Across town at the dead end of Chinatown — and at the far end of the meticulousness spectrum from Schorr — Gustavo Herrera has resurfaced with a roomful of his dark, funny, formally virtuosic but slapdash constructions. Herrera — whose similar installation is pretty much the only thing I remember about the first "All-MFA Supersonic" exhibit in that wind tunnel in 2004 — had a couple of crazy-ass shows at Black Dragon, including the one with his former collaborative posse 10lb Ape, where they boarded themselves inside a multimedia assemblage cube and blew pot smoke out at bewildered viewers.
Then Herrera dropped off the radar for a while, only to pop up here, at Human Resources — a new collective-project gallery in the former Parker Jones/David Kordansky space at the end of Bernard Street. "The Birth of Satan" is a multimedia interactive art installation including paintings, sculpture, assemblage, a hilarious video installation, a table of satanic zines and other literature, and a series of performances. There are cardboard and macaroni masks, abstract sculptures named for famous friends of Satan (e.g., Kenneth Anger), a Duchampian reclining-nude installation and a cutout silhouette of the USA collaged with horrific celebrity photos of Paul McCartney, Prince Harry, etc. — all amended with a little Hitler mustache. Everything is deceptively slackerish: Spend any time with the work and you'll be bowled over by Herrera's scathing wit, philosophical and art-historical sophistication, and seemingly offhand aesthetic virtuosity. —Doug Harvey
Michel Garnier, A Fashionably Dressed Young Woman in the Arcade of the Palais Royal, Paris, (1787), from "Eye for the Sensual: Selections From the Resnick Collection" at LACMA, opening Oct. 2
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TODD SCHORR: DESIGNED FOR EXTINCTION | Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, 9045 Lincoln Blvd., L.A. | (310) 665-6800 | Through Sept. 11 | Conversation with Todd Schorr and Ben Maltz Gallery director Meg Linton, Sat., Sept. 11, 3 p.m.
GUSTAVO HERRERA'S THE BIRTH OF SATAN | Human Resources, 510 Bernard St., L.A. | Through Sept. 14
Ala Ebtekar at Charlie James Gallery
Whether it's his epic drawings on prayer-book pages or sublime female-warrior portraits, Iranian-American artist Ala Ebtekar's transcendent line quality creates the ideal of the modern Persian masterpiece. "Indelible Whispers of the Sun" is the Bay Area art star's first solo show in Los Angeles. —Shelley Leopold
CHARLIE JAMES GALLERY | 975 Chung King Road, L.A. | Through Oct. 16 | Reception Sept. 11, 6-9 p.m.
Krysten Cunningham at Thomas Solomon Gallery
Krysten Cunningham's second solo show with Solomon reinforces what makes her one of the most interesting and genuinely idiosyncratic sculptors working in Los Angeles. The show revolves around her new video 3 to 4, which documents a choreographed dance performance of Cunningham's design. Participants dressed in red, green and blue (RGB) costumes construct and engage with a sculpture representative of a fourth-dimensional fusion of object, space, action and perception. —Christopher Miles
THOMAS SOLOMON GALLERY |427 Bernard St., L.A. | Sept. 11–Oct. 9 | Reception Sept. 11, 6-8 p.m.
OTHER RECOMMENDED SHOWS
• The Artist's Museum at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary
• Nancy Jackson at Rosamund Felsen
• Thomas Helbig at China Art
• Paul Winstanley at 1301PE
• Richard Aldrich at Marc Foxx
• Ana Rodriguez at Steve Turner
• Lester Monzon at Kincaid Contemporary
• Alison Saar at L.A. Louver
• Ann Summa at Track 16
• Joshua Aster at Carl Berg
• Jen DeNike at The Company
