A Local’s Education
{Los Angeles}
Take a walk on the local side and explore the comprehensive cultural and geographical landscape at the Autry’s two-gallery, four-part exhibit, “California Continued.” The 20,000-square-foot mega exhibit, which includes “Human Nature,” “The Life and Work of Mabel McKay,” “Human Nature Garden,” and “California Road Trip” segments, is a visual display of native California history through its landscape and people. “Human Nature” divides into four thematic sections: Salmon, Fire, Desert, and Plants as Food and Medicine telling the story of migrations, historic burn policies, the Mojave, and indigenous plants that could provide solutions to current health and food issues. “Human Nature Garden” is an exterior installation displaying more than 60 domestic plants and acting as an environmental educational experience. “California Roadtrip Room” immerses viewers in the diverse California landscape from Death Valley to the Redwoods with six hours of panoramic projection displayed on a split, dual screen. theautry.org
Spotted: Pop Art Brought to Life
{Los Angeles}
The Skirball connects the dots, bringing Angelenos in line with one of the most famous artists of all time, Roy Lichtenstein. Recognized for his colorful and pointed depictions of everyday life, Lichtenstein’s signature pop art collection “Pop for the People” spans beyond canvas to paper plates to shopping bags to clothing. Notable displays include originals Bull Profile, the Surrealist series, Sunrise, and Shipboard Girl. As a special component, the Lichenstein showing will also incorporate collaborative pieces from his dynamic partnerships with Stanley Grinstein and Sidney Felsen who cofounded Gemini G.E.L., the world-renowned LA artist workshop largely credited for the dissemination of pop art and prints at the beginning of its era. As a truly experiential addition, the exhibit includes a fully interactive, 3D replica of Lichtenstein’s Bedroom at Arles, his take on Van Gogh’s original 19th-century piece. skirball.org
Van Gogh, Monet, and Cézanne Walk Into an Exhibit…
{San Marino}
The Hammer Museum and The Huntington Art Collections join forces to bring together an unprecedented display of impressionism and post-impressionism pieces from the brushes of Vincent Van Gogh and his noteworthy contemporaries including but not limited to Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin. Like a gathering of wayward friends, the Hammer reintroduced fifteen noteworthy impressionist and post-impressionist pieces to the Huntington. Come mingle with “Van Gogh & Friends” as Monet’s View of Bordighera brushes elbows with Van Gogh originals such as The Sower and Hospital at Saint-Rémy in a truly unique gathering of creatives through the world they so famously left behind. huntington.org
Make Art Not War
{Los Angeles}
Realism and abstraction clash in this rebellious brigade of post-WWII English art pieces titled “London Calling.” London-based artists Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, R.B. Kitaj, and Leon Kossoff may not have been comrades in war, but they unspokenly joined forces to produces pieces against the grain of their artistic contemporaries. The creative consensus at the time admired less subject-based stylings of abstraction, conceptualism, and minimalism. These Picasso- and Balthus-musing artists painted outside the lines, focusing on real subjects but through a more ephemeral and vibrant lens that often danced around but never tangoed with the complete departure from the real. getty.edu
Serial Printing Still Gelling with LA LACMA
{Los Angeles} LACMA
The print shop made famous by the likes of Lichtenstein, Grinstein, and Felson is getting a spotlight of its own as a contemporary hub for continuing the narrative of single prints through the production of artist series. Giving viewers insight into the artistic practice of thematic and linear storytelling, “The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L.” exhibit at LACMA celebrates the art of publishing art in mass quantity and sequential quality, displaying some of the shops most historic and impactful series. The Gemini G.E.L. and LACMA have shared a long-standing relationship; LACMA displayed the Gemini’s debut print series by Josef Albers. In honor of 50 years, LACMA’s exhibit will display a timeline of Gemini’s works from pioneering pieces by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella to the latest collections by Richard Serra and Julie Mehretu. lacma.org
