Shana Nys Dambrot
Artists of all concerns memorialize and celebrate the things in life that bring them joy, life, and irrational exuberance—from paintings with soulful sweetness to the immersive energy of dance floor culture, paying creativity forward, lighting up the dark places, making it work against all odds, the sustaining power of natural elements, the quirks of city living, the intimacies and subtle magic that make hard times bearable, honoring a titan of socially engaged post-Pop, getting your hands dirty, and grabbing your friends and taking over a building with a one-night performance art invasion.
Eva Armisén at CMay Gallery
Thursday, May 25
Eva Armisén: Una Vida Pintada at CMay Gallery. Armisén presents work made in the last two years—drawings and oil paintings that continue her universally appealing autobiographical storytelling across different techniques within her unique, inimitable style. From the subtle, tender simplicity of the drawings, to the oil paintings with exuberance of color that suggest motion, emotion, and the joy of living, Armisén’s intention is to reflect the urgency and importance that animates every moment—the extraordinary that flourishes within the ordinary. 5828 Wilshire Blvd.; Miracle Mile; Opening reception: Thursday, May 25, 6-9pm; On view through June 24; free; cmaygallery.com.
Installation view of Carl Craig: Party:After-Party, Dia Beacon, Beacon, New York, 2020. (© Carl Craig, courtesy of Dia Art Foundation, New York. Photo by Bill Jacobson Studio, New York)
MOCA x Insomniac & Secret Project Present Party/After-Party Sessions at the Geffen Contemporary. It’s a dance party at the museum, presented in conjunction with Carl Craig: Party/After Party—an immersive environment offering a visceral sound and somatic experience that evolves with each new iteration—as Craig brings the heat and energy of the club into the museum with a series of three concerts featuring live sets from globally acclaimed DJs, celebrating the legacy of techno and forefront the artists who have pioneered the genre. 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo; Thursday, May 25, 6:30pm-12:30am; $15; moca.org.
Sol Summers in the artworxLA benefit auction
An Evening of Art Benefiting artworxLA at the Hollywood Roosevelt. Over the past 30 years, artworxLA has served over 15,000 students through a multifaceted arts education program, with over 400 teaching artists leading art-making activities in 50 classrooms and partnerships with nearly 100 cultural institutions. Celebrate the culmination of the beloved organization’s 30th Anniversary and the launch of its next decade with champagne, cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, dessert—and one of the charity season’s most anticipated silent art auctions, featuring works by established, mid-career, emerging, and student artists. Thursday, May 25, 6-9pm; $175-$250; artworxla.org.
Frank Bowling at Hauser & Wirth WeHo: #4 to the Lighthouse, 2021. Acrylic and acrylic gel on canvas with marouflage, 74 x 102 in (Courtesy of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York-DACS, London 2023. Photo by Damian Griffiths)
Friday, May 26
Frank Bowling: Landscape at Hauser & Wirth West Hollywood. One of the foremost British artists of his generation, Sir Frank Bowling has spent more than six decades relentlessly challenging the limits of the medium of painting and expanding its possibilities, attracting acclaim for his contributions to abstraction. Landscape comprises 11 ebullient recent paintings that engage the rich art historical tradition of landscape painting—and propel it forward into the present moment. Coinciding with this historic exhibition, Bowling’s work and expansive biographical oeuvre is being featured through June 30 across the CIRCA global platform of digital billboards—including at Piccadilly Circus, London at the Marriott Live in Los Angeles. Hauser & Wirth, 8980 Santa Monica Blvd., WeHo; On view May 26 – August 5; free; hauserwirth.com.
Nina Palomba X PopSockets at Secret Walls HQ
Making It at Secret Walls HQ. The Making It Art Show is “powered by PopSockets,” offering a unique reveal and display of artist Nina Palomba’s graphic collection for the all new PopSockets customizer program. Her originals inspired by the customizer assets kit will be on display alongside original artwork created by students of the recent Secret Walls Academy spray paint workshop, with accompanying cases inspired by their canvas creations. This casual celebration of the new partnership shares what is possible beyond product creation through true collaboration with artists. On Thursday, May 25, Palomba gives a talk on her experience with the project at 5pm. 2270 Venice Blvd., Venice; Friday, May 26, 6-10pm; free; instagram.com/secretwalls.
Christine Weir: Emergence No. 2, 2019. Graphite on clay board, 36 x 48 inches (Wonzimer Gallery)
Where Earth Becomes Aether at Wonzimer Gallery. A group exhibition curated by Jason Jenn & Vojislav Radovanović, investigating the elemental nature of art-making, constructed by earthy resources and inspired by ethereal ideas. Materials including rock, metal, graphite, minerals, textile, clay, and plants are transformed into a multifaceted range of creative gold that embodies the alchemical power of human imagination. Viewers are invited to explore the connection between the physical and emotional, the ephemeral and eternal, and the material and immaterial. 341-B S. Avenue 17, downtown; Opening reception: Friday, May 26, 5-10pm; On view through June 30; free; wonzimer.com.
