Shana Nys DambrotWe break down the gallery world’s Saturday night fever for your epic art-hop enjoyment.
As a new art season officially gets underway, Saturday, September 7 will be an Amazing Race-level relay in terms of gallery openings across the city. With a few starting early and some going late, the vast majority still land in the dreaded 6-8 p.m. ballpark, so it would be legitimately impossible to see them all on one night — even if you somehow were inspired to try. With a minimum of 60 largely simultaneous openings in every corner of Los Angeles, that’s just math.
But we still want to try to help, so at the website’s Arts section we’ve broken down the night by neighborhood: West Adams, Culver City, downtown, Hollywood/WeHo, Mid-City, and Venice/Santa Monica — plus a bonus round for a few savvy Eastside souls doing their own thing on the Sunday. With such a wealth of choices from the fancy to the fringe, we look forward to seeing you out there!
April Bey at Chimento Contemporary
West Adams (and one in Inglewood)
Most but not all of the art venues in West Adams start their seasons tonight, as does the post-humanist outpost The Nook Gallery — relatively nearby to the south on N. La Brea Avenue in Inglewood. They get started early, at 2:30 p.m. with the aptly named group show, “The Regenerates.” After that, The Landing on Jefferson has abstract architecture-inflected paintings by Jonathan Ryan from 6-9 p.m.; Lowell Ryan Projects shows inventive, retooled sartorial constructions by Erin Trefry from 7-9 p.m.; Chimento Contemporary welcomes anticipated shows from Pamela Smith Hudson and April Bey, 5-8 p.m.; and Erin Morrison riffs on the aesthetics of currency at OCHI Projects from 6-9 p.m.
Brittney Leeanne Williams at Zevitas Marcus
Culver City (and one on Friday)
It would be easier to list which of the Washington & La Cienega neighborhood galleries aren’t having openings tonight. But except for Klowden Mann’s gorgeous new show of sugar-encrusted cyanotypes by Andrea Chung opening the night of Friday, September 6, and Blum & Poe, Roberts Projects and Thinkspace rocking the 14th, it’s basically everyone. Honor Fraser brings out drippy new still-life paintings from street art demigod Kenny Scharf; Fabrik hosts a pair of photographers — one a documentarian, the other an abstractionist; Walter Maciel shows a pair of very different abstract visions; at Anat Ebgi Tammi Campbell takes on the Modernist bro canon; and Laura Krifka’s masterful technique and cheeky wit lights up Luis De Jesus.
Tomory Dodge makes a glorious, expressive mess at Philip Martin Gallery; candy-coated abstract eccentric patterns and traditional modern plein air landscapes are the order of the day at George Billis Gallery; both Bruce Lurie and Castelli Art Space celebrate the universe of works made on and with paper mediums; Ruth Pastine dives deep into the existential depths of color theory at Edward Cella; Brittney Leane Williams creates bold, fresh figurative works with biblical underpinnings at Zevitas Marcus; and Paul Kopeikin shows meticulous abstract geometries by Eric Beltz and epic black-and-white landscape photographs by Mitch Dobrowner.
Todd James at Over the Influence
Downtown (Historic Core, Arts District, Bendix Building, and more)
Downtown itself has more than one ecosystem, and tonight they’re all activated. The Historic Core welcomes street-art legend RISK to In Heroes We Trust for a pair of collabs — prints with SEEN and suits with YOGGX; expressionist animal spirit portraits at Contemporary Gallery; and art inspired by female grindhouse leads and a group show based on a visual game of telephone at The Hive. The Arts District has a late-summer group show on Satanic interpretations of food culture at Art Share; a gathering for three new shows at A+D Museum — a VR tour of the Bauhaus HQ, new work from SCI-Arc grad candidates, and a look at the design interface of 000 Magazine; a group show about the soul of Los Angeles at Superchief; a fresh take on traditional ink drawing and surf culture at new venue Speedy Gallery; and the surrealist interiors of Todd James at Over The Influence.
The southern end of the Arts District is keeping busy too, with conceptual architectural sculptures by Robert Moreland and evocative watercolor portraits by February James at Wilding Cran; new paintings by Nick Aguayo and a group show about the delights of pure color in painting at Vielmetter Los Angeles; a two-person show from Jenny Balin Sonenberg at Machine at Cirrus Gallery; wistful and unsettling paintings by Cynthia Daignault at Night Gallery; and exuberant found-material assemblage tapestries by Moffat Takadiwa as Nicodim Gallery’s inaugural show in their brand new space on Santa Fe Avenue.
