When it comes to Los Angeles exhibitions, the scene is undergoing something of a gold rush. Drawn to the city's light, space and multifarious identifies, a flurry of East Coast-anchored and European galleries have announced new outposts in Los Angeles, including Pace, Lisson, Sean Kelly, The Hole and Hauser & Wirth, which anchor the city during events like the relatively nascent (but monumental in scope) Frieze Los Angeles fair.
Nowhere does art quite like Los Angeles. Explore the top Los Angeles exhibitions to visit under the California sun
Los Angeles exhibitions: current
Anne Imhof: ‘EMO’
Until 6 May 2023
Sprüth Magers LA
After she gripped the Venice Biennale with a divisive yet Golden Lion-winning German Pavilion in 2017; Paris with her Palais de Tokyo Carte Blanche in 2021; and most recently, London, with her psychological thriller ‘Avatar II’, German artist Anne Imhof offered similar treatment to visitors during Frieze Los Angeles 2023. ‘EMO’ is the artist’s first LA show, and largest in the US to date, combining media-spanning work with industrial found objects to probe the dark underbelly of contemporary culture to disorientating effect.
Leo Marmol: 'Fields of Desire'
Flexform LA
Until 28 April
Leo Marmol's new art show at Flexform LA, titled 'Fields of Desire' is inspired by the fields of desert blooms and nature in and around his familiar Palm Springs desert. The show, comprising a series of oil and cold wax boards, builds on Marmol's show at Melissa Morgan Fine Art in Palm Desert, timed to Palm Springs Modernism Week. 'The work for this show will be a meditation on the emotional content of colour I have always been interested in the personal exploration of emotion through painting, as well as the emotional responses a painting can affect' says the artist. The exhibition opens in conjunction with the launch of the newly refurbished Flexform showroom, redesigned by Antonio Citterio.
George Condo: ‘People Are Strange’
Hauser & Wirth, Santa Monica Boulevard
Until 22 Apr 2023
The title of George Condo’s show at Hauser & Wirth ‘People Are Strange’ is taken from the hit 1967 song of the same name by Los Angeles band The Doors. It’s a fitting summary of a show that draws on the seductive incongruities of Los Angeles society and demonstrates Condo’s deft and distinctive approach to figurative painting and sculpture in which bulgy-eyed, contorted-limbed characters are at once monstrous, whimsical and psychologically searing. Condo’s is the inaugural show at Hauser & Wirth’s second LA space, located on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.
Christine Sun Kim: Bounce Back
ICA LA
Until 10 September 2023
Berlin-based American artist Christine Sun Kim will soon adorn the façade of the ICA in a new large-scale mural that engages with the limits and possibilities of language (spoken, signed, or scripted). Bounce Back (2022) takes debt as its subject, signed in American Sign Language (ASL) by one index finger tapping the open palm of the other. The piece explores how one sign can carry a number of nuanced meanings in ASL, as well as layered issues of systemic inequity and the experience of those in debt.
‘Cine São José’, by Estúdio Campana
Friedman Benda
Until 15 April 2023
As the design community continues to reflect on the life, work and contributions of Fernando Campana, who died in November 2022, a show at Friedman Benda to coincide with Frieze Los Angeles will honour Estúdio Campana’s monumental impact on 21st-century culture. ‘Cine São José’, which Deyan Sudjic describes as a ‘recalibration’ of objects in contemporary design will highlight key moments from the first 15 years of the studio’s existence and present a selection of new works.
