Los Angeles

December 8, 2021 • View in browser

Your Concise Art Guide for December 2021

Our December LA art guide caters to holiday lovers and haters alike, from a cheeky “sexy Xmas” show to a bazaar featuring creative zines. Also, if you haven’t seen the Obama Portraits in person, they’re worth it, especially since the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has mounted a dazzling show on Black American portraits to go alongside them.

— Matt Stomberg and Elisa Wouk Almino

Kim Dingle: Pudgey Pomona
Vielmetter Los Angeles through December 18

Don’t miss out on this Los Angeles-based artist’s curious and sensitive work. The exhibition is curated by one of Dingle’s characters, Pudgey Pomona, a reference librarian who appears in a blue floral shirt against a lemon yellow background in a portrait at the entrance. The 1962 lime green jaguar parked outside the gallery is also Miss Pomona’s, we are told. Inside, you’ll find a delicate marble collection, a cookie cutter in the shape of Cagliari, Italy, a world atlas of animals, and so much more.

Anna Valdez: My Own Private Arcadia
b chehayeb: horses in my chanclas
Ochi Projects through December 11 (chehayeb), December 18 (Valdez)

These two solo shows at Ochi Projects present young painters who explore themes of landscape and site. In My Own Private Arcadia, Oakland-based artist Anna Valdez’s vibrant canvases play with pattern, color, and representation, torn between landscape, still life, and dream-like fantasia. b chehayeb’s paintings are more abstract, but bear evocative traces of formative years spent in West Texas as referenced in the show’s title horses in my chanclas: a dusty, muted color scheme, ranche life, Spanglish words.

Highways & Byways
Residency Art Gallery through December 18

The LA-based 3B Collective is a group of artists hailing from indigenous and immigrant backgrounds who collaborate with institutions and other artists to create murals and public artworks. For Highways & Byways, the group looks at the links between urban renewal, large infrastructure projects, and gentrification, specifically as they affect BIPOC communities.

Sexy Xmas V
The Lodge through December 24

Have yourself a Sexy Little Xmas! Now a tradition, the Lodge stages its fifth iteration of salacious, Christmas-timed art that is not always “kid appropriate.” Works include Edward Cushenberry’s flirty paintings, Johnny Smith’s suggestive photos of clothing, and even an Ed Ruscha silkscreen of … cockroaches. More sexy art, please (Christmas or no Christmas). 

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Violins of Hope
Holocaust Museum LA through January 8

Violins of Hope is a collection of violins all owned by Jews before and during WWII. Some were kept hidden and smuggled to safety by their owners, others survived even when their owners perished. Restored by Violin-makers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein, the collection is a testament to hope and survival, and a reminder of a vibrant culture that was largely decimated. Violins of Hope at the Holocaust Museum LA includes 13 of the 60 violins in the collection, and will be accompanied by concerts featuring the original instruments.

SeenUNseen
LA Louver through January 8

Celebrated artist Alison Saar curates a show at LA Louver on “spirit portraiture,” a genre close to her own heart and practice. Featuring sculptures, tapestries, paintings, and photographs, the contemporary artists behind these works (including Vanessa German, Rina Banerjee, and several others) are also “believers, agitators, healers, and mediums.” They help us to see the unseen.

Yaron Michael Hakim: Psittaciformes
Grand Central Art Center through January 9

With a style reminiscent of 19th-century naturalist illustrations, Yaron Michael Hakim depicts South American macaws and parrots in their lush jungle environs. Look closer and these hybrid creatures feature human eyes, noses, and mouths that peek out from behind brightly colored plumage. Born in Colombia, Hakim was adopted and raised in a Jewish family, growing up in Australia, Europe, and the US. Painted on Dacron sails — referencing his peripatetic journey — his exquisite paintings capture his fragmented and layered identity with pathos and curiosity. Ocarinas modeled on the artist’s nose question physical stereotypes, interjecting a note of humor into his reflections on selfhood.

Zines del Sol
Tierra Del Sol Gallery through December 23

Zines are an inexpensive and democratic way for artists and writers to share their work with the public. Tierra del Sol Gallery presents their first-ever zine show, Zines del Sol, which features artists working with the Tierra del Sol Foundation, founded in 1971 to offer creative support to individuals with disabilities. The show takes a broad definition of zine, including printed materials, textiles, dolls, ceramics, and more.

Cog•nate Collective: Manos a la Obra
18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus) through February 5

Translated as “Let’s Get to Work,” Manos a la Obra continues Cog•nate Collective’s exploration of transborder economic systems and how they function on the local level. The show features work made in collaboration with participants in their Market Exchange program, an initiative that envisions a community marketplace as a site of empowerment for vendors and artisans. A Pop Up Artisan Marketplace will be held at the gallery on January 29.

Black American Portraits
Los Angeles County Museum of Art through April 17

The portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald respectively are milestones in both art and civic culture: the first official portraits of an African-American president and their spouse by African-American artists. To accompany their presentation in the touring Obama Portraits (on view through January 2), LACMA has mounted the exhibition Black American Portraits, which brings together 150 works created over the past two centuries depicting Black subjects. Largely created by Black artists, these images show the importance of reclaiming one’s own representation, countering dominant visual narratives of Black bodies centered on fetishization, otherness, or absence. Artists include Charles Gaines, Lezley Saar, Kerry James Marshall, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Carrie May Weems, and many others.

CLOSING SOON

June Edmonds: Full Spectrum
Laband Art Gallery through December 11

Revolution Everywhere: Threshold of Resistance
University Art Galleries at UC Irvine through December 11

Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe
Armory Center for the Arts and Benton Museum of Art through December 12 

Pippa Garner: Immaculate Misconceptions
Joan through December 18

Sadie Barnette: Legacy & Legend
Benton Museum of Art and Pitzer College Art Galleries through December 18

Tiffany Alfonseca: De las manos que nos crearon
The Mistake Room through December 18 

Umar Rashid: En Garde / On God
Blum & Poe through December 18