And last but not least, most of the Bendix Building galleries open new shows as well — such as provocative feminist ceramics by Elyse Pignolet at Track 16; ethereal but rather luscious abstract paintings by Mark Sheinkman at Von Lintel; group exhibitions at Durden and Ray, 515, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid; Anna Mayer at A-B Projects; and Alison OK Frost at Cathedral Gallery. Eastside International at the Brewery Arts Complex hosts the group show Outside/In as part of the SUR Biennial; and last but not least, KGB Gallery hosts a survey of classic and new prints by Luis C. Garza.
Anthony Miserendino at Moskowitz Bayse
Per our recent Best of L.A. Arts issue story, this neighborhood is kind of popping right now, at least in terms of contemporary art galleries, and about half of them join the fray this Saturday night. Moskowitz Bayse presents haunting architectural sculptures by Anthony Miserendino; KP Projects opens a group show of painters obsessively in love with the palette; Shulamit Nazarian presents affecting and surreal works by painter Naudline Pierre; and Steve Turner Los Angeles opens three concurrent shows with Francisco Rodriguez (Santiago-born, London-based), Rebecca Shippee (New Haven), and Jon Key (New York). Jeffrey Deitch stages a survey of new and classic works by feminist icon Judy Chicago; Diane Rosenstein revisits the best of the ‘80s with important works by Julian Stanczak; and Various Small Fires presents deconstructions of the gendered media landscape by painter Robin F. Williams.
Tala Madani at David Kordansky Gallery
South of Hollywood, north of Culver City, and west of West Adams is a stretch of galleries roughly along La Brea, and of course, many of them have their shows tonight too. A two-person show by Samuelle Richardson and Joy Ray explores unconventional narratives and symbol-rich abstract messages in textile-based works; Loft at Liz’s hosts a pop-up of contemporary Japanese aesthetic optimism; and around the corner on Wilshire 1301PE shows fashion- and design-influenced supersaturated abstract pattern paintings by Judy Ledgerwood. Down by Highland, No Gallery and Kordanksy both get a bit dark, as the group show Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There and the epically cheeky Tala Madani solo show, respectively, take a turn for the zesty worst of society. Meanwhile in near-ish West Hollywood, Eve Fowler’s multimedia installation at Moran Moran interrogates feminist literature and linguistics.
David Jien at Richard Heller Gallery
Venice/Santa Monica (mostly Bergamot)
In another most-but-not-all type situation, a majority of Bergamot Station’s galleries open new shows on Saturday. But don’t let the coordinated date fool you, the galleries’ hours are all over the place, with some starting as early as 4, a few going as late as 9, and most falling somewhere in between. Watch for big solo shows from Greg Colson, Laura Forman, and J.A. Feng at Craig Krull; Eric Nash and Terry Leness at Skidmore; Patty Wickman and Ron Rizk at Lora Schlesinger; David Jien at Richard Heller; and Jon Krawcyzk at Leslie Sacks. But don’t miss Lois Lambert Gallery’s big, sassy, timely group show Truthiness, or the return of BG Gallery to the Berg, re-inaugurating their tenure after a sojourn up on Ocean Park, with the group show, The Body In Parts.
Outside of Bergamot, Galia Linn and the team of David McDonald & Raychael Stine show at the nearby quasi-residential project space Five Car Garage — a high-end carport transformed into a pristine gallery space behind a hillside house off Navy Street. They get started at noon and the address is shared upon your RSVP. Later that night, besequined and bunny-eared mixed media impresario Aaron Axelrod takes over at Abbot Kinney’s Tarryn Teresa Gallery; and the Ben Maltz Gallery at OTIS College debuts Centennial, a group show featuring the all-stars of 100 years of creative education at the institution.
Vakseen at Gallery 30 South
Sunday, September 8: Eastside (and one Pasadena)
Suffering from a Saturday night art hangover? Obviously, the only answer is some hair of the dog — and a bevy of Eastside galleries have that covered. Hit downtown for graffiti-infused tableaux by Devin Reynolds at Royale Projects; and a group show about the choices we make at Quotidian’s Antigone. ChimMaya in East L.A. has a warm embrace of a genre painting show by Margaret Garcia. And Pasadena’s Gallery 30 South shows bright and bold new mixed media collage by producer and visual artist Vakseen.
For more details, visit laweekly.com/arts.
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