Visitors in Los Angeles for Frieze Week will have a busy agenda with the many art fairs and gallery and museum exhibitions. To help you keep it all straight, here’s a guide to some of the highlights that are on view at institutions across the city, from Paul McCarthy’s first US museum survey to the clay biennial at Craft Contemporary, and much, much more.
“Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn“ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
February 16–May 3, 2020
Luchita Hurtado’s (1970). Photo by Cole Root, courtesy of the artist and Park View/Paul Soto, Los Angeles and Brussels.
After decades of supporting the careers of her husband, Lee Mullican, and son, Matt Mullican, while privately nurturing her own artistic practice, Luchita Hurtado is finally getting her first solo museum show in the US at the remarkable age of 99. The show originated at the Serpentine Galleries in London after her rediscovery at the Hammer’s “Made in LA” biennial in 2018. Expect a treasure trove of works, both abstract and figurative, that have long waited to see the light of day.
“Ann Greene Kelly“ at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
February 16–June 14, 2020
Ann Greene Kelly, (2019). Photo courtesy of the artist and Chapter NY.
Los Angeles-based artist Ann Greene Kelly is having her first museum solo show. In it, she offers her own take on the readymade, combining more traditional materials like plaster and stone with found objects like mattresses and tires.
“Rodney McMillian, Brown: videos From The Black Show” at the Underground Museum
Through February 16, 2020
Installation view of “Rodney McMillian, Brown: videos from The Black Show” at the Underground Museum. Photo by Zak Kelley courtesy of the Underground Museum.
The Underground Museum presents the video works from Rodney McMillian’s “The Black Show,” which appeared at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia in 2016. The videos of costumed performances were filmed across the southern US and fueled by the country’s history of racial oppression.
“LA Blacksmith” at the California African American Museum
Through February 16, 2020
Ed Love, (detail). Photo courtesy of the California African American Museum.
Drawing on traditions of West African metalsmithing, Los Angeles’s African American artists have long worked with iron, steel, bronze, copper, and other metals. This group show includes sculptures by Beulah Woodard inspired by African masks as well as work by artists including Noah Purifoy, Kehinde Wiley, John Outterbridge, and Betye Saar.
“Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again” at the Broad
Through February 16, 2020
Shirin Neshat, (2019), video still. Photo courtesy of Shirin Neshat/Gladstone Gallery and Goodman Gallery.
In her biggest exhibition to date, Iranian artist Shirin Neshat presents 320 photographs and eight video installations—including her most recent, , inspired by what the artist perceives as a growing distrust of immigrants in the US.
“Apariciones/Apparitions” at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Through February 17, 2020
Still from the performance at the Huntington Art Gallery for Carolina Caycedo’s “Apariciones/Apparitions,” choreographed by Marina Magalhães and shot by David de Rozas. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Carolina Caycedo has placed black, brown, and queer bodies in the spotlight at the historic Huntington Library, filming dancers enacting Afro-Brazilian spiritual rituals across the museum grounds.
“Postcommodity: Some Reach While Others Clap” at LAXART
Through February 29, 2020
Installation view of “Postcommodity: Some Reach While Others Clap” at LAXART. Photo courtesy of LAXART.
Indigenous art collective Postcommodity has worked with Starlite Rod & Kustom, which restores and customizes classic American cars, to transform the LAXART space to acknowledge Indigenous peoples as the historical foundation of Los Angeles.
“El Sueño Americano | The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer” Skirball Cultural Center
Through March 8, 2020
Tom Kiefer, (2019). Photo courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center.
Photographer Tom Kiefer is also a janitor at the US Customs Border Protection processing center outside Ajo, Arizona—a job that has afforded him the opportunity to create poignant portraits of apprehended migrants by photographing their confiscated possessions. Kiefer stealthily pilfered these objects from the trash and sorted them, shooting everything from medicine to rosaries to cell phones on brightly colored backgrounds, honoring the former owners’ quest for a better life.
“SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance” at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Through March 15, 2020
Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, still from (2016), performance by Aérea Negrot. Image courtesy of the artists.
A jury selected interdisciplinary artist Abigail Raphael Collins to curate the fifth exhibition in LACE’s emerging curators series. She’s selected works by activists and artists that employ silence as a form of political resistance, including Baseera Khan, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Lawrence Abu Hamdan.
“50 Years of Oil & Water: Gloriane Harris, 1969–2020” at the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art
Through March 31, 2020
Gloriane Harris in Wade Street Studio (1983). Photo ©ViCA/Juri Koll.
The Venice Institute of Contemporary Art celebrated the grand opening of its new space over the weekend with the opening of Gloriane Harris’s first solo show in 35 years, featuring many never-before-seen paintings by this long-overlooked LA artist and educator.
“Käthe Kollwitz: Prints, Process, Politics” at the Getty Center
Through March 29, 2020
Käthe Kollwitz, (1902–03). Courtesy of the Getty Research Institute.
Käthe Kollwitz didn’t shy away from tough subjects, making work about war, poverty, and injustice. The Getty Research Institute is highlighting the artist’s working process by bringing out its collections of her works on paper, including rare preparatory drawings, working proofs, and trial prints.
