Shana Nys Dambrot
As our clocks fall back an hour, and the sunset comes earlier every day, painters, sculptors, dancers, filmmakers, authors, performers, and interdisciplinarians celebrate the colorful, cozy, somatic, environmental, poetic, political, and historical influences in gallery exhibitions, screenings, readings, animation, and above all—experimentation.
Cristopher Cichocki, Circular Dimensions x Excavation/Evaporation, 2021 (Photo Courtesy of Fondation L’Accolade)
Thursday, November 2
Cristopher Cichocki: Rising Inversion at Laguna Art Museum. For LAM’s 11th annual Art + Nature festival, Palm Springs-based multidisciplinary artist Cristopher Cichocki stages an outdoor installation at Main Beach. Rising Inversion harnesses oceanic and planetary elements engaging in direct dialogue with the surrounding natural landscape; from dawn to dusk, the installation morphs from a sprawling arc of sand and barnacles into a luminescent orb rising over the Pacific shoreline. This synergy encircled within the elements of water and light will illuminate throughout the night in a phosphorescent glow powered from the residual energy of the sun—and form the setting for a free audio visual performance at the site on Saturday, November 4 at 7pm. On view November 2-5 on the beach in front of the Inn at Laguna Beach; free; various ticket levels for related museum programs and events; lagunaartmuseum.org.
DaEun Jung
LAX Festival presents DaEun Jung: NORRI at L.A. Dance Project. An evening-length group dance project inspired by the principle, form, and mode of Korean folk dance as a communal performance practice. NORRI, meaning “play” in Korean, creates an inclusive platform to experiment with collaborative pattern compositions while celebrating both collective accomplishments and individual grooves. Re-stylized Korean dance vocabulary, spontaneous Pansori (Korean traditional folk opera) phrases, and continuous pulse of electronic sound interact with each other as the rhythmic encounters of past/present, formality/spontaneity, and uniformity/singularity suggest a new contemporary movement. 2245 E. Washington Blvd., downtown; Thursday-Friday, November 2-3, 8pm; $14-$29; performancepractice.la.
Li Hei Di: Unquenchable Laughter, Inescapable Desert. 2023, oil on linen, 70 7/8 x 59 in (Courtesy of Michael Kohn Gallery)
Li Hei Di: Oscillating Womb at Michael Kohn Gallery. Li’s aqueous paintings embrace an intimate, counterpoint dance between desire and repression. Translucent, human appendages lurk just below the surface, coming into focus only after processing the atmospheric brushwork and lush colors of the natural phenomena floating above. The images Li paints are never fully figurative nor abstract; neither completely opaque nor entirely transparent. Instead, they embody a porous fluidity where marks on the canvas are made and then sacrificed into a new layer. 1227 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood; Opening reception: Thursday, November 2, 6-8pm; On view through January 6; free; kohngallery.com.
Ewa Juszkiewicz: The Letter, after Adelaide Labille-Guiard, 2023, Oil on canvas, 57 1/8 x 45 1/4 in (© Ewa Juszkiewicz, Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery)
Friday, November 3
Ewa Juszkiewicz: In a Shady Valley, Near a Running Water at Gagosian. Juszkiewicz’s oil paintings of women begin with historical portraits, appropriating their style while subverting their conventions through fantastical and discomforting pictorial interventions. Emulating representations of women painted in the Grand Manner style popular in Western art from the eighteenth through the early nineteenth century, she re-creates the poses, fashion, and settings of her sources while transforming their scales and palettes and adding details that point to the artifice of femininity’s stereotypical markers. 456 N. Camden Dr., Beverly Hills; Opening reception: Friday, November 3, 6-8pm; On view through December 22; free; gagosian.com.
Glenn Ligon: Redacted #4, 2023. Oil stick and gesso on two canvases, 47 x 39 in each (Courtesy of Regen Projects)
Glenn Ligon: DOUBLE NEGATIVE, and Gillian Wearing: reflections at Regen Projects. Ligon’s artworks frequently cite James Baldwin’s 1953 essay, “Stranger in the Village,” but it unfolds here in full across 18 panels, affording what Ligon describes as “the ground on which the painting is sited.” As if to deny or redact what has already been disclosed, X’s appear across the nine diptychs, pushing toward abstraction and creating new meanings. In Wearing’s portraits, the painter adopts the guises of others as a way of inquiring about the consistency of the self, focusing our attention on the precarity of perception and self-perception, the constructed reality of pictures of any kind, and the susceptibility of how we see ourselves. 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Opening reception: Friday, November 3, 6-8pm; On view through December 23; free; regenprojects.com.
