The David Geffen Galleries are now fully open to the public, as of 3 May, with a permanent collection of over 2,000 works from LACMA’s collection spanning antiquities to modern art, furniture, textiles, and costumes, along with an Erewhon café on the W.M. Keck plaza level overlooking Alexander Calder’s iconic 1964 fountain sculpture, ‘Three Quintains (Hello Girls).’
In a collaboration with Tate Modern, London, Yoko Ono is celebrated at The Broad in the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in Southern California, which is hard to fathom. A former BLUM colleague opens a new gallery space on Pico Blvd., Zodiac Pictures, while Sprüth Magers celebrates 10 years in LA this May, and The Skirball Cultural Center takes a look back at Punk culture 50 years after it hit the New York scene.
Los Angeles Art Exhibitions: what to see in May 2026
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind
The Broad from 23 May until 11 October 2026
Yoko Ono, the visionary artist, musician, and activist whose work has shaped contemporary culture for more than seven decades, will be celebrated at her first solo museum exhibition in Southern California. Materials from the artist’s international campaigns for peace and displays of anti-war activism will also be on view, such as Acorn Event (1968) and Bed Peace (1969), projects done in collaboration with her late husband, John Lennon.
Organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, visitors will be invited to directly participate in many of Ono’s works that transform simple acts into expressions of peace and connection. The Broad’s olive trees on East West Bank Plaza will become Wish Trees for Los Angeles, a key installation (first realized in 1996 at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica), inviting audiences to tie their own wishes to the tree branches in a living expression of hope in the city.
More Bermuda Than Pizza
Zodiac Pictures until 9 May
Formerly at BLUM, Paul Forney, along with his wife Kate Hillseth, just opened a new gallery space on Pico for their Zodiac Pictures. Their second exhibition in the space is with painter and longtime Los Angeles art world fixture Jon Pestoni. After previously showing at David Kordansky, this marks his first exhibition in nearly a decade. The artist’s paintings range from monumental canvases to intimate works on paper that feature layered geometric forms and abstraction, exploring boundaries between intention, failure, and completion.
Josef Albers Duets
David Zwirner until 22 May 2026
Paintings and works on paper by Josef Albers (1888–1976) are on view at the gallery’s Melrose Hill location. Organized in collaboration with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, this exhibition is an iteration of the artist’s recent show at David Zwirner Paris. This is the first significant show in Los Angeles devoted to Albers’ work in several decades and opens simultaneously with the solo exhibition Josef Albers: Meditations at Villa Panza, Varese, Italy.
Groundskeeper
Vielmetter until 16 May 2026
Alec Egan’s inaugural solo exhibition with the gallery, and his first in LA since the 2025 Palisades fire, which claimed his home and studio, Groundskeeper locates that personal and collective loss within a broader inquiry into the fragility of the constructed self. This most recent series stems from the psychological concept of the prodromal - a clinical term describing the onset of psychosis before it fully emerges. The paintings are awash in tension and hypervigilance, a psychic atmosphere the artist channels into the iconic Los Angeles sunset, as an allusion to the city’s seductive beauty, its embrace of spectacle and artifice, and its proximity to existential threat.
Titled Photon Camp
PACE until June 6
For his first-ever solo exhibition in Los Angeles, and on the West Coast of the U.S., Kyoto-based Kohei Nawa brings together 20 new works from two of his iconic sculptural series - PixCell and Prism - creating a cohesive environment in which his sculptures engage directly with the architecture of the gallery’s main exhibition space. This is also Nawa’s first installation comprising both his PixCell and Prism series, which he has developed continuously over the course of his career, exploring tensions between the natural and the artificial, the real and the fictional, and the sacred and the profane.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Coyote
PDC Design Gallery until 3 July 2026
Harry Fonseca (1946-2006) is widely considered one of the most prominent Native artists from California, and is recognized by his use of his distinct representation of his Coyote figure, which he used both to explore aspects of his own kaleidoscopic identity and confront dominant narratives.
