Lari Pittman has no interest in minimalism. The Colombian-American artist’s paintings are a palimpsest of street signs, textiles, storybook illustrations, cityscapes, phrases in different languages, and pop-cultural references. He crams it all into each painting. His early work examined colonialism, the AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ+ and civil rights struggles, and gun violence in his signature dense, kaleidoscopic style. Pittman’s latest body of work imagines a world adrift in the form of hot air balloons, reflecting on the impulse to travel or escape. The work goes on view in his latest solo exhibition, “The Remedy of Analog Space and Time,” at Lehmann Maupin in New York from Oct. 29 through Dec. 19.
While Pittman is a successful working artist, he’s also been a tenured professor at UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture for 28 years. His solo exhibitions have taken place everywhere from the Jeonnam Museum of Art in Gwangyang, South Korea, in 2025, to Museo Jumex in Mexico City in 2022. A self-proclaimed “monastic” painter, Pittman remains at the top of his game at nearly 75.
Days before his latest opening, Pittman caught up with CULTURED to share his thoughts on lazy artists, the importance of criticism, and how his long-deceased Colombian mother is still present at every studio visit.
What’s the first thing you do when you enter your studio?
Turn off the annoyingly loud radio that functions as my fake alarm system. I take inventory of decisions that I made the day before and proceed with simple formalist tasks for the first hour until I get my sea legs.
What’s on your studio playlist?
I have no playlist. I prefer to work monastically and desperately and cluelessly. I take no advice from creatives or influencers, but I often think of the lyrics of Juan Gabriel and Chavela Vargas for inspiration and content.
What’s in your studio fridge?
Water and something way past its expiration date.
If you could have a studio visit with one artist, dead or alive, who would it be?
It’s a toss-up between Sonia Delaunay and Remedios Varo. Others would be Florine Stettheimer or Maruja Mallo.
What’s the weirdest tool or instrument you can’t live without?
All my tools are very pedestrian, analog, and not prepared to do any magic on their own. But I need them all! I still believe in the “school of canvas, brushes, and rulers.”
When do you do your best work?
Just before I leave to go home from my studio, I identify a nagging formal issue in one of the paintings in progress so that I can immediately jump into work when I arrive the next day. I really am not interested in sitting in a chair staring at the paintings in the hope that something reveals itself in order to get me started at 10 a.m. This artificially structured and programmatic time management was precipitated in my late 20s from working full time for the great interior designer Angelo Donghia at his LA showroom and later as a tenured professor at UCLA. I learned to juggle a lot. It still serves me well on the eve of my 75th birthday.
In the afternoon hours, I am more prone to take risks, get counterintuitively fussier and more extravagant on micro details. By the way, I so loved and identified with Julian Klausner’s just-seen collection for Dries Van Noten!
Who’s the first person you show something to?
To my husband of 53 years, the artist Roy Dowell. He is a classic WASP and a simple shake of his finger can mean all sorts of things.
Do you work with any assistants or do you work alone?
I don’t do prêt-à-porter! I do not have assistants and work completely alone because I get the best results. Painting can quickly forecast its own collapse and loss of authorship when done by committee. I won’t name names, but there are many.
What’s the biggest studio mishap you’ve experienced?
Last year, I was painting from the highest rung of an eight-foot ladder. I ran out of paint and I simply walked off into thin air and crashed to the cement floor. I stayed on the floor, clearly in pain, and evaluated my condition. I then got up, hobbled to my car, and drove five minutes to the hospital where I was born 74 years ago in the fifth-floor maternity ward. I thought of my mother; I missed her. You can read into this anything you want.
There are a lot of costs that come with being an artist. Where do you splurge and where do you save?
Painting practices can be surprisingly wasteful, so I always buy in bulk at a family-owned hardware store in Silver Lake. I have nothing fancy in my studio, but I always have fresh flowers.
What was the last time you completely lost track of time while working?
Every day. I preserve and protect the luxury and hard-earned privilege of being lost in languorous analog space and time.
Have you ever destroyed a work to make something new?
No! I am a lover not a destroyer.
On a scale of hoarder to Marie Kondo, where do you fall?
I am not a hoarder, because I do not live in the past and always live in the near future.
Is there a studio rule you live by?
Nothing of importance is done easily.
When was the last time you felt jealous of another artist?
I am seldom jealous but always annoyed by acclaimed lazy artists.
If you could change one thing about the art world, what would it be?
One thing? You have got to be kidding! But let’s start with re-empowering critical writing about art in the art world. Cathy Horyn is a strong voice in critical writing about fashion. Her analysis of Matthieu Blazy for Chanel was amazing.
If your studio was an animal what would it be?
The endangered pangolin.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in your studio?
Remain eternally pedestrian while making my work.
What’s your studio uniform?
Completely uneventful and always ruined by paint accidents. I do shave and blow dry my hair every day.
Tell us about the best studio visit you’ve ever had.
Hands down, it is always with other artists! We speak in the old village dialect and are completely fluent in the Esperanto of art history.
Any rituals to prepare for a studio visit?
Before any studio visit, my long-deceased Colombian mother appears sitting on my shoulder and whispers, “Lari, cookies, flowers, water, and napkins.”
What book changed the way you think about art?
Only the history of visual art has changed what I think about visual art.
Can you share a recent studio playlist?
On occasion, I hear a car crash at the intersection outside my studio.
If you had to choose, would you rather go to the studio drunk, high, or hung over?
None of them! I respect my work too much.
Weirdest studio experience?
Most studio visits with collectors are weird, and on occasion they ask you if you would be interested in collaborating on their line of minaudières.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from another artist?
Art and artists are not a social service.
Have you ever stolen something from another artist’s studio?
An idea, but to make it better.
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