Los Angeles art exhibitions: the best shows to see in October

This October, the LA art world is still reeling from the plethora of works to open during Getty's PST ART initiative, coinciding with this year’s theme of Art & Science Collide. With many exhibits continuing through this month, and beyond, here are a few not to miss, along with new developments spanning from the ROW DTLA to The Future Perfect in Hollywood and Beth Cavener's stunning sculptures at Carpenters Workshop.

Here are some of the best new and continuing shows to see in Los Angeles this October, taking place at some of our favourite Los Angeles galleries.

Los Angeles art exhibitions: what to see in October 2024

Scientia Sexualis

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, until 2 March 2025

ICA LA is kicking off it’s fall exhibition, Scientia Sexualis, by showcasing a group survey of contemporary artists whose works take up the fraught relationship between sex and science. Organized by Jennifer Doyle (Professor of English, University of California, Riverside) and Jeanne Vaccaro (Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Museum Studies, University of Kansas), and accompanied by a major scholarly publication (the title from French philosopher Michel Foucault’s landmark text, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (1976), the exhibition is part of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide.

'Yesterday Was Hard' by YoYo Lander

Philips, West Hollywood, until 12 Oct 2024

Storm Ascher, YoYo Lander and Phillips Los Angeles present “Yesterday Was Hard” by YoYo Lander in collaboration with Superposition Gallery at Phillips Los Angeles. Yesterday Was Hard is an evocative collection of figurative collage works that invite viewers into a world of introspection and transformation. The portraits in this series unveil deep contemplation with each subject adorned in a sweater of varying shades of green. Lander’s deliberate choice of green serves as a vivid metaphor for growth amidst adversity. This subtle juxtaposition masterfully encapsulates the complexity of living in the present, as the figures navigate the shadows of the past and the whispers of tomorrow.

Aliza Nisenbaum: Altanera, Preciosa y Orgullosa

Regen Projects, Hollywood, until 26 October 2024

Mexico City-born, New York-based artist Aliza Nisenbaum is having her first exhibition with Regen Projects in Los Angeles. Featuring a new body of work depicting dance troupes, studios, and teachers local to Southern California, including Teresita de Jesús of Studio 10, Folklorico Revolución, Mariachi Tierra Mia, and Amelia Muñoz Dancers. Informed by her origins in Mexico and prior work with immigrant and diasporic communities, the artist’ lively compositions exemplify her dedication to fostering connection and community in the space of painting.

From mariachi to salsa, the works give shape to the fleeting festivity of these traditions. Exploring connections between sight and sound, Nisenbaum’s paintings celebrate these spaces and occasions for dancing as consecrated moments apart from our screens and devices, reminding us of the pleasure of being more fully of and with our bodies and each other. Her work is held in permanent museum collections worldwide from Boston to Beirut⁠; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

ART OUTLAWS: A Night of Creative Rebellion

NeueHouse Hollywood, until 26 October 2024

Wilma Gallery brings together an art exhibition featuring the works of two pioneering artists, New York-based Michael Holman, and British-born Nick Egan, who have been friends for decades. This dynamic dual exhibition showcases the visionary work of Egan, known for his iconic punk rock album covers (from The Clash to The Sex Pistols), and Holman, whose evocative paintings confront and demystify the power of symbols, particularly the Confederate flag. Their enduring friendship adds depth to this experience, highlighting the intersection of history, culture, and art.

Lisa Williamson: Hover Land Lover

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Hollywood, until 9 November 2024

Williamson’s work seamlessly blends painting and sculpture through concise material abstraction. Her current exhibit presents a series of painted wall reliefs and sculptures that engage with space. At the heart of the exhibition are machine-carved basswood reliefs, hand-painted with shimmering metallics and vibrant hues, creating dynamic chromatic energy. Informed by architectural precision and organic forms, her works interact with light and space, revealing ongoing exploration of balance, form, and spatial relationships.

'I like thinking of an artwork as both a projector and a container; a material form that is explicit and expressive in its physicality, while also maintaining a certain level of opacity or resistance,' said Williamson. 'For me, it is important that each work feels imbued with a particular character, charge, or resonance — an autonomous form that can hold space and hold its own.'.