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: Ninety-six and Pissed
The Library at MAF until 18 July 2026
This exhibition presents over thirty new drawings that meld cartoon characters with Celtic runes and Egyptian hieroglyphics, placed in dialogue with the artist’s earlier iconic drawing Wonder Woman (2007), and a selection of hand-built ceramic sculptures.
planchette
Regen Projects until 23 May 2026
This three-fold exhibition of sculpture and painting by Rachel Harrison, Liz Larner, and Rebecca Morris, marks the first time these influential artists have shown together, despite their parallel contributions to the reinvigoration of contemporary abstraction. The exhibition’s title is inspired by a sculpture by Larner, V (planchette) (2013). This work, part of a series of blue-black planchette sculptures made with egg tempera-painted paper pulp. A planchette is a tool used in Ouija board séances, simultaneously held by a circle of hands as an object of communication that apparently takes on a will of its own, transcending the intentions of the humans manipulating it, and channeling unexpected new information.
Liu Xiaodong: Host
Lisson until 13 June 2026
Marking his first exhibition in Los Angeles, renowned figurative painter Liu Xiaodong focuses an entire painting project on a single subject for the first time in his career. His subject? Industrial and suburban Detroit through the lens of John Mcintyre - a Detroit-based tattoo artist and medieval combat fighter, and his loyal band of brothers, depicted in full armor mid-battle in a snowy forest, inking tattoos on bodies, and lounging in a backyard hot tub.
Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–86
The Skirball Cultural Center from 20 May until 6 September 2026
2026 marks fifty years since punk burst beyond New York City, a scene with a notable number of musicians of Jewish heritage. This exhibit highlights the stories of Jewish punks and fellow travelers, including Malcolm McLaren, plus members of the Ramones, the Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, Blondie, the Patti Smith Group, and more. By centering these narratives within the broader story of punk, the exhibition underscores how artists from many communities helped shape a movement that continues to challenge norms around identity, power, and belonging. Featuring more than 500 objects and pieces of ephemera, including clothing by fashion designers Vivienne Westwood.
A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit
Palm Springs Art Museum until Oct 2026
Take a drive out to the desert before the soaring summer temperatures kick-in, for a group exhibition bringing together 35 queer artists whose work spans more than 100 years (1909–2026). Collectively, they explore magic, esoteric spirituality, and occult knowledge as tools for survival, resistance, and world-building. Presented as part of the museum's Q+ Art initiative, curated by David Evans Frantz, Curator-at-Large of Q+ Art, this show explores how queer artists throughout time have turned to esoteric systems to cultivate community and imagine new social and spiritual frameworks.
Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials
Hammer Museum until 23 August 2026
This groundbreaking exhibition features 22 indigenous and brown artists using organic and living materials from cacao, tree bark, avocado, and lemon to examine and expose the ongoing political discourse.
Characterized by their diversity and internationality (50% of the artists are indigenous, while the other 50% consider themselves part of the brown cultures.) Some of the participating LA-based artists commissioned for their work include Raven Chacon - the first Native American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music; Carmen Argote, Jackie Amezquita, Edgar Calel, Rose B. Simpson, among others.
MARYTA& HENRYTIMI
HENTRYTIMI Los Angeles, until 30 June 2026
Mary Ta, the Los Angeles–based design visionary has launched MARYTA& – a new curated gallery and international platform for the exhibition and presentation of design objects, installations, and concepts. Established to encourage collaboration, collecting, discovery, and education, the gallery will celebrate and share the work of multiple cultural and creative forces.
HENRYTIMI los angeles, an installation of functional artworks, rooted in nature, and made by hand in Italy, that spans a gallery space of 8,000 square feet that include artworks made with natural stone rock on burnished brass metal, and a rare thermopolium made out of solid stone with black volcanic clay vessels that was inspired by ancient Romans and the ruins of Pompeii.
