Shana Nys Dambrot
A new generation of Light and Space painting, musings on our obsession with the patterns of nature, generative digital works imagining architecture and identity; a master painter’s turn in printmaking, conversations about history and presence, a little Alan Cumming cabaret, book talks and book-based performance, and more live and virtual arts events for your calendar.
MariK at Vellum LA
Thursday, January 20
Elsewhere is a Negative Mirror at Vellum LA. The all-digital and frequently crypto gallery installs a version of its concurrent L.A. Art Show exhibition at their Melrose Ave. location. Through new software and creative tools, our ability to create, manipulate, and transform space is changing. Importantly, artists can approach the architectural act in ways never before possible. As digital realities become ever more intrinsic to our lives, how might our sense of architecture change? What constitutes “place” and “structure” in the language of bits, pixels, and screens? 7673 Melrose Ave., WeHo; Opening reception: Thursday, January 20, 7-9pm; on view through February 13; free; vellumla.com.
Sali Muller at Maddox Gallery
Friday, January 21
Inner Eye at Maddox Gallery. An exhibition celebrating the legacy of the Light and Space movement through new works by Ruth Pastine and Sali Muller. Emerging from Southern California in the 1960’s, the Light and Space movement was pioneered by artists whose fascination with the diffused atmosphere and glowing light of LA produced works that capture the city’s luminosity. Decades later, we see the same conceptual philosophies in the practice of two female artists with the transformative and elusive qualities of light, color and space manifesting themselves in unique ways. 8811 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood; Opening reception: Friday, January 21, 7-9pm; free; maddoxgallery.com.
MC Rocky Rivera and Muralist Audrey Chan at USC Pacific Asia Museum
Art, Identity, and Power: An Evening with MC Rocky Rivera and Muralist Audrey Chan at USC Pacific Asia Museum (Live & Virtual). An evening of music, murals, and conversation addressing gender, identity, and representation with a performance by rapper and activist Rocky Rivera. Rivera will join artist and educator Audrey Chan and professor and poet Adrian De Leon for a conversation about social justice, feminism, and using art to empower diasporic communities. After the talk, Rivera holds a book signing and Self Help Graphics hosts a pop-up print workshop. Intervention: Fresh Perspectives after 50 Years (on view through February 6), will be open. 45 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena; Friday, January 21, 7pm; in-person and live-streaming; free; pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu.
Alan Cumming & Ari Shapiro at the Broad Stage
Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro at the Broad Stage. Och and Oy! A Considered Cabaret pairs Tony Award-winning actor Alan Cumming and NPR’s All Things Considered host and frequent Pink Martini singer Ari Shapiro as they transport their audience through an evening of tunes and tall tales. This first-time collaboration is a must-see for fans of Broadway, standards and having a good time. 1310 11th St., Santa Monica; Friday-Saturday, January 21-22; 7:30pm; $65-$145; thebroadstage.org.
Sutu at Superchief
Sutu: Choose Your Player and Neonz AR at Superchief. A force to be reckoned with in the world of cryptoart, Sutu (aka Stuart Campbell) is bringing his metaverse creations to the physical universe at Superchief Gallery in Los Angeles. The culmination of Sutu’s work on his own Hand-Drawn Neonz series and commitment to clean NFTs on the Tezos Blockchain, these two complimentary experiences merge in Choose Your Player and the Neonz AR experience. Each of the 32 digital avatars in Choose Your Player is rendered in Sutu’s Retro Neon art style. The project is a commentary on the popular Picture for Profile (PFP) within the NFT community, where users adopt a unique profile pic to represent their identity in the Metaverse.
Sutu at Superchief
In addition to the more traditional exhibition of these pieces of digital art, Superchief welcomes the first look at Neonz AR — a glimpse of what the Sutuverse will have to offer as an evolving Web3 playground. Anyone that owns a Neonz avatar NFT will be able to connect their Tezos crypto wallet with the EyeJack App–Sutu’s own Augmented Reality App–to activate their Neonz in AR. But everyone who comes to the show will be able to experience the work with just their regular good old analog eyeballs. 1965 S. Los Angeles St., downtown; Opening reception: Friday, January 21, 7pm; On view through January 28; free; superchiefgallery.com.
Jonas Wood at David Kordansky Gallery
Saturday, January 22
Jonas Wood: Plants and Animals at David Kordansky Gallery. Wood explores some recurring themes in his work, turning to a variety of formats and mediums to render images not only of flora and fauna, but also of detailed worlds of related forms, spaces, and moods. Wood foregrounds the processes of composition that are the driving forces in all of his pictures. Subtleties of scale, color, and visual texture are found everywhere as Wood demonstrates a preternatural understanding of the material elements of painting, drawing, and printmaking themselves. 5130 W. Edgewood Pl., Mid-city; Saturday, January 22, 4-8pm; on view through March 5; free; davidkordanskygallery.com.
