What to See this Week during Frieze Los Angeles 2020

If you’re in Los Angeles, be sure to save time outside the fairs to visit these top exhibitions of artists like Stanley Kubrik, Alison Saar, and Shirin Neshat.

Alison Saar: Syncopation
LA Louver Venice
Now–February 29
L.A. Louver is presenting Alison Saar’s series of large and small-scale sculptures and paintings celebrating the women who maintain the world
while keeping up with domestic chores and duties at Frieze Los Angeles. For her concurrent solo exhibition at L.A. Louver, “Alison Saar: Syncopation,” her lithographs, etchings, and woodblock prints are evocations of her sculptures addressing issues of race, gender, and spirituality, for which she is renowned. Her sculptures often depict powerful figures carved from wood or cast in bronze that are articulated with found objects—material artifacts that enrich the work with a narrative all their own.

Tishan Hsu: Liquid Circuit
The Hammer Museum Westwood
Now–April 19
Organized by SculptureCenter, “Liquid Circuit” is Tishan Hsu’s first museum survey in the U.S. to date. Spanning from the 1980s to 2005, the works on view include around 30 sculptures, drawings, wall reliefs, and media work, which follow Hsu’s practice and the influence his work has had on younger, developing artists today. Originally trained as an architect at MIT, Hsu has a distinctive practice that has led him to explore topics like the impact of the accelerated use of technology and artificial intelligence on the human body and condition.

Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again
The Broad Downtown
Now—February 16, 2020
Currently on view at The Broad, celebrating this year its fifth anniversary with a series of exhibitions, installations and events, is Shirin Neshat’s “I Will Greet the Sun Again.” It is the largest survey of the artist’s work to date and her first major exhibition in the western U.S. Viewers will find around 30 years of Neshat’s work, including videos and photography that showcase the artist’s engagement with Iranian history, the human impact of political revolution, and the experience of living in exile. Beginning with her well-known “Women of Allah,” the exhibition arranges chronologically a selection of nearly 240 works dating from 1993 to the present day. Following this exhibition, the next unveiling in The Broad’s anniversary celebration is a free exhibition opening April 4 featuring iconic Los Angeles artists John Baldessari (who recently passed away in January), Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Mike Kelley.

Julie Mehretu
LACMA Mid-Wilshire
Now—May 17, 2020
Co-organized with the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is showing a midcareer survey of the Ethiopian-born artist Julie Mehretu. Including creations from 1996 to the present day, the exhibition features around 40 works on paper and 35 paintings, also offering an in-depth examination of the artist’s use of scale. After more than two decades of work, Mehretu’s practice is best known for its exploration of topics like history, colonialism, capitalism, geopolitics, war, global uprising, displacement, and diaspora.

Barbara Kruger
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA Little Tokyo
Now—November 2020
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA has reinstalled Barbara Kruger’s
monumental work Untitled (Questions), which was originally commissioned by MOCA in 1989. Last installed on the wall of MOCA’s Temporary Contemporary building in 1990, the work measures 30 by 191 feet and poses a plea for civil engagement through nine questions in red, white, and blue, like “Who is beyond the law?,” “Who is free to choose?,” and “Who laughs last?” Now residing on the museum’s north facade, the artwork will remain on view until the general election in November 2020.

“With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American art 1972–1985”
MOCA Grand Avenue Downtown
Now—May 11, 2020
Looking at the years 1972–1985, MOCA Grand Avenue’s exhibition “With Pleasure” is the first full-scale scholarly retrospective of the groundbreaking American Pattern and Decoration art movement. Featuring a selection of paintings, sculpture, collage, ceramics, installation art, and documented performances, the exhibition presents the work of 45 artists from across the country, who defiantly embraced an art form that is typically looked down on as being feminine, domestic, and inferior to fine art. Visitors to MOCA Grand Avenue will find the works of prominent figures from the movement, those whose contributions are underrecognized, and a few artists whose work is not usually associated with the movement, including Valerie Jaudon, Robert Kushner, Miriam Schapiro, Dee Shapiro, Kendall Shaw, and Takako Yamaguchi.

