Contemporary Art

Art for the People: WPA-Era Paintings from the Dijkstra Collection

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
Drawn from the collection of Sandra and Bram Dijkstra, Art for the People explores paintings created in the United States between the 1929 stock market crash and World War II. The exhibition focuses on federal Works Progress Administration artists of the 1930s and early 1940s who were employed by the government to help stimulate the post-Depression economy. More than 10,000 artists participated, creating works that represented the nation and its people and seeking to express fundamental human concerns, basic democratic principles, and the plight of the dispossessed.

 

Sundays, Mondays, & Wednesdays  – Saturdays 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Website Link
https://huntington.org/exhibition/art-people-wpa-era-paintings-dijkstra-collection
Event Date
-
Event Location

Hammer Museum and the The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
United States

tags

Fee Required
Yes
Event Cost
$25 – $29
Event ID
10291678
Event Main Image

Riverside Art Museum presents Rico Gatson: Icons

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
Riverside Art Museum is proud to present the second West Coast solo exhibition of Rico Gatson’s work. An interdisciplinary, Brooklyn-based artist, Gatson grew up in Riverside, California. His work is bold and graphic with art historical references to Russian Constructivism and Op art, while his wholly unique style highlights the complexities of Black life and its impact on American popular culture.

The exhibition is on view from Saturday, November 18, 2023 through Sunday, April 7, 2024 at the Riverside Art Museum in the Art Alliance Gallery.

 

Website Link
riversideartmuseum.org/exhibits/rico-gatson/
Event Date
-
Event Location

Riverside Art Museum
3425 Mission Inn Ave.
Riverside , CA 92501
United States

Event Lat/Long
33.9817847, -117.3704849

tags

Fee Required
Yes
Event Cost
$10.95 – $15.95
Contact Phone
951.684.7111
Event ID
10291526
Event Main Image

Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
Renowned American artist Betye Saar’s large-scale work Drifting Toward Twilight—recently commissioned by The Huntington—is a site-specific installation that features a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe and found objects, including birdcages, antlers, and natural materials harvested by Saar from The Huntington’s grounds.

 

“Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight” transforms an entire room in the Scott Galleries into what the artist calls a “cocoon-like environment.” The walls are painted in an oceanic blue gradient, featuring a poem by Saar and phases of the moon. Shifting lighting effects in the gallery emulate phases of daylight to twilight, evening to night, and night to dawn. Inside the canoe, Saar positions mysterious “passengers,” including antlers in metal birdcages, children’s chairs, and architectural elements—all drawn from the artist’s ever-evolving collection of found objects. The space beneath the canoe is illuminated by a cool neon glow, highlighting plant material.

 

Betye Saar (b. 1926) is one of the most significant American artists. Over her six-decade career, she has created assemblage works exploring themes of racial oppression, mysticism, the occult, family, memory, and identity. She fashions her assemblage artworks from found objects, antiques, and family heirlooms that she collects. Emerging as an important artistic voice during the feminist and Civil Rights movements, Saar is a pioneer of Black feminist art who connected the personal with the political, taking on such subject matter as the legacies of enslavement and the impacts of racism.
Website Link
huntington.org/exhibition/betye-saar-drifting-toward-twilight
Event Date
-
Event Location

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Garden
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA
United States

Event Lat/Long
34.1278618, -118.1094516

tags

Fee Required
Yes
Event Cost
$25 – $29
Contact Phone
626.405.2100
Event ID
10296244
Event Main Image

Sanford Biggers: Oracle

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
The work of New York-based artist Sanford Biggers (b. 1970, Los Angeles) inaugurates the museum’s outdoor sculpture pedestal at Wilshire Boulevard and Glendon Avenue. Anchoring this corner is Oracle (2021), a cast bronze figure weighing 7.64 US tons (15,280 pounds) and standing at 25 feet tall. This monumental commission from Biggers continues his “Chimera” series that hybridizes the canonical figures and gestures of Greco-Roman sculpture with an assortment of iconic African objects from the 14th–20th centuries.

Sanford Biggers: Oracle is organized by Connie Butler, chief curator, with Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi, curatorial assistant.

