Shana Nys Dambrot
As the days are at their shortest and the frosty nights go on, get warm with spoken word performances at the museum, meaningful music inside historic architecture, a gallery conversation on art in community, a Pop-infused artistic celebration of a Hollywood icon’s centennial, and a seasonal and saucy variety show. Plus a photography show about fallible human memory, intimate large-scale paintings, a pair of fascinating book parties on architectural and anatomical sculpture, and a hands-on ceramics playdate that may even yield something gift-worthy.
John Baldessari at the Broad: Buildings=Guns=People-Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog), 1985, black-and-white and color photographs with vinyl paint and oil tint, mounted on five panels, 185 1/16 x 446 1/8 in (Photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio)
Thursday, December 14
Smog Check Thursdays: Amelia Ada + Clement Goldberg + Naz Riahi at The Broad. Literary readings as well as spoken word and acoustic performances against the backdrop of the John Baldessari artwork that inspired the title of the current exhibition, Desire, Knowledge, and Hope (with Smog). Amelia Ada + Clement Goldberg + Naz Riahi. A look at what’s to come on the literary horizon of Los Angeles. Presented by DOPAMINE, highlighting work that is experimental, by writers resisting assimilation; work that stretches the boundaries of what defines ‘queer,’ by writers with intersecting identities; work that is raw, by writers who are self-taught. And consider taking Metro to these events—the new Regional Connector Transit Grand Ave Arts/Bunker Hill Station takes you directly to The Broad. 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown; Thursday, December 14, 7-7:30pm (the museum is open until 8pm); free; thebroad.org.
Raven Chacon (Photo by Adam Conte, Courtesy of the artist)
Zócalo presents How Do We Hear America? with Raven Chacon at ASU California Center (Live & Online). Americans learn the Pledge of Allegiance as kids, seldom giving it much thought. But what if we listened—really listened—to the pledge? A performance ensemble put together by Los Angeles-based music collective wasteLAnd visits Zócalo wielding woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion, coins, a match, a police whistle, and more in an experimental visual and aural retelling of the nation’s creation by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, artist, and 2023 MacArthur Fellow, Raven Chacon. Plus a pre-event performance of Chacon’s Echo Contest in the Herald Examiner Building’s historic lobby, and a post-event reception to celebrate the closing of Zócalo’s 2023 event season. 1111 S. Broadway, downtown: Thursday, December 14, 7pm; free; zocalopublicsquare.org.
Brek in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
Friday, December 15
Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon. Among the very many remarkable things to see, do, and maybe buy at this year’s DesignerCon, please find a very special and unique art installation celebrating the 100th birthday of the iconic Hollywood Sign. Curated for the 6th year by Carmen Acosta, the 2023 art show will feature 100 local and international artists, each of whom have customized a Hollywood Sign model designed by ONCH and made by 3DRetro. All 100 unique and individually-stylized pieces will be shown at the event, ahead of their 2024 presentation in the heart of Hollywood Boulevard as part of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s honors for the Hollywood Sign. Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Ave., Anaheim; Friday-Sunday, December 15-17; free with DCon tickets, $25-$90; designercon.com.
Ann Weber & Frances Anderton at Wonzimer
Art & Community: A Discussion with Frances Anderton & Ann Weber at Wonzimer Gallery. In addition to a daily studio practice, artist Ann Weber (whose current exhibition of monumental cardboard sculptures is currently on view at the gallery) believes that participating in the arts community has furthered her ambitions beyond measure. In this discussion, Weber and design and community scholar Frances Anderton talk about how to become more involved with the magnificent culture of Los Angeles. Anderton tells stories and distills ideas about design, architecture and the cityscape of Los Angeles, in print, broadcast media and public events. The author of Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles, a Fellow at Fellow of Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles (FORT: LA) currently researching “Awesome and Affordable,” and perhaps best known as the host of KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture program. 341-B S. Ave 17, downtown; Friday, December 15, 7pm; free; wonzimer.com.
UnCabaret at the Nimoy
Saturday, December 16
UnCabaret: The UnHoliday Show! at the Nimoy. UnCabaret is a legendary forum for wildly fun, idiosyncratic, intimate, conversational comedy. Long an incubator for a who’s who of innovative and subversive performers, for more than 35 years its creator, host ,and producer Beth Lapides has fostered an inclusive space for the most exciting figures in comedy to assemble and tell stories that will make you laugh, applaud and reflect. Joined by musical director Mitch Kaplan, comedian Byron Bowers, and a line-up of hilarious storytellers and special musical guests, the gang’s seasonal UnCelebration also serves as a giving drive, collecting unopened, unexpired food and personal care items for Hollywood Food Coalition. Check out their wish lists for the most needed items, and bring your donation to the show. 1262 Westwood Blvd., Westwood; Saturday, December 16, 8pm; $32; cap.ucla.edu.