Rodney McMillian’s “Brown: videos from The Black Show”
The Underground Museum Arlington Heights
Now—February 16, 2020
Three years after Rodney McMillian’s presentation of “The Black Show” at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, The Underground Museum has debuted “Brown: videos from The Black Show.” McMillian uses the exhibition, featuring a series of paintings, sculptures, and videos, to illustrate a vision of the United States weighed down by a history of racialized oppression. Through the works on view, McMillian has transformed lush landscapes, such as moonlit fields and soggy swamps, into a mythical universe where his character wears a suit of armor to protect himself from hostile southern landscapes.

Timothy Washington: Citizen/Ship
California African American Museum Exposition Park
Now–March 1, 2020
In “Citizen/Ship,” Timothy Washington places himself in the role of an African storyteller whose goal is to infuse the community with social and political awareness. Using this as a baseline, the artist creates a dialogue on the positive and negative aspects of American culture, using the art to express his concern for the future. Visitors to the California African American Museum will find works arranged to suggest the interior of Washington’s own personal spaceship, including pieces like a prototype of the vessel entitled Futuristic Animal and a statue of a female figure encrusted with hundreds of nails called Love Thy Neighbor.

“Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs”
Skirball Cultural Center
Now–March 8, 2020
Though Stanley Kubrick is best known as a filmmaker, the artist first began his career as a photojournalist for the magazine Look in his teenage years. On view at the Skirball Cultural Center, “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs” offers a look into the formative years of Kubrick’s career, during which he honed a talent for storytelling through images. Organized by the Museum of the City of New York and the SK Film Archives LLC, the show features over 130 photographs, including a chronological documentation of his time at Look and a viewing of his first film, Day of the Fight.

“The Body, The Object, The Other”
Craft Contemporary Mid-Wilshire
Now–May 5
“The Body, The Object, The Other,” Craft Contemporary’s second clay biennial, is a group exhibition of 21 ceramicists whose practices use the human body as a starting point for challenging traditional notions of representation. The concept was devised by co-curators Holly Jerger and Andres Payan Estrada, who looked back to the start of humankind’s relationship with clay, noting the recurrence of a connection between the material and the human form found in countless creation myths and other stories. The artists whose work is on view include Anders Herwald Ruhwald, Jenny Hata Blumenfield, Jason Briggs, Roxanne Jackson, and Meghan Smythe.

“Lucio Fontana. Walking the Space: Spatial Environments, 1948–
1968”
Hauser & Wirth Arts District
Now–April 12
“Lucio Fontana. Walking the Space: Spatial Environments, 1948–1968” marks the U.S. debut of Fontana’s groundbreaking “Spatial Environments.” Presented chronologically are nine installations created over two decades, using tools like neon to play with light and space. These environmental works “open up space, create a new dimension, tie in the cosmos, as it endlessly expands beyond the confining plane of the picture,” as the artist described. The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Fondazione Lucio Fontana in Milan, highlights a lesser-known aspect of the influential artist’s practice.

Lauren Halsey
David Kordansky Gallery Mid-City
Now—March 14
Using her artistic practice to explore monuments, memorials, and public spaces, Lauren Halsey’s first exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery serves as a reckoning with gentrification and its effects on Black and Latinx shops and businesses. Taking over the gallery with a mythopoetic hauntscape of South Central Los Angeles, Halsey has filled the space with brightly colored assemblages of cubes and prisms that represent thriving or defunct enterprises, as well as foil-enwrapped structures that extend a personal, Black-media enriched mythography. Size and scale become a tool for exploration and play here, seen in an image of a soda bottle on a six-foot-tall rectangular prism and other works that challenge the viewers’ perspective. This exhibition follows a recent solo exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, as well as a solo show at MOCA.

Huma Bhabha
David Kordansky Gallery Mid-City
Now—March 14
Huma Bhabha is best known for her humanoid creations, made from multiple processes and traditions to embody an ethereal blend of the passion, beauty, and conflict that shape our world. In Bhabha’s first solo exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery, viewers will find a group of her sculptures, constructed from materials like cork, wood, metal, foam, and paint. Inspired by a wide range of art histories, Bhabha’s works can often be categorized by the traditional poses in which they are formed—seen in works like the seated figure Mask of Dimitrios and a standing body reminiscent of art found in an ancient temple, entitled Ground.