On Emptiness: To Walk Between Candle and Flame

FRIDAY, ROW DTLA, until 8 November 2024

At the ROW DTLA, the city-within-a-city culture hub where locals flock for award-winning dining, shopping, and galleries, just launched a new reason to flight traffic on the 405 freeway. FRIDAY is a Global-South themed gallery curated by husband and wife duo Mitch and Mubarak Jafrey who are kicking-off the first season with On Emptiness: To Walk Between Candle and Flame, presenting a new collection of works by Pakistani artist Muzzumil Ruheel.

The gallery will focus on highlighting artists' voices from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to Latin America, featuring the incredible work from several artists and designers from those regions. The design concept store will also feature an exclusive list of creatives for its first season, including French-Tunisian artist eL Seed, Pakistani jewellery designer Zohra Rahman and creative director Ammar Ali Ashgar.

Olivia Cognet: Diffraction

The Future Perfect, Hollywood, until 8 November 2024

The Future Perfect’s Los Angeles outpost, located at The Goldwyn House in Hollywood (by appointment only), is currently featuring French artist and ceramicist Olivia Cognet’s Diffraction exhibition, a first-of-its-kind furniture collection created by The Future Perfect and fabric designer Christophe Delcourt, titled Christophe Delcourt: OWE, works by Sarah Solis, Anna Karlin, and more.

This is Cognet’s first-ever solo exhibition with The Future Perfect and explores the intersection of ceramic design, art, craft, and laboratory. The pieces in this collection range from panoramic wall hangings to sculptural furniture and decorative elements, and were made from clay, lava, wood, mirror, and stone. A custom furniture collection from The Future Perfect and esteemed fabric designer Christophe Delcourt, the striking Christophe Delcourt: OWE sofa and armchair signifies a visualization of comfort with its organic, enveloping shapes, double skin layering, and striking Delcourt Textiles fabrics. Also on view will be Sarah Solis, debuting her beautifully crafted furniture collection, as well as the work of designer Anna Karlin.

Jane Dickson: Are We There Yet?

Karma, West Hollywood, until 2 November 2024

For the artists first solo exhibit in LA in over 25 years, Jane Dickson: Are We There Yet? surveys a group of highway paintings the artist began in 1999. Inspired by the urban sprawl of Los Angeles, where Dickson spent six months teaching in the same year the series began, the artist was last seen on the West Coast for her 2001 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The works in Are We There Yet?—oil-on-linen studies and larger paintings made on Astroturf, one of the nontraditional supports Dickson uses to add texture to her compositions—reveal another facet of the New York-based artist’s oeuvre of psycho-social portraits of America.

Beth Cavener: Trust

Carpenters Workshop, Hollywood, until 2 November 2024

Beth Cavener's sculptures blur the line between human and animal behaviour which culminates in her first exhibition, aptly titled “Trust” at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in collaboration with Jason Jacques Gallery.

The exhibition is centered on the theme of trust; how it's lost, destroyed, betrayed, and abused with three returning characters in her pieces: the victim, the bully and manipulator. From COVID isolation to political divisiveness, this new body of work (in which she used 4,000 pounds of clay) by the Montana-based artist responds to the cultural and structural upheavals of the past five years. Cavener seeks to reestablish empathic connections across diverse communities, offering a poignant commentary on the state of human relationships today. Her ability to infuse animal forms, such as the lion which she worked on for 4 months while carving from the inside-out, with human emotions and gestures creates a powerful, authentic connection with her audience, making her work both unique and universally relatable.

At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World

David Zwirner, Melrose Hill, until 2 November 2024

Curated by Hilton Als, at David Zwirner’s refurbished space in the Melrose Hill area, this show continues the thread of the gallery’s history of presenting curated exhibitions that focus on different facets of Neel’s still-relevant work, and follows Als’s critically acclaimed Alice Neel, Uptown, which was on view at David Zwirner New York in 2017. In her career-long commitment to depicting the human condition and painting people from many walks of life, from politicians to philanthropists, and performers, these works are daringly honest and captures the truth of the individual and the era in which she lived from 1900–1984. Do not miss these rarely seen works from The Estate of Alice Neel, private collections, and museums.