Carlos Almaraz
Carlos & Richard: Almaraz Serigraphs from Modern Multiples, 1985-1990 at Bermudez Projects. Carlos Almaraz (1941-1989) painted murals and giant oils, works that burst with color and images of Echo Park, car crashes, and other aspects of life in L.A. In the last decade of his life, the artist worked with printmaker Richard Duardo (1952-2014) to make some of his most lasting works more accessible; a selection of these serigraphs make up the revealing and exciting new exhibition. 1225 Cypress Ave., Cypress Park; Reception: Saturday, January 22, 6-9pm; on view now through February 26; free; bermudezprojects.com.
Stephania Gambaroff at Gabba Gallery
Stephania Gambaroff: Yolo and Douglas Alvarez: Wildlife is Beautiful at Gabba Gallery. Gambaroff’s richly textured oil paintings weave together the unmistakable precision of a formally trained artist with the gritty urgency and evocative energy of L.A. street art. Alvarez’s critters, rendered in grayscale with gold accents, are adorable and endearing. A raccoon sports a Los Angeles hoodie. A bear lounges in a camping tent. Even P-22, Griffith Park’s legendary mountain lion, makes an appearance—donning a golden crown. 3126 Beverly Blvd., East Hollywood; Opening reception: Saturday, January 22, 7-11pm; on view through February 12; free; gabbagallery.com.
Ruth Ige at Roberts Projects
Ed Templeton: The Spring Cycle and Ruth Ige: Between Two Dimensions at Roberts Projects. New works by Ige draw inspiration from the expansive history of portrait painting, building up layers of paint until her subjects are revealed within paint. In new paintings, drawings and photographs Templeton creates a direct response to the suburban environment in which he lives. These new works create hyperbolic realities that scrutinize the human condition through the lens of urban isolation. 5801 Washington Blvd., Culver City; On view January 22 – March 5; Artist reception: Saturday, March 5, 4-7pm; free; robertsprojectsla.com.
Ernest Rosenthal at LAST Projects
Sunday, January 23
LAST Projects presents Ernest Rosenthal Intro/ Retrospective at Tin Flats. Rosenthal has been a meticulous archivist throughout his storied career in painting and printmaking, and has designed and curated his own retrospective and we are very proud to host this important and overdue solo exhibition. He has selected 250 works from his archive for this exhibition. His book of poetry Not For Drones, published in 2012 will be available at the gallery. The reception coincides with his 102nd birthday party. 1989 Blake Ave., Frogtown; Opening reception: Sunday, January 23, 1-4pm; on view through February 27; free; lastprojects.org.
Eugene Yelchin at Wende Museum
Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain: Installation and Performance by Eugene Yelchin at the Wende Museum (Outdoor). The National Award Book Finalist and the Newbery Honoree, Eugene Yelchin, presents his memoir The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, followed by a garden performance reenacting a scene from the book against a reconstruction of the author’s room in the Soviet communal apartment. 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City; Sunday, January 23, 3pm; free; wendemuseum.org.
Simone Forti & Barnett Cohen with Megan Metcalf at The Box
Tuesday, January 25
Simone Forti & Barnett Cohen with Megan Metcalf Poetry and Conversation at The Box (Virtual). A special online reading and conversation between artists Simone Forti & Barnett Cohen along with contemporary art historian Megan Metcalf to celebrate the publication of their new chapbook of poetry entitled poems poems. The book emerges from a friendship: writing exchanged across a city in lockdown. “How do we get through this pandemic? How do we get through anything?” Megan Metcalf asks in her introduction. The answers offered here are various and oblique. Tuesday, January 25, 5pm; free; theboxla.com
Leon Kossoff at L.A. Louver
Wednesday, January 26
Leon Kossoff: A Life in Painting at L.A. Louver. One of Britain’s most celebrated postwar artists, Kossoff’s thickly layered impasto captures the changing landscape of his beloved London across nearly 60 years of construction sites, crowded streets, tube stations, train tracks, and later, tender portraits of one long-suffering urban tree. Kossoff also captures the more intimate evolutions of longtime portrait sitters and loved ones in candid works, as well as a series of self-portraits completed over several decades. Throughout, Kossoff seemingly wrests the scenes and figures from within the painted surface, all of it threatening to dissolve into abstraction. 45 N. Venice Blvd., Venice; On view January 26 – March 26; free; lalouver.com.
Latinos in Pasadena by Roberta H. Martínez
Behind the Book: Roberta H. Martínez at CalTech (Virtual). Histories of Pasadena are rich in details about important citizens, time-honored traditions, and storied enclaves such as Millionaires Row and Lamanda Park. But the legacies of Mexican Americans and other Latino men and women who often worked for Pasadena’s rich and famous have been sparsely preserved through the generations. Join us as Tashiana Bryant-Myrick, Director, Caltech Center for Inclusion and Diversity discusses Latinos in Pasadena with author Roberta H. Martínez. Wednesday, January 26, 5pm; free; events.caltech.edu.
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