Anish Kapoor
Regen Projects Hollywood
Now–February 16
Regen Projects’ latest showing of work by Anish Kapoor is centered around the monumental stainless-steel Double S-Curve, which expands on a piece that was originally exhibited at the gallery in 2006. Appearing to be at once solid and liquid, the work creates an illusory sense of reality as it snakes through the center of the space. Also featured in the show is a new series of wall-mounted mirrors, which play with the viewers’ perception as they subtly shift between convex and concave.

Richard Prince: New Portraits
Gagosian Beverly Hills
February 6–March 21
Gagosian presents “New Portraits” by Richard Prince. This exhibition will be the 2020 edition of the gallery’s Oscars show, a much-anticipated annual fixture in the Los Angeles cultural calendar that opens on the eve of the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony. Recently presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit from October 2019 to January 2020, the show documents Prince’s continued efforts to make innovative portraiture.

“New Images of Man”
Blum + Poe Culver City
Now–March 14
Based on a 1959 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), “New Images of Man,” which is spread across two floors of Blum + Poe, offers an expanded reconstruction of the original presentation, which looked at the human condition and emerging methods of humanist representation following World War II. Curator Alison M. Gingeras has created a widened view of art history, adding in works by artists who were overlooked in the original exhibition, such as women creatives and artists residing outside of Western Europe and North America.

Cyprien Gaillard
Sprüth Magers Mid-Wilshire
February 11—March 21
Sprüth Magers is presenting new sculptures and photographs by Cyprien Gaillard, along with a film that first debuted last year at the 58th Venice Biennale. The exhibition includes a series of wall-based sculptures made of thin veneers of marble and stone, embedded with fossils and stainless steel New Jersey Transit logos. The works relate to the film Ocean II Ocean (2019), capturing fossils found in the marble walls of subway stations in Russia and the former Soviet Union, along with archival footage of New York’s MTA subway cars being dumped into the ocean, set to a soundtrack of steel drums.

Naama Tsabar: Inversions
Shulamit Nazarian Melrose
Now—February 22
“Inversions” is an exhibition of new sculptures by the New York–based artist Naama Tsabar. For her first solo show in California, she will debut a body of work that directly interacts with the space behind the gallery walls. Tsabar—known for her installations and performances that play with physical space, sound, and the body—has made inverted sculptures that can be activated as instruments by participants willing to reach into the gallery walls. Also on view are new pieces from the artist’s ongoing series “Transition,” sculptural paintings made of deconstructed amplifiers, and “Work on Felt,” featuring sculptures made of felt and held with the tension of a single piano string. All works in the exhibition can be activated by viewers to emit sound.

Jibade-Khalil Huffman: You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me
Anat Ebgi Culver City
Now–February 16
Jibade-Khalil Huffman’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” features two new video works and a series of related photographs and abstract photo collages printed on transparency and paper. Zero, the near feature-length video in the exhibition (runtime 72 minutes), like much of Huffman’s video work, fits within a tradition of collage and appropriation in American avant-garde film and speaks to our own daily overload of information, and how we are desensitized to it.

Calida Rawles: A Dream for My Lilith
Various Small Fires Hollywood
February 12—March 22
Calida Rawles’s “A Dream for My Lilith” features a series of photorealistic paintings depicting African American men and women floating in blue, glistening expanses of water. Addressing the duality of water, the element serves as a poetic representation of spiritual healing, while it also acknowledges historical links to cultural fear and racial exclusion. Viewers will be entranced by the raw beauty of Rawles’s paintings, which fluidly delve into identity politics and current events while celebrating the strength and resilience of African American culture.

Kathleen Ryan
François Ghebaly Downtown
February 12–March 29
François Ghebaly will present a series of new works by Kathleen Ryan. The New York–based artist is known for creating monumental sculptures that play with scale, volume, material, and perception—such as a cluster of balloon-shaped pieces made from concrete, reminiscent of a larger-than-life, and very heavy, bunch of grapes. This latest exhibition will feature an installation of large-scale beaded fruits. Using a foam base shaped like oversized fruits, the artist places thousands of glass beads and semiprecious stones to mimic the coloring and deformity that comes from the natural rotting process.

Claire Tabouret
Night Gallery Downtown
February 15–March 21
For her second solo show at Night Gallery, the French-born artist Claire Tabouret will be debuting a series of new paintings and works on paper. Primarily focusing on portraiture in her practice, the exhibition follows her 2017 exhibition “Eclipse” at the gallery and a solo presentation at Frieze LA in 2019.