Brian Rochefort: Starting at the Moon

For mixed-media sculpture Brian Rochefort’s first exhibition at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles, he is presenting new sculptures in an installation that will reconfigure the architecture of the gallery. Rochefort’s mixed-media sculptures incorporate a variety of different textures, surfaces, and colours to create rich, otherworldly forms. Referencing his travels to some of the most remote parts of the planet, such as the Amazon Rainforest, the Galápagos Islands, and the Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania, Rochefort internalizes and translates his experiences in these secluded, ancient landscapes into potent sculptural forms.

Annie Lapin: Unwilded

Nazarian/Curcio, Hancock Park, until 2 Nov 2024

In LA-based artist Annie Lapin’s third solo exhibit at Nazarian/Curcio, a new series of eight intimately-scaled painting, each 24 x 19 inches, using the concept of garden as a central theme. Known for her relentless exploration of various genres of painting, such as landscape, figuration, and abstraction, and using visual references from a wide variety of sources, including the artist’s own photo archive, online visual media, and well-known paintings and photographs from throughout art history, using fractured yet familiar forms to depict our world. In her latest series she looks specifically at the public and private gardens of prominent families and patrons of the arts alongside the gardens of artists, spanning from Cindy Sherman to Monet’s Garden at Giverny.

Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism

The Brick, Hollywood, until 21 December 2024

The Brick (formerly known as LAXART) inaugural exhibition Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism is tied to PST ART: Art & Science Collide. The show is curated by Deputy Director and Curator Catherine Taft and explores crucial links between gendered oppression and the exploitation of our planet's natural resources.

Originally a philosophical and political concept, ecofeminist art developed from anti-nuclear and feminist movements in the 1970s. Ecofeminist artists often created site-specific work that sought to address the connections between the domination of women, queer people, and the environment. Spotlighting the past five decades to present times, eighteen international artists and collective are representing this important history through installations, video work, photography, and sculptures. Some of the participating artists include Alliance of the Southern Triangle (A.S.T.), Alicia Barney Caldas, Francesca Gabbiani, Masumi Hayashi, Institute of Queer Ecology, Kite, Leslie Labowitz Starus, Otobong Nkanga, and A.L. Steiner.

Dawning

Megan Mulrooney Gallery, West Hollywood, until 26 October 2024

To inaugurate the new Megan Mulrooney Gallery, Frankfurt-born, Brooklyn-based painter Marin Majic will be included as one of the official auxiliary activations of the Getty's PST ART. His show will feature 12-15 new works that explore the subconscious space between reality and dreams blending colored pencil, marble dust, wax, and oil to capture evocative scenes of sunrise from ancient caves to nightclubs. Dawning is Inspired by the perpetual passage of time and the universal themes of human existence and our relationship with the cosmos. This will mark Marin’s first solo exhibition since his 2023 New York presentation, Nocturne. Another participating artist in this inaugural show, Piper Bangs just recently graduated from the Laguna College of Art and Design, and had her first solo exhibition in 2022 at The Watermill Center in NY and was recently an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center.

Portable Wetland

Brackish Water, Los Angeles California State University, Dominguez Hills, until 14 December 2024

Environmental artist Lauren Bon and her Metabolic Studio could not be busier this fall as she participates in multiple exhibition as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide. Her work fuses art, architecture, social practice, environmental activism, and speculative ecology. As the holder of the LA River’s first private water right with the responsibility for the stewardship of water, Bon’s work in Portable Wetland demonstrates new ways to look at water conservation through an accessible and minimally invasive process to protect our health and well-being.

In addition, Bon is literally “Moving Mountains” by transporting truckloads of living soil from the Topanga Canyon land slide to the LA River to create areas of new forestation and a citizen’s utility, and continuing her “Bending The River” project which will deliver cleaned water that she has diverted from the LA river to the State Historic Parks next Spring. Bon is also included in several other Getty PST projects this fall, including a Concrete is fluid, a solo exhibition at Honor Fraser gallery opening 14 September until 14, December 2024.

Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics

LACE at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, East Hollywood, until 5 January 2025

As part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this exhibition revisits the collaborative artistic practice of the late Beatriz da Costa (1974–2012) as an investigation into technoscientific experimentation, politics, activism, and art-making, contextualized for our contemporary moment.

Curated by LACE’s former Chief Curator/Director of Programs Daniela Lieja Quintanar with Ana Briz, the project weaves together an exhibition, public programming, performances, educational workshops, and study groups as an evocation of da Costa’s approach to the intersections of ancient and non-academic forms of knowledge.

Mona Kuhn - The Schindler House, A Love Affair

Galerie XII, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, until 12 October 2024

Part of the Bergamot Station 30th year anniversary celebration on 7 September, and PST ART, Kuhn's solarized pictures is a fictional, ethereal figure inspired by a letter from the architect R.M. Schindler to a mysterious lover. Shot in the 1920s modernist house designed and built by the architect on Kings Road in West Hollywood, Kuhn's impressionistic photos capture the physical presence of this mysterious woman even as it seems to be dematerializing, resulting in fleeting images that question the very nature of lyrical fiction and photography as a record.

The furniture pieces featured were made in the Marmol Radziner Furniture Fabrication Shop from Rudolph Schindler’s revolutionary redwood designs from the 1920s including the R.M. Schindler Sling Chair and the R.M. Schindler Low Stool, both from the Kings Road Group collection reproduced by Marmol Radziner.

Breath(e)

HAMMER MUSEUM, Westwood, until 5 January 2025

Presented in partnership with Conservation International, this show is comprised architectural, décor, new tech, recycling materials, living organisms - all intertwined and connected to climate and social justice. Curated by artist Glenn Kaino and guest curator Mika Yoshitake and features more than 100 artworks by 25 international artists. The sprawling exhibition will fill the majority of the Hammer’s galleries and outdoor spaces, and includes specially commissioned works by Mel Chin, Ron Finley, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Garnett Puett, and Lan Tuazon.

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard

LACMA, mid-Wilshire, until 5 Jan 2025

This is the first-ever museum survey of the Venezuelan-born, L.A.-based artist’s prolific career. Spanning over five decades, the exhibition explores ceramics, paintings, and drawings, including an important selection of works made collaboratively with her husband, Michael Frimkess, and numerous works never-before shown in public. With insights into the artist's fascination with illustrations from art books, popular media, animation, autobiography, and the comedy of everyday life, celebrating the inventiveness of Suarez Frimkess’s practice, securing her position in the recognized, longstanding tradition of artists working with ceramics in California.

Grove of Enchantment

Mash Gallery, Beverly Grove, until 26 October 2024

To coincide with the 6th anniversary of MASH Gallery, owner and expressionist painter Haleh Mashian is putting on an exhibition called "Grove of Enchantment," which is a fantasy inspired and imaginative take on the re-interpretation of Mashian’s renowned Tree series. Mashian invites viewers to explore the forest of their dreams in this immersive series, highlighting the spiritual and emotional impact trees have on our lives, underscoring their role in mental health, and in soothing the human spirit.

Through this exhibition, Mashian aims to portray the beauty and importance of trees in our ecosystem, highlighting their role in combating climate change and preserving the ozone layer. “As a painter devoted to capturing the essence of trees, I find myself endlessly inspired by their graceful presence, the interplay of light and shadow, the texture of their bark and their vibrant hues of foliage. I seek to capture the resilience and strength that emanate from their silent presence, the whispers of their ancient secrets, reminding viewers of the inherent power within us all.”

Part of proceeds from the sales of her art are directed towards Tree People, ensuring that her work contributes directly to initiatives that address and mitigate these pressing environmental challenges.