Allison Katz: Catwalk, 2023, Oil and sand on linen , 86 5/8 x 74 3/4 x 1 3/8 in (© Allison Katz, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Photo: Damian Griffiths)
Allison Katz: Westward Ho! at Hauser & Wirth WeHo. Katz’s work addresses the ways in which aesthetic practices link and absorb autobiography, art history, information systems and commodity culture. This presentation debuts new paintings alongside site-specific responses to the architecture of the gallery’s 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival building. Katz’s paintings are informed — and united — by her relentless curiosity about the ways in which images perform and construct meaning, skillfully combining surface materiality, word play and humor with literary and cultural references, imagining paintings as interconnected sites of metaphysical transformation. 8980 Santa Monica Blvd., WeHo; Opening reception: Friday, November 3, 6-8pm; Conversation with the artist and art historian Suzanne Hudson prior to the reception, 5pm; On view through January 5; free; hauserwirth.com.
John Lennon: A Bird Bath (Courtesy of Yoko Ono)
Saturday, November 4
Give Peace a Chance: The Art of John Lennon at Choice Contemporary. Before he was a singer, a Beatle, or a music legend, John Lennon was an artist. Professionally trained, he attended the prestigious Liverpool Art Institute from 1957-60. Although Lennon is best known as a singer-songwriter, his legacy was also one of social revolution, humanitarianism, and visual artistry. Over the course of Lennon’s career, his work as an artist further expressed the societal themes that touched his life. Until now, little of this work has been seen in one place. His peace-themed sketches were elevated through their use in antiwar movements, beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present day, and his artwork lives on as an inspiring tribute to his hope for global peace and love. 11706 Barrington Court, Brentwood; Opens Saturday, November 4, 6-9pm; choicecontemporary.com.
Moncho 1929: IV caesar (the emperor), Oil and acrylic on canvas, 2023 (Courtesy of UNREPD)
Moncho 1929: botánica at UNREPD. Dan Monteavaro (Moncho 1929)’s series of 19 new paintings on canvas and wood panel, reimagines the botánica—a space for community, spirituality, and healing for many Latinx people in the United States. Through an exploration of the spirituality of his Puerto Rican upbringing, Monteavaro gives new form to the diversity of cultures, beliefs, and traditions that shape Latinx communities today. Monteavaro’s paintings include tarot card reinterpretations, religious offerings reimagined, cultural and familial figures presented in new ways, and baños in grand scale. Together, the works give viewers the sense of a space that is both highly personal and significantly communal. 100 S. Grand Ave., downtown; Opening reception: Saturday, November 4, 6-9pm; On view through December 17; free; unrepd.com.
LA Dance Film Festival
LA Dance Film Festival (Live & Virtual). The 7th annual edition of this celebration of curated short dance films from around the world features an eclectic lineup of 14 intriguing dance films screening in one unforgettable night of journeys through deep human emotions, explored through movement. And to get into the groove, enter the world of dance film-making with award-winning director Nadav Heyman in an in-person masterclass earlier that afternoon. Mimoda Studio, 5774 W. Pico Blvd., Mid-City; Saturday, November 4, 8pm (and online); $20; instagram.com/ladancefilmfest.
Simphiwe Ndzube: Ingoma, 2023, oil and sand on linen (© Simphiwe Ndzube, Photo: Hannah Mjølsnes, Courtesy of BLUM)
Simphiwe Ndzube: Chorus at BLUM. Expanding the reaches of his surrealist Mine Moon universe—the fictional location that has long functioned as the setting for the artist’s otherworldly vignettes—Ndzube perfects his use of oil paint through carving, manipulating finishes to convey a pointillist effect, or adding sand to build out from the canvas. The artist’s subject—Black choral music traditions in South Africa—serves as a vehicle, advancing Ndzube’s story line and making space for new painterly techniques. BLUM (Blum & Poe as was), 2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Culver City; Opening reception: Saturday, November 4, 5-7pm; On view through December 16; free; blum-gallery.com.
Thinkspace November Exhibitions
November Exhibitions at Thinkspace Projects. Alex Face’s Fictional City follows successful solo exhibitions in Bangkok, Thailand and Rome, Italy. Perfectly Normal from Dustin Myers is an ode to the idiosyncratic qualities that make us unique, the beauty in imperfection that is often overlooked during the pursuit of perfection. Aof Smith’s Vibration expresses the Bangkok-based artist’s perception and imagination through the limitless possibilities of Pop-surrealism. Anjastama Hp’s Myths of Ganendra, the debut U.S. solo exhibition from the Indonesian creative, displays pieces of his culture, bringing details of Java to his work inspired by wayang (puppet shadow). AngelOnce’s, Icons: Pop are Reimagined is a vibrant and playful exploration of pop, culture icons, and the artist’s character, Charlie the Angry Elephant. 4207 W. Jefferson Blvd., West Adams; Opening reception: Saturday, November 4, 6-10pm; On view through November 25; free; thinkspaceprojects.com.
