Shana Nys Dambrot

New from the art-in-strange-places department, the USS Iowa, a permanently docked San Pedro museum, now also is home to one of the area's more eccentric contemporary art spaces. Alfa Romeo Tango — or A.R.T. — celebrated its inaugural exhibition in November, on board the historic, carefully maintained vintage warship....

Before we can figure out, as the show’s title suggests, What Is to Cure, first we have to ask ourselves what exactly is the disease. Is cancer, capitalism or complacency the greater threat to our survival? If art can’t exactly heal, at least it can prompt us to ask better questions. As an artist, Lofgren is not in the business of proclamation but, rather, reclamation....

Part Jenga, part Transformers, and pretty funny in a post-structuralist art theory kind of way, Reuven Israel’s new exhibition of modular sculptures for wall and floor at Shulamit Nazarian presents itself, as the title indicates, in segments. In Four Acts is composed of singular works that arrive flat but soon rearrange themselves into a potentially infinite series of expanding and contracting sculptural configurations....

Meet an Artist Monday is an ongoing series of mini Q&As with some of L.A.’s most active and eclectic contemporary artists, introducing themselves to you in their own words. For this edition, we meet narrative materialist painter James Griffith, whose darkly poetic works are made with tar rather than paint, and often depict the very flora and fauna most threatened by climate change, which is exacerbated by our use of fossil fuels....

An ongoing series of mini Q&As with some of L.A.’s most active and eclectic contemporary artists, introducing themselves to you in their own words. This week it’s painter, adventurer and environmental sustainability activist Danielle Eubank, who recently secured funding to complete her mission to paint all the world’s major oceans. She’ll be traveling to Antarctica in February....

RISK is a man with a lot going on. The artist also known as Kelly Graval is a legend among taggers, writers and muralists for his heroic lettering and, perhaps even more so, his eye-popping large-scale color-wash pours. He long ago added a solid gallery practice and curatorial efforts to his outdoor heroics, and in addition to museum shows, books and film projects, he’s also been busy curating the entire situation at the newly renovated Mayfair Hotel in downtown. It’s a lot....

Non-profit and without permanent collections, but still producing shows on the elevated scale of larger galleries, charging no admission, but pursuing ambitious programming, these active, regional spots both directly enliven their own neighborhoods and engage in international conversations. As a bonus for architecture buffs, these venues frequently employ an adaptive reuse approach to renovating industrial and/or historic locations....