“Arte, Mujer y Memoria: Arpilleras From Chile” at the Museum of Latin American Art
Through March 29, 2020
(1976). Photo courtesy of Margaret Beemer/MOLAA.
During and following the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Chilean women began anonymously making textile works on burlap called to denounce the cruelties and human rights abuses of the government. A selection of 30 of these works, which women sold though international networks to support their families when their husbands were murdered, exiled, or imprisoned, have been gathered for this exhibition by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Chilean Woman-Los Angeles.
“The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain” at the Wende Museum
Through April 5, 2020
Sibylle Bergemann, (1988). Photo courtesy of Loock Gallerie.
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, one prominent way in which East German women artists would express their frustration with authoritarian rule was by featuring mythological figures such as Medea and Cassandra in their work. This group show, originally organized by Susanne Altmann for Dresden’s Albertinum, features Magdalena Abakanowicz, Geta Brătescu, and Natalia LL, among other artists.
“Betye Saar: Call and Response” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Through April 5, 2020
Betye Saar, (1998). Photo courtesy of the artist; Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Lynda and Stewart Resnick through the 2018 Collectors Committee. ©Betye Saar.
Throughout her long and storied career, Betye Saar has relied on sketchbooks, creating preliminary drawings for her works. Showcasing this important component of the artist’s practice, this exhibition also features a dozen of the artist’s travel sketchbooks of more finished drawings.
“Beyond the World We Know: Abstraction in Photography” at the Norton Simon Museum
Through April 20, 2020
Mati Maldre, , 1971. Courtesy of the Norton Simon Museum, Museum Purchase through the Florence V. Burden Foundation, ©Mati Maldre.
Photography has a reputation for accurately and faithfully capturing reality, but there is a long history of photographers who have worked to subvert those expectations, using the medium to embrace abstraction. The Norton Simon has brought together 16 artists who eschew realism in their photography, including Edward Weston, Barbara Morgan, and Edmund Teske.
“Las Hijas de los Días: 7 Female Views from the Margins” at the 18th Street Arts Center
Through April 19, 2020
Luciana Abait, (2016). Photo courtesy of the 18th Street Arts Center.
One for each day of the week, seven women artists—Cristina de Middel, Eunice Adorno, Lola del Fresno, Luciana Abait, Doni Silver Simons, Sabine Pearlman, and Pamela Simon-Jensen—explore global problems such as climate change and displacement.
“Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963–2019” at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Through May 10, 2020
Paul McCarthy, (1965), detail. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
In his first comprehensive US survey show, Paul McCarthy presents 600 works on paper made with a wide range of mediums—charcoal, graphite, and ink, but also unconventional ones such as ketchup and peanut butter.
“The Body, the Object, the Other” at Craft Contemporary
Through May 10, 2020
Photo courtesy of Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles.
For its second clay biennial, Craft Contemporary—known until last year as the Craft & Folk Art Museum—is focusing on 21 artists who are representing the body in ceramics in unusual ways.
“With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles
Through May 11, 2020
Sandra Sallin, (1981). Photo by Zak Kelley, courtesy of the artist.
In the early 1970s, artists in the Pattern and Decoration movement embraced traditionally feminine and domestic art practices once relegated to the realm of craft. LACMA revisits the stars of the movement, such as Joyce Kozloff and Miriam Schapiro, as well as its under-recognized figures such as Kendall Shaw and Takako Yamaguchi, and considers the lasting influences of a movement that has been unfairly overlooked in recent years.
“Under a Mushroom Cloud: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Atomic Bomb” the Japanese American National Museum
Through June 7, 2020
Mushroom cloud from the atomic bomb explosion, Nagasaki, August 9, 1945, 11:02 a.m. Photo by US military, donated by Stimson Center, courtesy of Hiroshima City University.
This summer marks the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and the Japanese American National Museum is marking the occasion with an exhibition of artifacts from atomic bomb victims, as well as contemporary artworks inspired by the bombings’ aftermath.
“Vanity Fair: Hollywood Calling” at the Annenberg Space for Photography
Through July 26, 2020
Justin Bishop, (2019). Photo courtesy of the Annenberg Space for Photography.
A selection of 130 photographs of Hollywood celebrities from photographers, including, of course, Annie Leibovitz, is accompanied by a behind-the-scenes look at the magazine’s 2020 Hollywood issue highlighting up-and-coming stars.
“Assyria: Palace Art of Ancient Iraq” at the Getty Villa
Through September 5, 2020
(detail), Assyrian, (875–860 BC), Kalhu (Nimrud), Northwest Palace, reign of Ashurnasirpal II. Photo courtesy of the British Museum, London, acquired 1849. ©the Trustees of the British Museum, all rights reserved.
The British Museum in London has loaned an impressive selection of relief sculptures from Assyrian palaces, dating from the ninth the seventh centuries, to the Getty Villa.
“Do Ho Suh: 348 West 22nd Street” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Through March 29, 2020
Do Hu Suh, (2011–14), installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2016). Photo by Pablo Mason, courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, ©Do Ho Suh.
This long-term installation, a full-scale fabric recreation of Do Hu Suh’s New York City apartment—from the Korean artist’s signature style—is new to the museum as of November.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