Fred Wilson: Dramatis Personae (detail), 2022 (© Fred Wilson, Courtesy Pace Gallery)
Fred Wilson: Dramatis Personae at Pace Gallery. Since the 1990s, Wilson has developed an expansive interdisciplinary practice that challenges and deconstructs assumptions surrounding history, culture, and race as they relate to conventions of display. Often seducing viewers through their visual and material opulence, Wilson’s works are marked by a cunning criticality, drawing our gaze only to occasion deeper reflection on social and historical narratives. The presentation will situate the artist’s Murano glass works within his broader inquiries into the ways Blackness has been coded in the construction of Western art history. 1201 S. La Brea, Hollywood; Opening day conversation with the artist, LAXART Director Hamza Walker, and Pace Chief Curator Oliver Shultz, Saturday, November 4, 2pm; On view through December 22; free; pacegallery.com.
Tony Marsh: IceFlo, 2023, glazed ceramic, 25 x 14 x 13 in (Courtesy Patricia Sweetow Gallery)
Tony Marsh & Cornelia Schulz: On Fire at Patricia Sweetow Gallery. Artists’ Tony Marsh ceramic sculpture and Cornelia Schulz’s oil paintings combine for a fiery two-person exhibition. Through alchemy, intuitive wisdom, science and thermal adversity, Marsh opens the window for random, unexpected surface topographies. These works encapsulate all the knowledge he’s amassed over the years with “various material and mineral concoctions”, layered, fired, then repeating the process. Schulz’s high rise oil paintings defy the structural limits of oil paint. Even the best photo reproduction fails to impart the physical and spiritual authority of her small, shaped, chromatic paintings. 1700 S. Santa Fe, downtown; Opening reception: Saturday, November 4, 3-5:30pm; On view through December 23; free; patriciasweetowgallery.com.
Yoo Lee at Winslow Garage
Sunday, November 5
Yoo Lee: The Nectar Instead at Winslow Garage. Stop-motion animated films and their handmade props from several works by Lee—a Korean-American artist and filmmaker who started her career as a fashion designer before transitioning to animation. Lee was drawn to stop-motion animated films because it is a single endeavor that demands all of her knowledge and discipline working in concert toward a single multidimensional vision. 3540 Winslow Dr., Silver Lake; Opening reception: Sunday, November 5, 3-5pm; free; winslowgarage.com.
takemehome at REDCAT (Photo by Josh Rose)
Wednesday, November 8
Dimitri Chamblas and Kim Gordon: takemehome at REDCAT. A work for nine dancers, five electric guitars, and five amplifiers, takemehome takes shape under a luminous zeppelin where silhouettes emerge and disappear. These shadows are the forgotten ones of the great metropolises: prisoners, elders, unproductive ghosts, the neglected, the indecisive. Rendered visible in this device, itself ready to disappear, and embodied by dancers with precise movements, they wander, hesitate, or suddenly assert a vital impulse, display an attempt, repeat it, share it. In these emergences, in this collective isolation, telepathy and intuition maintain communication. Between the lines, under your skin, the driving force of the future and of the living continues to circulate and resist. 631 W. 2nd St., downtown; Wednesday-Thursday, November 8-9, 8:30pm; $30; redcat.org.
Artbound presents East West Players-A Home On Stage. Daniel Dae Kim, James Hong (Photo by Gavin D. Pak)
Artbound screening at East West Players. “East West Players: A Home on Stage” is a new one-hour documentary film created through the PBS SoCal and KCET series, Artbound, which examines the contributions of California-based artists and art movements in today’s American culture. For 58 years, East West Players theater company has been hosting Asian American artists such as George Takei, John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim, James Hong and many others featured in this documentary. Through candid conversations, the film chronicles the history of one of the longest-running theaters of color in the United States. The event will feature a pre-show reception, followed by the screening, and a post-show panel featuring some of the stars of the documentary. The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 N Central Ave., Little Tokyo; Wednesday, November 8, 6pm; free w/rsvp; eastwestplayers.org/artbound.
Raj Tawney
Raj Tawney: A Colorful Palate Book Launch at Chevalier’s Books. A timely self-examination of the “mixed” American experience featuring exclusive recipes and photographs from the author’s multicultural family. As citizens continue to evolve and diversify within the United States, the ingredients that make up each flavorful household are waiting to be discovered and devoured. In Colorful Palate, author Raj Tawney shares his coming-of-age memoir as a young man born into an Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian-American family, his struggles with understanding his own identity, and the mouthwatering flavors of the melting pot from within his own childhood kitchen. 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Larchmont; Wednesday, November 8, 6pm; free; rajtawney.com.
Raj Tawney
Cornelia Schulz: Deep Dive, 2023, oil on canvas on wood, 20 x 12 in (Courtesy of Patricia Sweetow Gallery)
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