Aline Smithson: People I Don’t Know
If Memory Serves at The Brand. Our hard drives may fail. Our phones might break. We may forget an image that was once cemented in our minds. Our relationships with images and devices that hold our memories define how we understand our position in the world. If Memory Serves emerges from the moments those devices fail us, our recollections betray us and our pictures refuse to bring back the people they once captured. This exhibition emerges from the intersection of our haunting pasts, possible futures, and our connections to photographic images, technologies and the systems that ask to speak for our photographs. The projects included here invite the viewers to immerse in transitions and transformations, in discomfort, in the borderlines between vision and sense, knowing and unknowing. 1601 W Mountain St., Glendale; Opening reception: Saturday, December 16, 6-9pm; On view through February 24; free; lacphoto.org.
Yuri Yuan at Make Room Los Angeles
Yuri Yuan: A Thousand Ships at Make Room Los Angeles. Yuan probes her subjects’ psychology in the moments leading up to events of heightened emotion. Her figures exist in in-between states and spaces: between loneliness and connection, anticipation and arrival, the foreign and the familiar. A Thousand Ships borrows its name from Natalie Haynes’ book of the same title, which reimagines Homer’s Iliad from the perspective of the women whose lives were altered by the Trojan War. Although the Greeks won the war after taking the city of Troy, they encountered numerous obstacles on their decade-long trip home. All but one of their ships—that of King Odysseus—was destroyed in a wreck. The exhibition, like Haynes’ novel, explores the physical and metaphorical distances between where we are and what we long for. 6361 Waring Ave., Hollywood; Opening reception: Saturday, December 16, 5-8pm; On view through February 2; free; makeroom.la.
Doug Aitken: Mirage
Doug Aitken: Mirage signing at Arcana Books. Between 2017 and 2021 artist Doug Aitken presented his site-specific installation Mirage in the California desert outside Palm Springs, at a defunct Detroit bank, and nestled in the Swiss Alps. Mirage (which many refer to as his “mirror house,” takes the form of a ranch-style suburban American home whose exterior is entirely clad in reflective mirrored surfaces that camouflage it in its landscape contexts. The book is an immersive chronicle of the three installations, featuring photographs, architectural drawings, and other materials related to the project accompanied by a text by curator Neville Wakefield as well as an interview with the artist. Handmade with cold foils, silver printing, an exposed spine, and bound as a leporello, this first edition limited to 1000 copies. 8675 Washington Blvd., Culver City; Saturday, December 16, 4-6pm; free (book $150); arcanabooks.com.
Isabelle Albuquerque
Orgy for Ten People in One Body Conversation and Book Signing with Isabelle Albuquerque, Arthur Jafa, and Miranda July, moderated by Ariana Reines, at MOCA Grand. The MOCA Store celebrates Los Angeles–based artist Isabelle Albuquerque’s first monograph, Orgy for Ten People in One Body (Pacific, Jeffrey Deitch, Nicodim, 2023). The book documents a series of sculptures by the artist, presented as a complete set of ten for the first time in an exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch, New York, in 2022–23. Each chapter corresponds to one of the 10 erotic figures based on her own body, rendered in materials ranging from fur, bronze and walnut to resin, and rubber, with found objects such as a candle or a saxophone. Combining intimate memories with history and mythology, as well as post-humanist and feminist theory, Albuquerque’s sculptures become a form of self-portraiture. 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown; Saturday, December 16, 4-6pm; free w/rsvp; moca.org.
Claybodies
Sunday, December 17
Ceramic Handbuilding Workshop with Claybodies at Ace Hotel. Claybodies is an educational ceramic project, founded by Phyo Win, to share her love for ceramics with the community by offering serene ceramic handbuilding experiences in beautiful natural venues and special indoor spaces around Los Angeles. Their goal is to encourage and foster connection with nature, with each other and with creativity through the therapeutic and joyful act of playing with clay. Participants will be led through three handbuilding techniques with demonstrations that they can follow along to. Everyone will receive support and guidance throughout the workshop to bring their visions to life. Each participant will receive 2.5lbs of air dry clay, an instructional zine and guidance during the session. 929 S. Broadway, downtown; Sunday, December 17, noon-2pm; $40 includes materials; acehotel.com.
Zachary Friedberg in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
Isaac Pelayo in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
Peter Paid in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
Brad Albright in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
Plastic Pizza X Kaiju Stevens in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
NONAMEY in Hollywood 100 at DesignerCon
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