Aaron Garber-Maikovska's and Eddie Martinez: Homework

BLUM, mid-city, until 19 October 2024

Garber-Maikovska's most recent temporal, movement-based works are documented and conveyed through the paintings that he presents here. This exhibition, his third solo at the gallery, coincides with the release of the artist's first comprehensive monograph Cushion of Air. The book will feature new essays on his abstract painting practice as well as his somatic performances within the Southern Californian consumerist suburban landscape.

Paintings on cardboard in a compact and intimate scale, comprise Martinez’ visual journal entries from recent years. Beginning to work in this fashion in 2017, the artist started creating these diaristic vignettes as an alternative to his renowned large-scale canvases. As this portable fusion of drawing and painting grew into a regular practice, Martinez found that the format was one he could turn to in moments of transition—whether at home with his family (and an abundance of shipping boxes during the pandemic in 2020) or, more recently, amid work-related travel.

Tahnee Lonsdale

Night Gallery, downtown LA, until 19 October 2024

L.A-based artist Tahnee Lonsdale’s solo exhibition feature oil paintings and also two ceramic vessels that she created in conjunction with Exhibition A at a ceramic residency in Mexico earlier in 2024.

Originally from Sussex, England, Tahnee brings a sense of metaphysical prowess to her work through a cast of family-like celestial figures, all of which make their way onto the canvas via layers of oil paint that seemingly exude a meditative effect prompting the viewer to either question the ways of the world when it comes to connecting with source, or alternatively catapulting the mind into cinematic flashback mode via Cocoon (1985) or The Abyss (1989). London-based designer Roksanda Illincic is a longtime fan of Tahnee’s work and famed U.K Creative Director Alex Eagle has been collecting her paintings for over a decade.

Shirazeh Houshiary: The Sound of One Hand

Lisson Galley, Hollywood, until 2 November 2024

For her first solo show in Los Angeles for over a decade, the British artist Shirazeh Houshiary presents new and recent works, exploring the origins of life and the mysteries of the cosmos, from a microscopic cellular level, to the stratospheric phenomenon of the aurora borealis. The show’s title relates to a Zen Buddhist teaching that instructs the student to listen to the sound of one hand clapping, in order to open their mind to such a possibility and transcend the constraints of the physical body. Despite not being a Zen practitioner, Houshiary realised that her work revolves around the insistent sound made by one of her hands, making tiny, looping, scratched marks in pencil onto large aluminum surfaces, building up worlds through the silence of her inscribed words.

Richard Orlinski Sculptures

Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, until November 2024

The is a new reason to stroll Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills apart from all the high-end retail shops. The first public pieces from renowned French contemporary artist Richard Orlinski have been unveiled along this iconic palm-tree lined street.

As part of the Second Annual Rodeo Drive Celebrates Fashion kick-off, Orlinski’s colorful animal sculptures crafted from resin range from a cherry red alligator to a pink panther and yellow lion, have been strategically placed starting from The Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel.

'I'm very proud to be here,' said Orlinski at the hotel’s rose garden opening ceremony. 'Paris is where I'm from and I've done these many places in the world. But here on Rodeo in Beverly Hills, it's something special, just like magic and making history.'

Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight

The Huntington, Pasadena, until Nov. 30, 2025

Also, at The Huntington in The Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art building, where you can also find several Warhol works including “Brillo Box,” renowned American artist Betye Saar’s large-scale work of a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe, “Drifting Toward Twilight.” takes up an entire room. This site-specific installation was commissioned by The Huntington and adorned with found objects, including birdcages, antlers, and natural materials harvested by the artist from The Huntington’s grounds. This work explores themes of racial oppression and ‘caged freedom.’

A small side room shows a short documentary film on Saar’s six-decade career as a pioneer of assemblage art, an important artistic voice during the feminist and Civil Rights movements, and as part of the foundational generation of Black artists in Los Angeles.

A convenient nearby glass door leads to the historic rose garden and tea room, which was refurbished and reopened earlier this year. Beyond that lies the Shakespeare Garden and the Japanese botanical gardens dotted with artifacts and sculptures.

