This week, LA’s iconic lamppost artwork is reinstalled, rafa esparza gives a talk, and Caroline Ellen Lieu writes a poignant piece about processing our 2020 feelings with the great Patty Chang. 

Also, don’t miss Hyperallergic’s beautiful new website! After having been here for almost six years, it’s been exciting to see how our homepage has evolved, but never has it looked *this good.* I hope you’ll peruse to your heart’s content.

When asking the artist rafa esparza about what he is working on, his answer almost always involves friends, family, and fellow artists. That’s because esparza sees the job of the artist as inherently collaborative.

This Thursday, esparza will deliver a special lecture at the Hammer Museum, in which he will discuss several years of work. “I continue to be inspired by artists who are unapologetically themselves,“ he says, "expanding and breaking from the canon by virtue of daring to dream big from their subjective positions that have been systemically and institutionally marginalized.”