Simultaneously, MARYTA& also unveiled The HENGE Collectors Lounge, an immersive, refined and material-driven environment designed by Ugo Cacciatori featuring modular seating, cast-metal tables, and a sculptural quartzite bar at her former MASS Beverly Blvd. space.
Sarah Robarts
Bayside Hotel in Santa Monica until 1 May 2026
Located on the Santa Monica shore, the Bayside Hotel is hosting Uganda-born, Kenya-raised artist Robarts’ symbolic installation of reclaimed and painted, mixed-media surfboards. These objects inherently carry history within their fiberglass and foam. Having been shaped by salt, sun, and time, each board serves as both material and muse. Rather than obscuring their past, Robarts preserves elements of each board’s original surface, allowing traces of history to remain visible and creating a dialogue between past and present. Using a deliberate, layered painting technique, earlier gestures remain visible beneath subsequent layers, emphasizing the tension between concealment and exposure. The work explores themes of memory, transformation, and renewal. On land, these boards stand as markers or guardians, holding the memory of motion, risk, joy, and surrender. By reclaiming and repainting these boards, the installation extends their lifecycle while honoring the coastline that shaped them.
Free and Queer: Black Californian Roots of Gay Liberation
California African American Museum, until 28 February 2027
This exhibit centers Los Angeles as a foundational site of Black queer cultural power, shaped through networks of resistance across neighborhoods, institutions, and grassroots communities. Curated by Susan D. Anderson, the exhibition foregrounds the role of Black queer cultural labor, bringing into focus a history that has often been left out of both mainstream LGBTQ+ narratives and dominant accounts of the civil rights movement. At a moment when queer history and representation are under renewed political pressure, the exhibition feels especially timely and urgent.
Christina Quarles. The Ground Glows Black
Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles until 3 May 2026
Christina Quarles’ latest body of work reflects the acute sense of displacement she experienced in the wake of the historic Los Angeles wildfires that consumed her home in early 2025. Already admired internationally for the dexterity and assertiveness with which she manipulates paint, ‘The Ground Glows Black,’ pushes that expressive and physical power to new limits, conveying the impact of the fires on her inner landscape.
Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection
Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles 16 August 2026
Eileen Harris Norton has built an inspiring art collection and forged a philanthropic legacy by focusing upon the work of women artists, as well as artists of color and of her native California. Marking fifty years since Harris Norton made her first acquisition - a print purchased in 1976 directly from Los Angeles artist and African American arts advocate Ruth Waddy, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ will present more than 80 works from Harris Norton’s holdings in an exhibition conceived to celebrate the connoisseurship and commitment to social justice.
Taking its title from a 1990 painting by Kerry James Marshall, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ features paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Catherine Opie, Yoshitomo Nara, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, and many others.
Under One Roof
Santa Monica Studios 3026 until 3 May 2026
The Santa Monica Studios 3026 at the Airport Arts Center launched with a dynamic multi-disciplinary group exhibition curated by acclaimed Los Angeles art critic and curator Peter Frank. Harnessing the creative energy of Santa Monica’s largest artist community, featuring 32 resident artists working in sculpture, painting, textile, photography, ceramics, prints, and drawing. This expansive show, ‘Under One Roof,’ celebrates nearly 25 years of artistic innovation for the center.
Five Centuries of Works on Paper: The Grunwald Center at 70
Hammer Museum
Part I: until 17 May 2026
Part II: June 7 – October 25, 2026
The Hammer Museum at UCLA is presenting a two-part exhibition celebrating the 70th anniversary of the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts. With more than 45,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and artist’s books, the center’s collection of works on paper is among the most significant in the United States. Part One, features nearly 100 works reflecting the breadth of the collection, from the Renaissance to present day, including works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vassily Kandinsky, Käthe Kollwitz, Ansel Adams, Elizabeth Catlett, Corita Kent, Bridget Riley, Ed Ruscha, and Vija Celmins.
