This month’s picks are about community, support networks, and perseverance. Lonnie Holley gathers a group of friends and colleagues in By any means necessarywhile tabernacle at FOCA explores themes of dislocation, diaspora and domesticity. Vaginal Davis summons a group of influential performers through her “makeup paintings” and Sherrill Roland deals with the isolation and dehumanization of incarceration through her diverse practice. ERA Xenospace explores how artists can use AI to counter virtual alienation through creative empowerment, and Exposure highlights the devastating impact that nuclear testing and environmental exploitation have had on Indigenous peoples around the world.
Carlos Rosales-Silva: Border Logic
Carlos Rosales-Silva’s paintings reference the complicated history of abstraction, drawing inspiration from European modernism alongside the indigenous visual traditions of the Americas that often inspired artists like Josef Albers and Juan O’Gorman in Mexico. He incorporates pieces of glass, stone and plastic into his textured and shaped canvases, blurring the lines between art and craft. Reflecting on her childhood in the border town of El Paso, Rosales-Silva’s vibrant and vital works suggest not so much a clear “border logic” as they offer a joyous hybridity that completely circumvents artificial borders and barriers.
Daughters of Sargent West (sargentsdaughters.com)
538 North Western Avenue, East Hollywood, Los Angeles
Until May 13
Vaginal Davis: Macha Family Novel
To create the expressionist portraits of his personal exhibition Masha family novel, Vaginal Davis used unconventional materials associated with beauty rituals such as eyeshadow, nail polish and perfume. They refer to his own status as an influential member of the underground queer/punk/performance scene in Los Angeles since the late 1970s, as well as to the theatrical practice of his subjects, including dancer Raven Wilkinson and actor and dancer Cyd Charisse. Made with potions, tonics and tinctures, these “makeup paints”, as she calls them, suggest a kind of matter-based transformation, linking to a show of astrological works by Cameronwho explored magic and witchcraft in his practice.
Marc Selwyn fine arts (marcselwynfineart.com)
9953 South Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA
Until May 27
tabernacle
After the biblical exodus from Egypt, Moses built a portable abode, a tabernacle, for God so that the Israelites could worship while they wandered in the wilderness. Curator Matthew Lax uses the tabernacle motif to explore themes of diaspora, community and ritual within a framework of uncertainty and physical dislocation. Participants include artist and theorist Boz Deseo Garden, Skid Row-based performance group Los Angeles Poverty Department, Andre Keichian who explores personal stories through photo, video and sculpture, and artist Miller Robinson. multidisciplinary of Karuk, Yurok and European descent whose performance-based objects evolve over time.
Contemporary Art Fellows (focala.org)
970 North Broadway, Suite 208, Chinatown, Los Angeles
Until June 3
By any means necessary
Organized by artist and musician Lonnie Holley, By any means necessary brings together the work of several black artists from the South whose creative visions persevere despite the limited resources at their disposal. Participating artists include Louisiana Bendolph and Rita May Pettway whose quilts are inspired by the heritage of their hometown, Gee’s Bend; Hawkins Bolden, who created “scarecrow” assemblages from found objects despite losing his sight at age 8; and Ronald Lockett, who traveled his town of Bessemer, Alabama, in search of tin foil, which he assembled into dynamic abstract compositions. The exhibition is presented alongside an exhibition of works by Thornton Diala close friend of Holley and a cousin of Lockett who encouraged the young artist in his practice.
Blum & Poe (blumandpoe.com)
2727 South La Cienega Boulevard, Culver City, CA
Until June 10
Exhibition: Indigenous Art and Political Ecology
Exposure is a group exhibition that confronts the effects of nuclear testing, uranium mining and nuclear accidents on indigenous populations around the world. It features 36 artists or collectives from the United States, Canada, Greenland, Japan, Australia and the Pacific Islands, including Adrian Stimson (Blackfoot), Bonnie Devine (Anishinaabe/Ojibway), Jessie Kleemann (Inuit), Jerrel Singer (Diné), Munro Te Whata (Maori/Niuean), and many more. Incorporating textile art, photography, sculpture and virtual reality, the exhibit explores how a history of corporate greed and government neglect has had devastating effects on generations of Indigenous people.
Armory Arts Center (armoryarts.org)
145 North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA
Until June 11
Xenospace
Countering fears that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to artists, Xenospace, on the online-only platform EPOCH, features seven artists who use AI as a creative tool. Set in a virtual environment created using the Stable Diffusion text-image model, are films, sculptures and installations made with the help of deep learning programs. These include Libby Heaney’s untamed digital landscape offering an alternative to corporate control of data; Harvey Moon’s 3D-generated sculptures based on termite organizing strategies; and “Dwellers Beneath the Waters” by Shanghai-based collective CROSSLUCID which evokes magic and ritual to deal with contemporary issues such as climate catastrophe, wars and growing economic disparity.
Era (era.gallery)
Online until June 16
Didier William: things like that don’t happen here
Didier William draws on personal narratives, history and myth to produce his charged and enigmatic images which incorporate painting, printmaking and sculpture. Anonymous figures are depicted in caves or bodies of water, referencing his native Haiti and the legacies of colonialism that the country still grapples with. As much as his works are defined by an intense physicality, they also suggest a spiritual metaphysics that transcends the earthly realm.
James Fuentes (jamesfuentes.com)
5015 Melrose Avenue, East Hollywood, Los Angeles
May 6–June 17
Virginia Jaramillo: East of the Sun, West of the Moon
East of the Sun, West of the Moon is Virginia Jaramillo’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, featuring nine new works by the 84-year-old abstract painter. Born in El Paso but raised in Los Angeles, Jaramillo attended the Otis Art Institute before moving to New York. She performed on the seminal De Luxe Show in Houston in 1971, and she was more recently included in Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum in 2011, and We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-85 at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017. Her recent work continues her longstanding formal research into texture, color, geometry, and design. monochrome.
Pace (pacegallery.com)
1201 South La Brea Avenue, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles
May 13–June 24
Sherrill Roland: doing without, doing in
In 2013, Sherrill Roland spent 10 months in prison for a crime for which he was later exonerated. The experience provided the raw material for much of his work in the decade that followed, including the five series featured in do without, do inside. These include a sculptural group of oscillating fans referring to the inadequate cooling systems provided to prisoners; diptychs in the shape of dominoes recalling the severity of prison architecture; and abstract dot paintings made with Kool-Aid, the ubiquitous drink served to incarcerated people.
Tanya Bonakdar (tanyabonakdargallery.com)
1010 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Until June 24
Jean-Michel Basquiat: king of pleasure
Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of those artists whose enormous legacy and legendary personality weigh so heavily that they threaten to eclipse his real life and work. Produced by the Basquiat estate and curated by his sisters Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, pleasure king offers an intimate portrait of the artist, with over 200 paintings, drawings and objects, many of which have never been exhibited. The exhibition also includes recreations of Basquiat’s New York studio, his family home and the VIP room of the Palladium nightclub for which he created two monumental paintings, giving his story much-needed context and depth.
The Great LA (kingpleasure.basquiat.com)
100 South Grand Avenue, Downtown, Los Angeles
Until July 31
