Artist Ed Ruscha says the first time he saw his friend Ken Price's ceramics, with weird, fingerlike things poking out of sleekly painted orifices, he wanted to crawl up the wall. But he knew they were brilliant. Ruscha spoke at a memorial for Price, who died in February, held right before the opening of LACMA's Ken Price retrospective. The art in the retrospective does feel somehow creepy, like something out of an absurdist-comedy version of Ridley Scott's Aliens, only way better. There's a table near the back with small sculptures called Specimens, like the one with what looks like a red hot dog popping out of its pink shell. These are particularly vulnerable and valuable, so if you get too close, the table's set up to screech at you. On opening night, people couldn't help themselves, and the screeching became a soundtrack. 5905 Wilshire Blvd.; through Jan. 27. (323) 857-6010, lacma.org.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Sept. 16. Continues through Jan. 6, 2012

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