Postcommodity: Some Reach While Others Clap
LAXART Hollywood
Now—February 29
Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary art collective whose focus is on examining colonialism through a shared indigenous lens. Using their work to create a dialogue on the topics of displacement, migration, labor and its struggles, and gentrification, the exhibition “Some Reach While Others Clap” uses the support beams of LAXART’s space to create a metaphor acknowledging Indigenous Americans as the foundation of Los Angeles. Transforming the gallery from a space of artistic autonomy into an atmosphere that investigates history and uncovers indigenous foundations, the exhibition also features a collaboration with the vintage automobile restoration shop Starlite Rod & Kustom.

“I Guess by Now I’m Supposed to Be a Man: I’m Just Trying to Leave
Behind Yesterday”
UTA Artist Space Beverly Hills
February 12—March 14
Entitled “I Guess by Now I’m Supposed to Be a Man: I’m Just Trying to Leave Behind Yesterday,” Arcmanoro Niles’s exhibition at the UTA Artist Space will be his first solo show on the West Coast and will feature seven new large-scale works, a suite of small portraits, and a selection of other recent paintings. The works on view explore personal journeys through the different stages of life—similarly seen in some of his previous works like My Heart Is Like Paper, which depicts a man standing in a bathroom, imagined in warm-hued oil paints and glitter.

Joe Sola: I drove to san francisco and back
Honor Fraser Culver City
Now—March 7
“I drove to san francisco and back” is a presentation of new works by American artist Joe Sola. Orbiting the artist’s relationship to social media, the Internet, and Hollywood culture, the exhibition will feature a sculpture, a virtual reality work, and digital pigment prints, such as a surreal work depicting a desolate landscape imagined entirely in gold.

Pat Phillips
M+B Gallery West Hollywood
February 12—March 14
Pat Phillips’s solo West Coast debut features a selection of new paintings and drawings, offering a meditation on the complex questions of race, class, labor, and militarized culture he experienced while living in the southern United States. While often exploring more serious topics in his work, Phillips employs a mixture of everyday subjects and satirical themes to create a relatable, common language that encourages his viewers to consider our society’s perceptions. Born in England, the artist relocated to Louisiana as a child, where he nurtured his artistic abilities by photographing boxcars and painting graffiti in his small hometown.

Sandy Rodriguez: You Will Not Be Forgotten
Charlie James Gallery Chinatown
Now—March 7
“You Will Not Be Forgotten” is the first solo show at Charlie James Gallery of work by Sandy Rodriguez. On view are pieces from the Los Angeles–based artist’s ongoing project Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón, dedicated to the Central American child migrants who died while in custody of US Customs and Border Protection in 2018 and 2019. The installation includes portraits of the children, a large-scale map of the incidents on the border, a visual recipe for healing trauma, paintings, and more. It is Rodriguez’s hope that the show will be a space for healing, addressing the present and past, as well as humanizing the 70,000 migrant children currently caged in the United States.

“All of Them Witches”
Jeffrey Deitch Hollywood
Now—April 11, 2020
Organized by Laurie Simmons and Dan Nadel, “All Of Them Witches” arose from a shared interest in artworks and artists possessing a certain supernatural aura. Touching on topics like wishes and curses, gender, sex, ritual, fantasy, and historical occult, the group exhibition features works surrounding traditionally challenging subject matter, and imbuing a witchy sensibility. Included in the show are a series of paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, and other creations by artists like Cindy Sherman, Bea Nettles, Marilyn Minter, Hollis Sigler, Audry Flack, and Heather Benjamin.

Jellyfish
Kohn Gallery Hollywood
Now—March 13
Kohn Gallery’s “Jellyfish” is a group exhibition creating dialogue surrounding the output of artists during the formative years of the Pictures Generation—a time of mass media and reproduction. Curated by Samantha Glaser-Weiss, the show was entitled for Rashid Johnson’s work of the same name and explores the relationship between medium and conceptualism. Including the works of artists like Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, and Donald Judd, the show is comprised of a range of paintings, sculptures, installations, and drawings including Warhol’s Beatle Boots (Negative) and Lazy and Stupid by Christopher Wool.