Website Link
https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2023/sanford-biggers-oracle
Event Date
Event Location

Hammer Museum, UCLA
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
United States

Event Lat/Long
34.0591217, -118.4436674

tags

Fee Required
No
Event Cost
Free
Contact Phone
310.443.7000
Event ID
10290520
Event Main Image

Spirit of the Ancestors

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
This moving, seminal, visual arts project was conceptualized and developed by the Arts Center Director, Rosie Lee Hooks who commissioned 13 artists from the community to use shovels as a canvas to honor the legacy of our ancestors. Each of the world-renowned, master artists who accepted the challenge have a history of building arts institutions in Watts and the greater Los Angeles community.  
Website Link
wattstowers.org/copy-of-exhibitions-2
Event Date
Event Location

Noah Purifoy and Charles Mingus Galleries, Watts Towers Arts Center Campus
1727 E. 107th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90002
United States

Event Lat/Long
33.9388723, -118.2419457

tags

Fee Required
No
Event Cost
Free
Contact Phone
213-847-4646
Event ID
10290430
Event Main Image

Seoul2LA

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Music
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
Seoul2LA is not just a party; it’s a celebration of music, culture, and connection between two epicenters of art and creativity. By bridging the gap between South Korea and Los Angeles, we’re bringing together some of the best DJs and talent from both places including DJs Mindspray, Zo, Yann Cavaille, and many more special guests. Join us for an unforgettable night through the sounds and stories of two iconic cities, united by a shared love for music, art, and culture.
Website Link
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/seoul2la-tickets-841313650777?aff=oddtdtcreator
Event Date
-
Event Location

Hammer Museum, UCLA
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
United States

Event Lat/Long
34.0591217, -118.4436674

tags

Fee Required
No
Event Cost
Free
Contact Phone
310.443.7000
Event ID
132820
Event Main Image

The American Library

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
This exhibition creates a library setting where the shelves are filled with more than six thousand books individually wrapped in Shonibare’s signature Dutch wax-printed cotton textiles. Each book bears a name on its spine of a notable American individual. First- and second-generation immigrants and Black Americans affected by the Great Migration are featured alongside one another. A further set of books features the names of people who have spoken against immigration, equality, or diversity.
Website Link
https://www.skirball.org/museum/american-library-yinka-shonibare-cbe-ra
Event Date
-
Event Location

Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Los Angeles, CA 90049
United States

Event Lat/Long
34.1247412, -118.4791706

tags

Fee Required
Yes
Event Cost
$15 – $18
Event ID
10291324
Event Main Image

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description

An in-depth installation of Jean-Michel Basquiat, features all 13 works by the artist in the Broad collection, including three works on view for the first time at The Broad: Santo 2, Deaf, and Wicker.

 

Tuesday & Wednesday & Friday – 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Thursday – 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Saturday & Sundays – 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Website Link
thebroad.org/art/featured-installations/expansive-presentation-jean-michel-basquiat
Event Date
-
Event Location

The Broad
221 S. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
United States

Event Lat/Long
34.0544714, -118.2505584

tags

Fee Required
Yes
Event Cost
Free, Reserve tickets in advance at website
Contact Phone
(213) 232-6200
Event ID
10290729
Event Main Image

Hammer Projects: Vamba Bility

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description

Vamba Bility is a multidisciplinary artist whose work echoes the experience of the African diaspora. Having journeyed from Côte d’Ivoire to Guinea to the United States, Bility perceives this contested way of living as a blur, albeit one that is deeply intimate. In his hands, this blurred sensibility becomes a fluid movement that draws on various material histories. He expresses the reverberating motions of his existence by leaning on and weaving together mediums and materials such as painting, textiles, found objects, and sound. A cracked calabash gets sewn together. A torn canvas gets stitched as a salve. A painting is propped up by a brick or two. All of this is a form of mark-making that structures the landscape of diaspora as a material residue of atmosphere, of feeling, of process. Bility threads this through a shared poiesis—a bringing forth, a revelation—that sketches out an architecture of what it means to be.

Website Link
hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2024/hammer-projects-vamba-bility
Event Date
-
Event Location

Hammer Museum, UCLA
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
United States

Event Lat/Long
34.0591217, -118.4436674

tags

Fee Required
No
Event Cost
Free
Contact Phone
310.443.7000
Event ID
10291279
Event Main Image

ALEXANDRE ARRECHEA: INTERSECTED HORIZONS

Event Type
Culture & Community
Family Activity
Event Department
Cultural Affairs
Description
The Museum of Latin American Art is pleased to present Alexandre Arrechea: Intersected Horizons, the first solo museum show in California that explores the artistic practices of the well-known and multidisciplinary artist Alexandre Arrechea. A contemporary Afro-Cuban artist based between Spain and the USA for more than two decades and the former co-founder of the Los Carpinteros collective,

 

In this exhibit, Arrechea’s method of transgressing the limits of traditional artifacts and materials as a point of examination is redefined as a social and political exploration that melds art, history, and archaeological forms.

 

Adults – $15 Seniors & Students – $10, Members and Children under 12 Free,
Free Admission every Sunday
Website Link
molaa.org/2023-alexandre-arrechea
Event Date
-
Event Location

Museum of Latin American Art
628 Alamitos Ave
Long Beach, CA 90802
United States

Event Lat/Long
33.774467, -118.17985

tags

Fee Required
Yes
Event Cost
$10 – $15
Contact Phone
562.437.1689
Event ID
10296115
Event Main Image
Contemporary Art