Women Around Town by Karen Schifman
Children Playing on the Beach by Mary Cassatt 1884
Summer is almost here and there is lots to see and do. For example, I just saw that the Skirball Cultural Center has an interesting exhibit that may peak your interest: Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels and Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976-1986. This exhibition traces the connective tissue of punk across key scenes in the United States and the United Kingdom, with a focus on New York, London, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. Opening in spring 2026 to mark the 50th anniversary of punk in the United States,* this original exhibition celebrates how a generation of misfits—including Jewish punks—challenged the rules, reimagined community, and helped reshape culture from the margins. Thru September 6, 2026.
IN THE GALLERIES
There is lots of praise for We’re Very Well Read, It is Well Known at The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles. Curated by Mat Gleason, who invited over 470 artists to create paintings based on their favorite book. One terrific example is this painting by Dwora Fried: the book is The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig.
Anat Ebgi is pleased to announce Phase Shift, an exhibition by Angela Lane. “Lane interrupts her calm pastoral landscapes with depictions of extraordinary meteorological phenomena that seem at once fatal and visionary. Eclipsed suns hover above still lakes, radiating beams descend across valleys and wooded streams, and luminous halos, or mirrored moons emerge within pale skies and mist-cloaked summits. Executed in oil on birch panels, the intimate scale of these works compel viewers to draw physically near in order to fully register Lane’s delicate shifts in hue, softened reflections, and gradual painterly articulations. Despite these diminutive dimensions, the paintings evoke a striking sense of vastness and solitude, balancing grounded naturalistic environments with atmospheric sights that suspend ordinary understandings of perception and scale.” (Anat Egbi) Thru July 18, 2026.
New paintings by Hilary Pecis, Love Letters continues at David Kordansky gallery Pecis is known for her vivid paintngs that focus on the subjects of everyday life in both interior spaces and landscapes.
Thru June 20, 2026.
Ayin Es: Relative Strangers, at Craig Krull Gallery continues as well. Here is what the gallery has provided: “Ayin Es (b. 1968) is a self-taught, nonbinary artist whose work is rooted in autobiographical storytelling. Emancipated at the age of fifteen from an abusive home, their work is often unsettling and raw. Es maneuvers between the precipice of memory and identity by disclosing their internal, lived experience while highlighting family estrangement, trauma, disability and gender politics. A native of Los Angeles who now lives in Joshua Tree, Ayin Es is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Pollock-Krasner fellowship, and is in the permanent collection of the Getty, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Their latest series of paintings originated from an old suitcase of vintage family photos. With playful, satirical tones and thick, textural oil paint, they recast these overlooked snapshots and replaced their younger self with aspects of their present self…”
Thru July 4, 2026
Don’t miss Destiny is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection continuing at Hauser & Wirth’s downtown location. Continues thru August 16, 2026.
IN THE MUSEUMS
I recommend that you head over to LACMA to see their new galleries and a new exhibit, Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity . The exhibit traces a century of transformation through more than 70 exquisite ensembles from Shanghai, Hong Kong, and America. It charts the evolution of Chinese women’s dress, from loose-fitting embroidered robes of the late Qing Dynasty to the sleek silhouettes of 1930s qipao and the globally iconic cheongsam of the 1960s. Vibrant colors, sumptuous silks, and intricate trims showcase the meticulous craftsmanship that is the hallmark of these garments. Displayed on mannequins customized by fashion designer Jason Wu, the works in the exhibition present a seldom-seen story of how Chinese and Chinese American women expressed identity, navigated change, and shaped their lives through dress. June 14 thru October 12, 2026.
Don’t miss an opportunity to view Laura Aguilar’s groundbreaking photographs at The Huntington Library Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape features her groundbreaking use of self-portraiture within the natural environments of Southern California and the Southwest, reframing the Western landscape as a site of personal power, resilience, and reclamation. Thru September 7, 2026.
The Broad Museum presents Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,. Yoko Ono, the visionary artist, musician, and activist whose work has shaped contemporary culture for more than seven decades, will be celebrated at The Broad in the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in Southern California, organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London. Continues thru October Thru 11, 2026. Advance tickets are recommended.
Later this month, a compelling exhibition is opening at the Long Beach Museum of Art, Positive Fragmentation. The exhibit includes over 180 prints drawn from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, each a work by a contemporary artist who employs fragmentation in different ways. Feminist scholar and critic, Lucy Lippard, describes positive fragmentation, or the “collage aesthetic,” as particularly suited to historically marginalized artists (including women), as it “willfully takes apart what is or is supposed to be and rearranges it in ways that suggest what it could be.” A list of artists in this exhibition is quite impressive: Polly Apfelbaum, Jennifer Bartlett, Christiane Baumgartner, Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Nicole Eisenman, Ellen Gallagher, Jenny Holzer , Nicola Lopez, Julie Mehretu, Sarah Morris, Wangechi Mutu, Judy Pfaff, Wendy Red Star, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Swoon, Barbara Takenaga, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker. (Image by Wendy Red Star). June 26 thru September 27, 2026..
Dear Little Friend: Impressions of Galka Scheyer continues at Norton Simon Museum. Thru July 20, 2026. This is a painting of Galka by Jawlensky.
Leave a Reply