humanity will admire all nature.

The exhibit contained a typographic animation by Francisco Munguía called DJ Pulp. The above is a similar animation the artist put up on YouTube. To see what was on display at the museum, click here.

Salida, by Gustavo Araujo, from Panama.

The Avanti, designed in 1961 by Raymond Loewy. I would wear my lobster swimsuit while I drove this around.

A pamphlet advertising the City of Lakewood — L.A.’s first planned community. Speaking of which, if you haven’t read D.J. Waldie’s Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, then get on it. He covers this very subject.

Wish they’d had these in the gift shop. I’d look so grand in a pair of 1940 hostess pajamas designed by Addie Masters.

I would wear them while lounging in front of this 1941 sombrero textile. I mean, seriously! This is making me covet a little Spanish revival architectural number to go with.

And guess what I’d have parked in the driveway? This little 1936 Clipper courtesy of Airstream.

And when I wasn’t wearing my pajamas, I’d be wearing this little number: The 1942 “Swoon Suit” by Margaret Fellegi.

Or perhaps this two-piece dress from 1950 by Gilbert Adrian. The sort of thing that goes with some sort of citrus-and-rye cocktail.

Okay, so maybe California design wasn’t all retro cool. See Evil, Hear Evil, Speak to the FBI by Fujiye Fujikawa, c. 1942.

California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way is on view at LACMA through June 3, 2012.

Find more pix on my Flickr.

As I’m sure you’ve well read by now, the Willem de Kooning retrospective at MoMA is all kinds of gangbusters. I’m not going to get into some dissertation about what he and his work signified, because I think there have been plenty of those — among them, the comprehensive 500-page catalogue. But I did want to highlight one of the aspects of the show I really dug: the black and white paintings from the late 1940s — mainly because I’m a sucker for black and white, but also because they seem to revel in a certain gritty New York City-ness (that seems to no longer exist). They also look like a type of proto-graffiti, what Jed Perl describes in New Art City in the following way: “De Kooning’s nitty-gritty New York was all knock-you-in-the-teeth actualities, all surprising particulars: the dramatically contrasted sizes of adjacent buildings, the abandoned lots and demolition sites, the oil stains and graffiti on the pavements, the reflections of neon signs on wet streets.”

This is also an opportunity to pimp my podcasts on New York City in the time of the Abstract Expressionists. Many more pictures after the jump.

de Kooning: A Retrospective is on view through January 9 at the Museum of Modern Art.

Dark Pond, 1948.

Night Square, 1949.

Black Untitled, 1948.

Untitled, 1949-49.

Black Friday, 1948.

Orestes, 1947.

Zurich, 1947.