Women Around Town, October 2026 by Karen Schifman

Don’t miss the fantastic documentary Acting Like Women by Cheri Gaulke, Saturday, October 10, 10:30 AM at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.

IN THE GALLERIES

I am pleased to bring your attention to the 30 year retrospective of GROUP NINE at the Los Angeles Makery Gallery. Power in Collaboration highlights “nine soloists in search of a chorus”: Patti Akesson, Lynn Bassler, Merrilyn Duzy, Myra Gantman, Dona Geib, Midge Lynn, Barbara Nathanson, Anita Segalman, and Norma Jean Squires. October 4 thru October 31, 2026.

Nonaka-Hill Gallery presents Hard Line Women, an exhibition of Japanese women artists working during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and today. Producing works across painting, performance, sculpture, installation and photography, Sumie Aoki (1924 – 2025); Akiko Horio (1937-); Rei Kawakubo (1942 – ); Kazuko Miyamoto (1942 – ); Aiko Miyawaki (1929-2014); Rakuko Naito (1935 – ); Etsuko Nakatsuji (1937- ); Tomie Ohtake (1913-2015); Kay Sekimachi (1926 -); Atsuko Tanaka (1932-2005); Eiko Yamazawa (1899-1995); and Shizuko Yoshikawa (1934-2019) each have practiced singular versions of hard-edged abstraction. Thru November 7, 2026. (Image below:  Atsuko Tanaka)

A group exhibition at Blue and the Muse gallery downtown has piqued my interest. Structure/Substructure curated by Dale Youngmen is about both the obvious and the hidden, the myth and the reality, the beauty and the grit of Los Angeles. From the city’s amazing architecture to the infrastructure built to move the myth around (freeways to the beach, interchanges to the studios, bridges to downtown glamour) to the graffiti vs. curated street art, we invite you to look up, down and around at the sanctioned beauty vs. the uncelebrated necessity – both happening on the same concrete path. Featured artists include Lorraine Bubar, Jodi and Cecil Campanaro, Jonny Cohen, Karen Fiorito, Scott Froschauer, Tom Garner, Patrick Haemmerlein, Teale Hathaway, James Hendershott, Fred Hoerr, James Hritz, Rick Mendoza, Valerie Mitchell, Montdor, Needman, Ruby Vartan, and Emily Wallerstein.

Emily Wallerstein

Luis de Jesus Gallery has 3 compelling exhibits continuing this month. The first features the work of  Egyptian American artist Sherin Guirguis: Into the Lake of Fire, a series of monoprints created during her recent Sam Francis Foundation “Call to Dream” Fellowship in Paris, France. Also at Luis de Jesus is June Edmonds: Inheritance. Edmonds’ work invites critical reflection on the relationship between memory, national identity, and collective responsibility. A third exhibit at the gallery also presents the work of a woman artist. Phung Huynh: Bite The Hand That Feeds You,. Thru October 24, 2026.

IN THE MUSEUMS

 

Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines  on view at the UCLA Hammer Museum is a retrospective featuring over 150 vibrant and sensual works—including paintings, drawings, sculptures, and textiles—that challenge traditional social and sexual norms. The exhibit showcases five decades of art exploring gender, humor, language, aging, and the physical body.  September 27, 2026 – Feb 28, 2027.

Kim Manfredi: View with a Grain of Sand at the Laguna Art Museum explores perception, landscape, and the human impulse to impose meaning on the natural world. Drawn from direct observation of elemental phenomena, the paintings translate place into an abstract visual language of layered color, drips, bleeds, and oversprays. Fragmented compositions suggest both nature’s vitality and the traces of human presence. The title comes from Wisława Szymborska’s poem View with a Grain of Sand, which reflects on human insignificance within a vast, indifferent universe. Like poetry, these paintings use an incomplete, metaphorical language to approach what resists description. Attending to fleeting qualities of light, atmosphere, and movement, the works invite viewers to reconsider how we see the natural world—and our place within it. October 3, 2026-January 18, 2027.

Eileen Cowin: Between Panic and Paradise highlights the career of the acclaimed multi-media artist continues at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cowin is highly regarded for treating the camera lens as an unreliable narrator, utilizing carefully staged gestures, cinematic framing, and everyday props to construct psychological depth and unresolved stories. Thru January 3, 2027.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is featuring an exhibit of works on paper by Mary Cassatt and others in her circle. Many of these works are from their permanent collection. This exhibition also includes works by Berthe Morisot, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, and James McNeill Whistler. Thru January 3, 2027.

Don’t forget about the astounding installation by the late Betye Saar at  The Huntington. Drifting Toward Twilight is a commissioned site-specific installation that features a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe and found objects, including birdcages, antlers, and natural materials harvested by Saar from The Huntington’s grounds. On view through November 2027.