1.

Made in L.A.: Acts of Living at The Hammer

Back for its sixth installment is The Hammer’s biennial exhibition Made in L.A., this year with the title Acts of Living. The title was culled from a quote by artist Noah Purifoy that curators Dana Nawi and Pablo José Ramiréz found on a plaque at the Watts Towers early in their research for the exhibition –– Purifoy wrote that “creativity can be an act of living, a way of life, and a formula for doing the right thing.” As such, the exhibition focuses on artists who approach art in unique ways, integrating it into their lives and practices. Most exemplifying this type of art-as-living approach might be artists like Dominique Moody, whose bespoke camper, which she often lives in nomadically for periods of time, can be found parked outside of the museum. Los Angeles Contemporary Archives' (LACA) contribution is a break room where guests can enjoy coffee while pursuing LACA’s artist archive of artist ephemera. 

Still, many of the works on view take a more traditional approach to painting, sculpture, and mixed-media, and seem to brush against the curatorial theme through work that speaks to identity, place, or heritage –– dynamic paintings and sculptures, many made with non-traditional materials, abound throughout the show. A stand out is Roksana Pirouzmand’s performance work which she will enact once a week at the museum. Standing in a small room that is outfitted with whirring fans and a window frame on each side –– one window frame referring to her family’s home in Iran, and the other to her family home here in the States –– Pirouzmand catches printed family photographs from the air that she pensively ponders. 

As a whole, the exhibition highlights artists who explore their connection to place, making this show a particularly diverse representation of what it means to be an Angeleno. 

On view: October 1 – December 31, 2023 | Open map

2.

Alex Da Corte at Matthew Marks

At Matthew Mark in West Hollywood, the gallery has been blanketed in a white carpet. In the center of the space, a 70s-style conversation pit contains felted domestic design objects that erupt with color. The scene feels both gaudy and minimal and features mirrored coffee tables, pill-like forms, and an overturned house plant whose brown soil spills onto the pristine carpet. The three muddy cat prints that emanate from the downed soil foreshadow the scenes in a series of instructional-feeling illustrations painted on plexiglass and hung in a large grid on the back wall. Many of the paintings feature various lamps set in a domestic space, with a cat running through the scene, toppling the lamp in some of the frames to the dismay of her owner. A second gallery space bends towards surrealism with an oversized plush cigarette that rests on a mirrored table below a rosette window. The exhibition pulses through various cultural symbols, leaving its suggestive and stylized connotations up to the viewer to decode.

On view: September 23 – November 4, 2023 | Open map

3. Vivien Suter at Gaga, LA

At Gaga, LA, Vivien Suter’s paintings hang (unstretched and with raw edges) from wooden rods that suspend from a metal armature. Hanging in rows –– like books on a shelf –– the stacked abstract works conceal themselves from the viewer. Unlike most painting shows, pondering each painting in a singular fashion feels not only physically impossible but beside the point. Instead, Suter privileges the collective over the individual –– each piece is quick and gestural, containing loosely painted marks that additively build onto the works around it. This unprecious approach extends to the works themselves which feature rips and sags; some even have layers of thick dirt caked onto their surfaces (the artist often works outdoors in her studio space in Guatemala, laying her canvas directly onto the earth as she paints). Suter's fluid approach to display allows for a breezy gestural feeling that captures the fluidity of her process. 

On view: September 09 – October 28, 2023 | Open map

Blending art and life

For Made in L.A.: Acts of Living, curators Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramiréz wanted to highlight artists that approach art-making from unique perspectives, focusing on “creative practices that have as much to do with art as they do with life.” In a catalogue accompanying the exhibition, they explain that walking into artists’ studios led them to “a richer appreciation of the way that artists take up and transform the experiences, ideas, and material surroundings drawn from everyday life…the exhibition is defined by its affinities as well as by its porousness, creating a conversation rooted in self-determination and commitment to community, while proceeding with curiosity to explore how we influence and see ourselves reflected in one another.”