The Art of the Album – The Photography of Danny Clinch
Wrensilva on Melrose Ave. until Spring 2026
For a completely immersive experience, Wrensilva LA Listening Studio on Melrose has launched a photo and listening installation with more than three decades of music culture and lifestyle photography by Danny Clinch. This installation brings iconic images together with the album covers they helped define, plus the vinyl itself, played on a Wrensilva record console. It’s a rare chance to stand inside the relationship between image, artist, and record. Featured artists include 2Pac, Johnny Cash, Foo Fighters, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, and more, that reveal living documents of artists in their element, images that become inseparable from the songs, the albums, and the eras they helped shape.
The AIDS Monument
West Hollywood Park, permanent
With World AIDS Day on 1 December, the City of West Hollywood and the Foundation for the AIDS Monument (FAM) unveiled The AIDS Monument in West Hollywood Park to memorialize those impacted by HIV/AIDS, and will honor the community's activism and the personal stories. Designed by artist Daniel Tobin, the monument will feature a plaza, a donor wall, vertical bronze ‘traces’ with narrative text, integrated lighting reminiscent of a candlelight vigil, and a podium facing N. San Vicente Boulevard, that will function as a public art experience and memorial site.
JOHN GIORNO: NO NOSTALGIA
Marciano Art Foundation until April 2026
Marciano will reopen its second-floor Window Gallery with an exhibit devoted to the late poet, artist, and activist John Giorno. Known for transposing poetry into the visual, sonic, and performative, the exhibition spans Giorno's early prints to his later text paintings. Works from the 1960s through the 2010s reveal how he merged spiritual clarity with pop immediacy, and how language could heal and become physical. Notably, the exhibition will feature his landmark Dial-A-Poem (1969) recordings, newly reactivated to offer 24-hour access to more than 250 recordings by 132 poets, artists, musicians, and activists. Dial-A-Poem will be accessible through a physical landline within the exhibition, as well as through a QR code that guests may use through their own devices.
Monuments
Geffen Contemporary at Museum of Contemporary Art, Little Tokyo, until 3 May 2026
Inspired by the wave of repulsion after the turbulent 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., that opposed the removal of a local statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. 200 other tributes across the country to American turncoats who supported slavery have also been removed. A selection of decommissioned Confederate statues will be shown at MOCA and alternative space The Brick (on N. Western in the Melrose Hill area), joint organizers of the exhibition, paired with contemporary work by Bethany Collins, Stan Douglas, Leonardo Drew, Jon Henry, Martin Puryear, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker and a dozen other artists, borrowed and commissioned for the occasion.
Jaws: The Exhibition
Robert Shaw as Quint during production of Jaws (1975)
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures until 26 July 2026
For a final end-of-the-summer fling, Jaws: The Exhibition - in the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, will be the largest presentation ever mounted for the Oscar® winning Steven Spielberg classic and feature scene breakdowns, interactive experiences, behind-the-scenes stories, and some 200 original objects, many never before put on public display. And, yes, it’s still terrifying 50-years later.
Big Art. Bigger Dreams.
Downtown LA, until 2028
DTLA Alliance, has partnered with Street Art for Mankind (SAM) and the City of Los Angeles to create a public art museum launching in real time starting with three massive murals by acclaimed LA-based artists. With support from the Coca-Cola Company, a total of 12 large-scale works will be created that will reimagine downtown’s skyline and streetscape by 2028 when the city is set to host the Olympic Games.
Each mural celebrates global values of sustainability, education, and women’s empowerment, turning walls into landmarks. David Flores is creating a massive, vibrant mural on the Los Angeles Athletic Club (LAAC) depicting a skateboarding scene, Emily Ding is bringing to life a powerful and elegant mural of two women walking arm-in-arm on the Figueroa Eight while Shamsia Hassani is crafting a poetic triptych on The Bloc.
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.”
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.