Art criticism hasn’t evolved since the 60s. I keep saying this and no one seems to understand. People complain about this regression in art, that there’s no avant-garde – we see artists going back to abstraction, to Bonnard, even to early aughts Reena, it’s true – but look at the writers: they’re even worse. They just want to be modernists.

TESS POLLOK: What are your favorite galleries in LA right now? Favorite recent shows?

DIVA CORP: The best stuff right now is online, or at least in the real world. Like there’s this Twitch streamer named… I think it’s JelloHaze420, or something. He’s 19 and the whole thing is him trying to get hit by cars in Nevada or Fresno or wherever he lives. Most of the stream, sometimes all of it – three, four hours – is really just this cross between wandering and wondering and really, really low-grade panic. Like a mix between slow cinema and shock jock radio. Don Imus and Apichatpong. And there’s this immateriality to it, too, because he keeps getting banned for, like, graphic content, because if he does get hit it’s pretty violent… so he’s always making new accounts. Maybe that’s art, I don’t know. I don’t think he cares.

POLLOK: How did Diva Corp get started? [Can you reveal] how many of you are there?

DIVA CORP: I don’t really know. We were writing a script at one point, like a movie script, I know that. That’s why we use Courier New. It was this like Douglas Sirk melodrama type thing, set in the LA art world. The B-plot was this group of writers who go out a lot, to Prado or whatever, and drink and smoke at one of those little tables on the sidewalk and pretend like they’re Gore Vidal. Someone in the story calls them ‘the divas,’ one of the main characters… So, anyway, this is probably boring. It sounds like I’m pitching a movie. Maybe let’s move on.

POLLOK: Why is a decentralized space for art criticism important to you?

DIVA CORP: I hadn’t considered it.

POLLOK: What do you think about contemporary art in LA compared to other cities? What makes LA unique/why do you love it?

DIVA CORP: LA’s pretty untethered and I love it. I think there’s this respect for art, but also a disregard for it, in LA, at least historically. This is how art should be, always the two in tandem… balanced, but not equal. Recently though I think people are just too worried about art, their position in art history, all that. There’s even a bunch of people now who, like, go around talking about aesthetics and Adorno and Michael Fried… you know, really nothing they’ve ever read, let alone understand. And then the work they get excited about is like knock-off Giacomettis and low-rate abstraction. I really, honestly – I really hate these people, and I hate their ideas. Because they’re flattening art. And they’re flattening LA. And if they want to act like that then they should just move to New York City already, where those ideas are more welcome. And some of them have. And we wish them well.

POLLOK: Who are some of your favorite emerging contemporary artists?

DIVA CORP: He’s not emerging per se but recently I’ve been really into this guy Patrick Painter. He was a dealer in LA. He drove a fleet of Lamborghinis and wore fur coats and smoked backwoods. And he’s Irish. This is art, and this is the type of dealer we need. It’s what we’re lacking.

Who else… I don’t know. I like anyone who just sort of seems to be messing around and then pulls it all together at the last second. With a little magic energy. Zoe Alameda, maybe? Michael Bala, Nicole-Antonia Spagnola. Win McCarthy in New York… I like Negashi Armada’s music project. John Pelech is doing good stuff, too.

Are these artists “emerging”? Maybe not… I also like the people at Timeshare, even though they’re like the polar opposite of what I’m talking about. So like, Ines Kivimaki maybe…

POLLOK: What would you be doing if you weren't running Diva Corp?

DIVA CORP: I really like alternate reality games, so I’d probably be trying to solve those. Or I’d be making them.

POLLOK: What do you see as some of the drawbacks or pitfalls of art criticism?

DIVA CORP: Art criticism hasn’t evolved since the 60s. I keep saying this and no one seems to understand. People complain about this regression in art, that there’s no avant-garde – we see artists going back to abstraction, to Bonnard, even to early aughts Reena, it’s true – but look at the writers: they’re even worse. They just want to be modernists. The form, the medium, it never evolves… and they definitely don’t care about audience. At a certain point you have to ask: why are you even doing this? It’s, like, John Kelsey pastiche or something. And I love John Kelsey. But what these writers are doing is not criticism, and it’s certainly not compelling as art.

POLLOK: What are some publications you admire for criticism and essays? What do you read when you're looking to learn about contemporary art?

DIVA CORP: I don’t think very highly of any publication. Texte zur Kunst is good, I guess, because it’s thorough. Artillery for LA. But I’d be lying if I said I read them regularly, let alone anyone’s Substack… though, you know, does anyone read anyone’s Substack?... Sometimes I do look at Aria Dean’s.

Actually, I have been reading that Ian White collection recently, Here is Information. It kinda makes me sad because it’s so calm. How can anyone be so calm?

And then of course I read Tif Sigfrids’ Umm…, Sammy Loren’s On The Rag, and our Diva Corp Mag. Oh, and The Big One, too.

Diva Corp Mag is, like, “art that responds to art,” so it’s criticism, but in a different language. I like that. I haven’t seen that before.

POLLOK: How does being anonymous benefit Diva Corp?

DIVA CORP: Someone wrote an article about this in Frieze. I saw them quote a new collective who claimed their anonymity was based in Marxism. This, I thought, was fantastic. “Marxism.” Will art ever get over itself? I’m not sure, but I love it. So I’ll go with that: the benefit is Marxism.

POLLOK: Do you love writers?

DIVA CORP: Only when they write like Norman Klein talks.

POLLOK: What's the best thing about LA?

DIVA CORP: Right on red.

POLLOK: Do you have any advice for aspiring artists and writers?

DIVA CORP: I give the worst advice. Every time someone asks me whether they should break up with their boyfriend or whatever, I tell them no. For me, I feel like everyone is good, like categorically good like Kant would say, and it’s just, you know, a matter of condition. I never believe things can’t be fixed. Anything is possible. And I think this is terrible advice. It’s very romantic, but it’s terrible.

POLLOK: What's the greatest movie ever made about LA? Greatest novel?

DIVA CORP: Oh, Limelight, and it’s not even close. I think it’s even set in London, but, really, every time I watch it, I know: it’s about LA. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton… Love it. “About LA” though… About LA… Gosh I don’t know. Mulholland? Maybe Falling Down, too. Heat, but the city’s more of a character there. Any Michael Mann movie, really. Did you see that Ferrari movie he did a couple years ago? I absolutely loved that. It was a very Hollywood movie – artificial in the best way, full of stars that never get into character.

DIVA CORP is an anonymous, decentralized LA-based art criticism network.

TESS POLLOK is a writer and the editor of Animal Blood.