Miss Van at KP Projects Gallery
Saturday, May 27
Miss Van: La Belle Epoque at KP Projects. In gauzy romantic compositions, French-born, Barcelona-based painter Miss Van’s striking works carry a surreal quality of burlesque, resonating with a beautiful synergy of rawness, softness and emotion. Miss Van says of her unique feminine-forward street art aesthetic developed over 25 remarkable years, “I’m evolving and growing up with my paintings. It’s the only way, when you paint with emotions and feelings. I’m trying to be true to myself.” 633 N. La Brea, Hollywood; Opening reception: Saturday, May 27, 6-9pm; On view through June 24; free; kpprojectsgallery.net.
Micaela Taylor: Misfit (LA Dance Project)
L.A. Dance Project presents Misfit, a film by Micaela Taylor. The acclaimed rising star of dance and choreography debuts her new 12-minute short film that focuses on a woman on her way home from a dance rehearsal. Her spiraling thoughts begin to blur past and present as she questions her identity and place in the world. Followed by a Q&A with Micaela Taylor and team. celebrating women in film. 2245 E. Washington Blvd., downtown; Friday, May 27, 7:30pm; $20; ladanceproject.org.
Yolanda González at Bermudez Projects
Yolanda González: La Reina de los Sueños at Bermudez Projects. These dreamlike apparitions are some of González’s most personal works, telling the story of her rebirth through sensual bodies, dynamic colors, and multilayered textures.Sourcing three different types of paper to create her works–including paper brought back after her life-changing fellowship in Japan 30 years ago–along with sketches created during the pandemic, González visually articulates how our past experiences shape our present. 1225 Cypress Ave., Cypress Park; Opening reception: Saturday, May 27, 6-9pm; On view through June 17; free; bermudezprojects.com.
Irrational Exhibits 12 (Image: Sichong Xie)
Irrational Exhibits 12: Body, Materiality, and Systems at the Bendix Building. The galleries and creative spaces of the historic Bendix Building—Track 16, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Monte Vista Projects, Gallery 515, Mutable Studios, Durden and Ray, and more—band together for a one night micro-festival of performance, installation, sculpture, sound, and video art, from the full-tilt futuristic to the refusenik analog, the theatrical to the ephemeral, the expert to the experimental. The 22 participating artists’ works invite viewers to consider how balance is found within community as it relates to social, political, gender, ecological, and technological-related issues and how we can reimagine a balanced present and future. 1206 Maple Ave., downtown; Saturday, May 27, 7-9pm; free; irrationalexhibits.com.
Keith Haring, Untitled, 1982. Baked enamel on metal. (Courtesy of The Broad Art Foundation. © Keith Haring Foundation)
Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody at The Broad. Somehow this will be the first major Los Angeles museum exhibition dedicated to the game-changing artist Keith Haring, whose energetic and prolific output managed to seamlessly fuse the outrageous joyfulness of wild 1980s street-infused pop with urgent agitation for social justice issues from AIDS to the environment. This exhibition draws on decades of Haring’s works from the personal to the public and monumental, activist to educational, murals to merch, to give a well-rounded survey, biographical in scope, celebrating his accessible and enduring appeal. In addition to scores of works of art, documentation and ephemera, and an homage to his own anti-capitalist entrepreneurship, the show offers more immersive aspects like the staging of music playlists Haring curated during his life— offering a fresh, fulsome look at an artist we think we already know. 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown; On view May 27 – October 8; $22; thebroad.org.
Courtney Mattison: Our Changing Seas IV, 2016-2019. Glazed stoneware, porcelain, 132 x 204 x 22 in (Craft Contemporary)
Sunday, May 28
Wayfinding: Third Clay Biennial at The Craft Contemporary. Craft Contemporary’s third clay biennial will present contemporary artists who harness clay’s powerful physical and metaphorical properties to embody their ties to land and water, the two elements which together form clay. Exploring a range of themes including environmental degradation, plant cultivation, migration, and one’s psychological connections to a place, these artists’ manipulation of clay becomes a personal system to comprehend and mark the complex interdependencies of humans, land, and water. Extensive programming happens throughout the exhibition. 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile; Opening Reception: Saturday, May 27, 6-9pm, $12; On view May 28 – September 10; $9, free every Sunday; craftcontemporary.org.
Antoni Hervás: The Awakening at Human Resources Los Angeles
Wednesday, May 31
Bijou (1972) at Human Resources Los Angeles. HRLA’s Wednesday Night Screenings series features a selection by curator Clara López Menéndez—Bijou, the film. The screening takes place inside Barcelona-based artist Antoni Hervás’ immersive installation The Awakening— a project branching from the artist’s residency in L.A. at the Tom of Finland Foundation, where they’ve been researching the beginnings of leather culture. Interested in the murky origins of these aesthetics and performative codes of queer/gay life, Hervás has been looking into the history of this community in Southern California. 410 Cottage Home St., Chinatown; Wednesday, May 31, 9pm; free; h-r.la.
Frank Bowling: Texas Louise, 1971 (Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth ©️ Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS 2023. Photo: Charlie Littlewood Credit: Pinault Collection)
Frank Bowling: Australia to Africa, 1969-70 (Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth ©️ Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS 2023. Photo: Charlie Littlewood)
Frank Bowling at CIRCA / Marriott Live Los Angeles
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