Intuit Dome

Inglewood, permanent

One of the most exciting art collections to hit Los Angeles can be found at the new home for the LA Clippers in Inglewood. The cutting-edge sports venue recently unveiled the monumental, site-specific, outdoor artworks commissioned for the Intuit Dome which opens to the public this August. The $11 million public art collection features a collection of globally recognised artists, selected by Ruth Berson, former deputy director of curatorial affairs at SFMOMA, who have deep ties to Los Angeles and intertwine their artistic talents with sports.

Glenn Kaino’s massive sculpture Sails, made of painted steel and wood looms in the form of the clipper ships that connected the world via the ocean’s trade routes. In this ship, basketball is the cultural wind that can connect us all.

Michael Massenburg’s mural of printed porcelain enamel on steel panel features figures of basketball, tennis, and soccer players, singers, musicians, and dancers, titled Cultural Playground expresses the artist’s belief that 'the two most profound things that unite people are the arts and sports.'

Jennifer Steinkamp’s digital artwork Swoosh, uses the entire surface of the Intuit Dome, designed by the architectural firm AECOM, with five animations will transform the surface of the dome and light up the sky with geometric panels.

Patrick Martinez’s sculpture Same Boat uses a neon sign to create an image that reproduces a statement by the late Civil Rights leader Whitney M. Young: “We may have all come on different ships but we’re in the same boat now.”

On a wall adjacent to Same Boat, you will find Kyungmi Shin’s stained-glass mosaic with stainless steel tracery, Spring to Life. For this work, Shin drew inspiration from Centinela Springs, the now-vanished water source in South Los Angeles that once supported the Tongva people and the land they cultivated. (If you would like to see more of Shin’s work, the artist has a solo exhibition at Craft Contemporary until 8, September 2024.)

The Dome opening features an exhibition of photographs by Catherine Opie (on loan from MOCA) evoking the experience of community. “We designed Intuit Dome to be a place that brings people together,” said Gillian Zucker, CEO of Halo Sports & Entertainment. “When it came to our public art, we wanted to deliver a collection that is as compelling to people well versed in art as it is to a novice viewer. We are eager to make these unique works, from these amazing artists, available to everyone.”

Josh Kline: Climate Change

MOCA, downtown Los Angeles, until 5 January 2025

Josh Kline’s dystopian science fiction installations took five years to fully produce but they could not be more on target with the current political and environmental climate concerns in America. This exhibition transforms the galleries at MOCA Grand Avenue with photography, moving image work, and ephemeral materials.

Also at Grand Ave., NTS Radio is in residency, in the museum’s newly opened cultureLAB space offers a summer-long collaboration of live broadcasts and music programming located on the Sculpture Plaza at MOCA, or tune in at nts.live

Mineo Mizuno: Homage to Nature

The Huntington, Pasadena, until 25 May 2029

The Huntington holds a library with British medieval manuscripts, including the 15th-century Ellesmere tome of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; 16 themed gardens with more than 83,000 living plants; an art museum and more.

In the main garden area on the vast grounds, Mineo Mizuno’s sculpture celebrates the beauty of wood in its natural state and emphasises its potential as a reusable and renewable resource. This site-specific work explores the fragility of the Earth’s ecosystem, as well as the destruction of the forest and its potential for regeneration.

‘ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN’

LACMA, mid-city, until 6 Oct 2024

Continuing through the fall, ‘ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN’ is the first comprehensive, cross-media retrospective of the artist in over 20 years. The exhibit traces the iconic artists’ methods and familiar subjects throughout his career. In 1956, Ruscha left Oklahoma City to study commercial art in Los Angeles, where he drew inspiration from the city’s architectural landscape including parking lots, urban streets, and apartment buildings. The artist holds a mirror to American society by transforming some of its defining attributes, including consumer culture and entertainment to the ever-changing urban landscape.

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‘Yves Saint Laurent: Line and Expression’

Orange County Museum of Art, 3 July – 27 October 2024

Fashion buffs will want to travel 30 miles south from Los Angeles, for ‘Yves Saint Laurent: Line and Expression’, which recently launched at OCMA. Travelling from the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech and Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, on loan from the collection of the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, ‘Line and Expression’ marks the first presentation in Southern California of Yves Saint Laurent’s stunning and legendary practice.

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