Women Around Town, September 2025 by Karen Schifman
IN THE GALLERIES
The current exhibit at Craig Krull Gallery features the work of Judithe Hernandez. Titled Todavía Sueño / I Still Dream, it is a group of paintings in which she reinvents women as protagonists and warriors bearing witness to contemporary atrocities—corruption in the Mexican government, US imperialism, and femicide in Ciudad Juárez—with dignity and agency. Surreal dreamscapes and floating vignettes show women mingling with ancestors and animals; ribbons and doves form connections to a spirit world where antlers become crowns of feminine power. Hernández’s work is proof that art is most powerful when it is the product of dreams recalled—“a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.” (CK)
Thru October 4, 2025.
At Hauser & Wirth downtown continues Luchita Hurtado: Yo Soy. Hurtado (1920 – 2020) 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. Thru October 5, 2025.
At their West Hollywood location is Christina Kimeze: Long Loops. These are new paintings that explore what she calls ‘the in-between spaces’ where boundaries between interior life and shared experience blur and evolve. Kimeze’s canvases depict ethereal landscapes and enigmatic figures, some solitary and others intimately connected. Thru October 4, 2025.
A powerful body of work by artist Mire Lee will open this month at Spreuth Magers Gallery. The work of Mire Lee fuses volatile substances with traditional sculptural materials and industrial remnants to produce haunting objects and installations. Equally beautiful and grotesque, her sinuous compositions twist into positions that evoke bodies, entrails and skeletal forms and touch upon notions of psychological tension and trauma.September 10-October 25, 2025.
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery on Santa Monica Blvd. presents Bisa Butler: Hold me Close. The exhibit is comprised of series of quilted portraits that speak to the urgency of empathy, the weight of history, and the need for tenderness in times of crisis. Her work is vibrant and packs a political punch. September 13 thru November 1, 2025.
At the gallery’s Orange Drive location is a provocative group show titled It Smells Like Girl. The exhibit “revisits the charged and often misunderstood concept of female hysteria through painting, video, sculpture, performance, screenings, and installation.” Among the artists participating in this exhibition are: Kelly Akashi,Isabelle Albuquerque, Liz Kraft, Bunny Rogers, Gabriela Ruiz, France Stark, and many others. September 6 thru November 1, 2025. 
TRUTHFULLY, NANCY BUCHANAN is a retrospective organized by artist Laura Owens and Catherine Taft at The Brick. The exhibition is comprised of important documentation of and ephemera from Buchanan’s performance of the 1970s and early 1980s, Continues thru September 20, 2025.
IN THE MUSEUMS
One of the current exhibitions at LACMA is Artist Selects: Frances Stark, Periodic Love and Perpetual War. “Since the 1990s, Los Angeles–based artist Frances Stark has created a vast body of work that examines systems of communication and the nature of intimacy. She is the second participant in the Artist Selects series, which invites artists to create an exhibition with works from LACMA’s Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. Guided by formal and thematic rhymes, Stark’s visual essay brings together works by Karl Blossfeldt, Otto Dix, Wassily Kandinsky, Käthe Kollwitz (image below), and others. In a world that is out of joint, Stark grapples with questions about the role of the artist amid the cycles of passion, creation, and violent deagstruction that characterize the human experience.” (LACMA)Thru November 9, 2025.
Mütter (Mothers), 1918
There is currently an outstanding fiber art exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art . Fabulous Fiber curated by Kate Stern is indeed just that! “Rich in scope and dimension, these works invite viewers to step into a world where every stitch tells a story. In a time when so many of our daily experiences involve interacting with the smooth screens of electronics, these dynamic forms offer a refreshing allure—engaging both creators and viewers with rich and tangible materials. This exhibition stands as both a counterpoint to our digital world and a profound extension of contemporary sensory experience.” (O.M.) The exhibit features works by Liv Aanrud, Hammad Abid, Marianna Baker, Serena Brooks, Susan Davis, Shelby Drabman, Linda Gross, Peg Grady, Isa Guadalupe, Jill Hagata, Adriene Hughes, Bonita Johnson, Michelle Kingdom, Susan Maddux, Stephanie Metz, Gillian Moss, Nancy Larrew, Mary Little, Monica Loss, Gwen Samuels (image below), and Elise Vazelakis. Thru November 2, 2025.
Don’t miss seeing a selection of 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.
