Women Around Town, July 2025 by Karen Schifman
I hope you are enjoying your summer. Chilling in my new home.
IN THE GALLERIES
Liz Gordon has curated her annual Diverted Destruction exhibit at her eponymous gallery, Loft at Liz’s. This time with the impetus being the L.A. Fire. Featured Artists: Jamison Carter, Kate Carvellas, Malado Francine, David Grant, Julie Green, Margaret R. Griffith, Marcus Guillory, Brad Howe, Liz Huston, Karol Kaufman, Aaron Kramer, Stevie Love, Aline Mare, Gary Palmer, Laura Parker, Kassia Rico, Gay Summer Rick, Jean Robison, Delbar Shahbaz, Coleen Sterritt & Jane Szabo. “This year’s show brings three categories of artists to the forefront: Those who lost everything, those who may not have lost works but are dealing with the inability to move back into their homes due to no water, permeating smells and toxins in everything they own, the nightmare of dealing with insurance (some of whom are classified as “outside the fire zone” and therefore denied insurance), and finally, those who have experienced previous fires- having rebuilt and proverbially risen from the ashes themselves.I hope you will join us in support of our beloved creative community.” (Liz Gordon). Thru September 9, 2025. FREE ASSEMBLAGE WORKSHOPS: OPEN TO PUBLIC PARTICIPATION., Saturdays July 19th & August 23rd (2-5pm).
Hauser & Wirth downtown presents Luchita Hurtado: Yo Soy. Hurtado (1920 – 2020) is a Venezuelan-born, Los Angeles-based artist whose entire oeuvre was committed to a lifelong journey of personal and artistic evolution defined by ceaseless experimentation. Hurtado’s work is rooted in the feminist movement of the 1970s as demonstrated in the selection of paintings and drawings that comprise this exhibit. Accompanying Yo Soy will be a selection from her archive, including original exhibition and artwork documentation, as well as ephemera from organizations such as the Los Angeles Council of Women Artists, Womanspace and the Woman’s Building. Thru October 5, 2025.
Mother and Child: A Portal is an exhibition of paintings, drawings & tapestries by Lucien Dante Lazar and sculptural works by Cybele Rowe, Patrick Nickell, Ann Weber, & Cheyann Washington opening later this month at Wonzimer Gallery. “Inspired by a meditation on Raphael’s Tempi Madonna, artist/curator Lucien Dante Lazar discovered the “portal” in the space between Mary and Jesus – an opening into humanity and divinity. This exhibition explores the Mother and Child archetype as both tender human connection and exalted spiritual reality, inviting viewers to consider this timeless bond as an entry point into new ways of sensing and perceiving.” (WG) July 11th – August 8th, 2025.
The Brick presents TRUTHFULLY, NANCY BUCHANAN Retrospective. Organized by artist Laura Owens—who was her student at CalArts—and The Brick’s Catherine Taft, this exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Buchanan’s expansive body of work, foregrounding her important conceptual practice and pioneering experimentations with new media. The exhibition is comprised of important documentation of and ephemera from Buchanan’s performance of the 1970s and early 1980s, a time when she collaborated with fellow artists including Chris Burden, Marcia Hafif, Ulysses Jenkins, Cynthia Maughan, Paul McCarthy, Carolyn Potter, Barbara T. Smith, Doug Wichert, and Michael Zinzun. These events took place at venues such as F Space Gallery, LACE, and the L.A. Woman’s Building. The show also traces Buchanan’s video and installation work from the 1980s to the 2000s, reflecting her deep engagement with feminism, environmentalism, national politics, global economics, and autobiography. Thru September 20, 2025.
The Long Beach Museum of Art just completed a grant ( a 4-year project) to Illuminate Decades of California Women Artists: 1950-present. They photographed, researched and documented over 500 works of art by 271 women artists. Their online collections database allows the public free access to digital images and biographies of these artists and their respective art works. You can peruse their database here. One example is this artist’s book by Sue Ann Robinson.
Nancy Baker Cahill’s Substrate at LACMA is an interactive AR experience. “It invites the viewer to consider connections between knowledge-making organizations by contributing their own descriptions of culturally significant artifacts. Borrowing imagery and examples from networks in nature, Baker Cahill depicts LACMA, the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library, and California’s system of community colleges as abstracted, interlocking trees with root systems and mycelial networks that produce essential nutrients for human health and well-being. The work is based on the artist’s earlier project of the same name, supported by LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab, which used futuristic civics and systems thinking to demonstrate the potential of collaborations between local civic hubs.” (LACMA) Thru August 24, 2025.
The Space Between: Texture Studies by Denja Harris is one of the current exhibitions at the Oceanside Museum of Art I viewed the exhibit just last evening and for those of you interested in fiber art, this is a “must see”. Using yarn as her primary medium, Harris explores the tension between control and surrender, seeking meaning in the space between what is and what is becoming. Through large-scale yarn paintings, soft sculptures, and video, I investigate how texture, form, color, and pattern evoke sensory and emotional responses. Each piece invites viewers to engage with the interplay of softness and structure and to find significance within the undefined spaces. “Through her art, Denja fosters a visual dialogue that gently encourages both self and viewer to stay soft in a world that wants to harden you.” (OM) Thru October 12, 2025.
Don’t miss seeing a selection paintings by noted Baroque artist, Artemesia Gentileschi at the Getty Museum. Artemisia’s Strong Women: Rescuing a Masterpiece will consist of 5 paintings highlighting Gentileschi’s skill in portraying donne forti or “strong women.” The exhibit will include the recently restored Hercules and Omphale. Continues thru September 14, 2025.
m\other is the current exhibit at MOAH. The exhibit explores motherhood beyond the traditional nuclear family, engaging themes of queer, Indigenous, and spiritual mothering in the work of 5 artists, Tanya Aguiñiga, Marthe Aponte, Zackary Drucker, Gina Herrera, Nike Schroeder. “Through diverse media and conceptual approaches, m\other challenges dominant narratives of motherhood, offering multifaceted interpretations of care, creation, and resilience. The exhibition amplifies voices that redefine what it means to mother, embracing alternative networks of kinship, sustainability, and the reclamation of maternal power in a contemporary context.” (MOAH) Thru August 31, 2025. Please visit their website to explore this powerful body of work in detail.
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