DON'T MISS THESE ART EXHIBITS IN LOS ANGELES

"Picasso Cut Papers" | Photo: Hammer Museum

HAMMER MUSEUM "Picasso Cut Papers" (Oct. 1 - Dec. 31, 2022)

Devoted to a little known yet foundational aspect of Pablo Picasso’s artistic practice, Picasso Cut Papers spans the artist's full career, from his first cut papers made in 1890 at nine years of age, through the 1960s, with works he made while in his eighties.
Picasso Cut Papers features some of the artist’s most whimsical and intriguing works made on paper and in paper, alongside a select group of sculptures in sheet metal. Although Picasso rarely sold or exhibited his cut papers during his lifetime, he signed, dated and archived them just as he did all his works. They were part of a more private studio practice, created as independent works of art or in relation to works in other mediums, but also as models for his fabricators and as gifts or games for family and friends. Many examples have been stored flat or disassembled in portfolios until now and will regain their original three-dimensional forms when presented in the exhibition.

"Joan Didion: What She Means" (Oct. 11, 2022 - Jan. 22, 2023)
Organized by acclaimed writer and New Yorker contributor Hilton Als, Joan Didion: What She Means is an exhibition as portrait - a narration of the life of one artist by another. Opening at the Hammer Museum less than a year after Didion's death at age 87, the exhibition features 50 artists ranging from Betye Saar to Vija Celmins, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Maren Hassinger, Silke Otto-Knapp, John Koch, Jorge Pardo, Ed Ruscha, Pat Steir, and many others. Laid out chronologically according to the places Didion called home, the 250 works include paintings, ephemera, photography, sculpture, video, and footage from a number of the films for which Didion authored screenplays.

"Bob Thompson: This House is Mine" (Oct. 11, 2022 - Jan. 8, 2023)
The first museum exhibition devoted to Bob Thompson in more than 20 years, This House Is Mine traces the artist’s brief but prolific transatlantic career, examining his formal inventiveness and his engagement with universal themes of collectivity, bearing witness, struggle, and justice. Over a mere eight years, he grappled with the exclusionary Western canon, developing a lexicon of enigmatic forms that he threaded through his work. Human and animal figures, often silhouetted and relatively featureless, populate mysterious vignettes set in wooded landscapes or haunt theatrically compressed spaces. Sometimes fellow contemporaries appear, such as jazz greats Nina Simone and Ornette Coleman and the writers LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) and Allen Ginsberg.

"INSPIRING WALT DISNEY" - THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY (DEC. 10, 2022 – MARCH 27, 2023)

The international traveling exhibition, Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts explores the early inspirations behind Disney Studios' creations, examining Walt Disney's fascination with European art and the use of French motifs in Disney films and theme parks.

Approximately 50 works of 18th-century European decorative art and design - many of which are drawn from The Huntington Library's significant collection - are featured alongside hand-drawn production artworks and works on paper from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, Walt Disney Archives, Walt Disney Imagineering Collection, and The Walt Disney Family Museum.

"NARSISO MARTINEZ: RETHINKING ESSENTIAL" - MOLAA (THROUGH JAN. 8, 2023)

Narsiso Martinez’s paintings and mixed media installations include individual portraits and multi-figure compositions of farm laborers set against the agricultural landscapes and brand designs of grocery store produce boxes. Drawn from his own experience as a farm worker, Martinez’s work focuses on the people performing the labors necessary to fill produce sections and restaurant kitchens around the country. In a style informed by inter-war Social Realism and European Realism, Martinez’s work makes visible the difficult labor and onerous working conditions of the American farm worker.

Rethinking Essential was specially designed for the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) and its subsequent exhibition at ICA San Diego. In addition to the strength of its visual poetics, the exhibition is also a way to raise awareness and propose new conversations on issues that cannot be postponed and that involve us all. Rethink what is essential in a post-pandemic context to build a more dignified 

THE CHEECH

"Collidoscope" (through Jan. 22, 2023)
Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective is the inaugural temporary exhibition at The Cheech, the new center in Riverside that houses the contemporary Chicana/o Art collection gifted by Cheech Marin.

“Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective”

at The Cheech | Photo: Daniel Djang

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Einar and Jamex de la Torre have navigated life on both sides of the border from a young age. Due to their bi-national and bi-cultural background, their work has been interpreted through the lenses of border art and Chicano art for decades. The brothers use an array of materials and techniques that range from glass blowing to the more recent practice of lenticular printing, signaling an appreciation of traditional crafts as well as an interest in technology and popular mass-produced objects.

The de la Torres' particular vision of the Latino experience and American culture is explored in their work through a combination of humor and critical earnestness, borrowing elements from Mexican culture (pre-Columbian, historical, popular, and pop) and other places - the chameleonic-kaleidoscopic process explodes into a myriad of layered images and meanings.

"Fred Brashear: Endemic Treasures" (Sept. 24, 2022 – Jan. 18, 2023)
Fred Brashear’s series Endemic Treasures is a photo-based project that focuses on preventing the removal of Joshua trees for future construction of residential communities and businesses in the Mojave Desert. With the Joshua tree as his muse, issues of the ongoing climate crisis and the continual encroachment of humans for capitalistic gains into the Mojave landscape point to wider issues of urbanization, industrialization, and socio-economic disparities found within our society.