Los Angeles may well be the new art capital of the U.S.
The gallery scene has been exploding across the city with new spaces opening every year in Downtown LA, Eagle Rock, Venice, and right here in Hollywood.
Local galleries and museums are presenting many exciting new artists and exhibitions this spring. If you’re looking for something different to do, try gallery hopping along Highland Boulevard. And try not to gloat too much with your New York friends.
Kohn Gallery
Joe Goode: Old Ideas With New Solutions
Through May 13th
High on your list for art to see this spring should be this retrospective of painter-sculptor Joe Goode.
The exhibition celebrates Goode’s 80th birthday as well as his storied sixty-year career.
Goode came to Los Angeles in 1959 and became part of the highly energetic and hugely influential art scene of Southern California emerging after the War. Along with fellow SoCal artists Ed Ruscha and Larry Bell, Goode was part of what became known as the Cool School. In contrast to the high-concept, high-impact graphical pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, these west coast artists had a more reserved and intellectual response to mass media’s influence.
If anything the dry wit of Goode, et al., holds up even better today than much of the work of east coast Pop artists.
As an accompaniment , Kohn Gallery is also publishing a monograph Joe Goode: Paintings 1960 – 2016, with an introduction by Ed Ruscha.
The Kohn Gallery is another major presence in the local arts community. Founder Michael Kohn has maintained a Los Angeles gallery since 1985. The Kohn Gallery has a special interest in pop art and has featured the work of celebrity painters such as Andy Warhol and Mark Ryden. This new gallery space is a little more than a year old and with 22-foot ceilings which lends a very spatial, museum like experience.
Kohn Gallery
1227 N. Highland Avenue
Hollywood, 90038
323–461–3311
Kohn Gallery
Regen Projects
What I Loved: Selected Works From The 90s
Through April 13th
The 1990s was an era of post-punk fashion, college radio, and White House sex scandals. As Cold War anxieties eased after the fall of the Berlin Wall, new, even more insidious threats entered our collective psyche.
And artists respond with intensely political art.
Race, gender, sexuality, and the growing AIDS crisis were among the issues confronted by creative people in those years.
With the resurgence of political activism, artists of 90s have as much relevance as ever.
The retrospective includes works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Catherine Opie, and Cindy Sherman, to name but a few.
Regen Projects is one of the most established galleries in Los Angeles and an influential player in the LA art scene for over 25 years. Over the years, Regen Projects have exhibited artists such as James Turrell and Gerhard Richter. Co-founder Shaun Caley Regen has also been instrumental in introducing new talent.
Regen Projects
6750 Santa Monica Boulevard
Hollywood, 90038
310–276–5424
Regen Projects
Hannah Hoffman Gallery
Ryan Mrazowski
Through April 29th
Bloomberg News named Ryan Mrazowski one of the ten young artists to watch in 2017. Fresh off a successful exhibition in London, Mrazowski brings new paintings to Hollywood.
His latest work present a seemingly simple images that actually goes beyond optical illusion. With a playful and humorous approach, Mrazowksi our notions of perception and reality.
“It really reminds me of what Chelsea felt like in the mid–90s,” Hoffman said of the Hollywood gallery movement. Hannah Hoffman is another New York veteran who’s packed up her show and bringing it to Hollywood.
Hannah Hoffman Gallery
1010 N. Highland Avenue
Hollywood, 90038
323–450–9106
Hannah Hoffman Gallery
Gavlak Gallery
Michael Manning
Opening April 15th
Los Angeles artist Michael Manning will be presenting new works this April.
Manning explores the boundaries of digital and analogue expressions. Many of his paintings began on a touch screen tablet, only later to be fully realized through 3D printing techniques. (By the way, echoing many of the same themes explored by Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus crew: see below.)
With the growing resurgence in “real” physical objects such as vinyl records, film photography, and paper notebooks, this synthesis of digital and analogue seems more timely than ever.
Another newcomer on the block, the move to Hollywood represents a homecoming for Sarah Gavlak. After holding a number of arts positions around LA, she opened a space in Palm Beach. Her new Hollywood gallery is merely months old and is already gaining much media praise.
Gavlak Gallery
1038 N. Highland Avenue
Hollywood, 90038
323–467–5700
Gavlak Gallery
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present
Through June 18th
This is the first major U.S. exhibitions of Lazlo Moholy-Nagy in fifty years.
Hungarian artist Moholy-Nagy was a founding member of the Bauhaus group. For a brief shining moment just before Hitler’s rise, Germany was the epicenter to one of the most important modern creative movements.
Bauhaus sought to tear down the elitist barriers in art and bring together art and industrial design in an idealistic democratic vision. Members insisted on practical integrations of technology and aesthetics.
If these themes sound familiar, then you’d be right. Bauhaus has been enormously influential on many modernist movements, especially in design and architecture.
Moholy-Nagy was a leading member and highly-regarded teacher at Bauhaus. He worked in every imaginable medium including painting, sculpture, film, architecture, and design. He may very well be the most important artist that most people have never seen.
LACMA
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, 90036
LACMA
