Must-See January Shows in Los Angeles

Outside the fairs, don’t miss these exhibitions on view at Los Angeles’ top museums, galleries, and private collections.

“The Geffen Contemporary” at MOCA
“The Theater of Disappearance” is a site-specific piece by the Argentinian-born artist Adrián Villar Rojas, installed at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA’s warehouse. Villar Rojas creates posthuman environments that ask, “What happens after the end of art?” The artist spent time studying film-industry special effects techniques to prepare this project, which includes an architectural installation of petrified wood from Turin, columns from Sharjah, and silicone molds from Istanbul.

“Accidental Records” at Hauser & Wirth      
This is the first solo exhibition of Ellen Gallagher’s work in Los Angeles. On view are new paintings and drawings that explore histories of the Black Atlantic and Middle Passage. The artist’s work questions accepted geographies, layering her works, “the way sailors mark their location at sea, determined by return,” as she puts it. Gallagher, who has a new film installation made in collaboration with Edgar Cleijne, currently showing at Prospect.4 New Orleans, lives and works in New York and Rotterdam. 

“We Wanted a Revolution” at California African American Museum
“We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85” is a groundbreaking show that gives an underrecognized generation of female artists and activists of color their due. The exhibition, curated by Catherine Morris and Rujeko Hockley, presents a wide array of work from artists like Emma Amos, Linda Goode Bryant, Beverly Buchanan, Ayoka Chenzira, Pat Davis, Lisa Jones, Samella Lewis, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, Carrie Mae Weems, and others.

“Catherine Opie: The Modernist” at Regen Projects    
The Modernist is Catherine Opie’s first-ever film. It takes inspiration from Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962), a French experimental film made entirely from still photographs. The Modernist deals with the broken promise of the modernist dream. Its main character, an artist played by Opie’s friend Pig Pen, begins to burn down iconic modernist homes in Los Angeles, destroying the idea of modernism’s aim to bring good design to the masses. The 22-minute film is comprised of more than 800 black-and-white photographs. 

“Artists of Color” at The Underground Museum
“Artists of Color” is the third exhibition curated by the late artist Noah Davis using works from the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA). The show includes color-driven work—monochrome, Hard-Edge, and Color Field paintings as well as immersive installations—by Josef Albers, Michael Asher, Jo Baer, Dan Flavin, Carmen Herrera, Ellsworth Kelly, Jennie C. Jones, Donald Judd, and more. Of note is Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Forbidden Colors (1988), Davis’s own 2004 (1) (2008), and Diana Thater’s RGB Windows for MOCA (2001) now adapted for The Underground Museum’s Purple Garden. 

Mariah Robertson at M+B Gallery  
M+B Gallery opened in 2008 and is best known for being on the forefront of experimental, contemporary photography. In the past few years the gallery has opened its program to artists working in other mediums as well. On view currently is new work by Mariah Robertson, who is known for large-scale installations of colorful photography paper marked by experimentation with photography chemistry. The gallery is presenting a solo booth at ALAC of new drawings by the New Orleans–based artist Dapper Bruce Lafitte.

“Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth” at The Broad
Something Resembling Truth” features more than 100 works made throughout Jasper Johns’s 60-year career. The Broad is the only U.S. venue for the major survey, a collaboration with the Royal Academy. Many paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings will be on view in Los Angeles for the first time. Works of note exclusive to The Broad’s presentation include Three Flags (1958) and In memory of my feelings, Frank O’Hara (1961).

Marciano Art Foundation
As part of PST: LA/LA, the Marciano Foundation is presenting the work of Latin American artists from its collection. On view in the third-floor Ballroom gallery is work by artists including Allora & Calzadilla, Pia Camil, Jose Dávila, Gabriel Kuri, Adrián Villar Rojas, Gabriel Orozco, Damián Ortega, Analia Saban, Erika Verzutti, and more. “As a Los Angeles–based collector I have always looked to Latin American art as an important facet of our ever-expanding collection,” said foundation co-founder Maurice Marciano.

“Caroline Walker: Sunset” presented by Anat Ebgi 
Anat Ebgi is presenting a solo show of paintings by Caroline Walker. “Sunset” follows a day in the life of a woman in and around the Hollywood Hills, where she lives. It is inspired by both docu-soap reality TV, anecdote, and a meeting with the model for the works—a former Miss America pageant contestant (Miss Colorado 1977). Images of sunsets, mirrors, window frames, and lush backgrounds are recurring motifs that reference self-image and loneliness.

Hugh Scott-Douglas at Blum & Poe 
Blum & Poe is presenting an exhibition of new work by Hugh Scott-Douglas, the artist’s third solo show with the gallery. Scott-Douglas stages steel sculptures, digital video, and printed paintings together in an exploration of the tools capital employs in the production of value and the organization of labor. In each of these bodies of work, he repurposes existing software to make ecologies of class relationships visible through graphic representation and subsequent abstraction.

“A Universal History of Infamy” at LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition curated by Vincent Remos at the museum’s satellite gallery within the Charles White Elementary School. The show is part of “A Universal History of Infamy,” a multisite exhibition. Ramos, an artist and educator, has put together work by Latino artists, writers, and activists, including Isabel Avila, Raul Baltazar, Roberto Chavez, Victor Estrada, Carlee Fernandez, Devyn Galindo, Héctor García, Jacinta González, Raul Guerrero, Philip Guston, Fred Lonidier, Maria de Los Angeles, and Yvette Mayorga.

Robert Irwin at Sprüth Magers
Robert Irwin has created a site-specific project for Sprüth Magers, reimagining the gallery’s interior as an immersive installation. Known for his exploration of light and space, Irwin is one of the pioneers of Minimalist sculpture. This show has been years in the making—gallery walls have been removed, wall-to-floor windows have been explored, and a maze of transparent scrims has been installed. And on the second floor, eight fluorescent light sculptures by Irwin surround black scrim.

Wendell Gladstone at Shulamit Nazarian
This Wendell Gladstone’s first exhibition at Shulamit Nazarian. The Los Angeles–based artist creates paintings that pull from a range of sources—from 20th-century European advertising to pulp cover art. His energetic works in bright candy colors feature distorted figures and forms charged with psychological subtext.