This fall, museums round Los Angeles are showcasing artwork’s capacity to foster group, to rage in opposition to injustice, and to rewrite historical past. A historic survey of Mail Artwork in Latin America highlights subversive networks of creative manufacturing within the face of political repression, whereas a touring exhibition of radical Chicano prints from the Smithsonian lands on the Huntington. A present on the Getty pulls from the Guerrilla Women’ archive, and a two-person exhibition at Skirball pairs the late Philip Guston with up to date painter Trenton Doyle Hancock. The well timed present Monuments, co-organized by the Brick and the Museum of Modern Artwork, juxtaposes decommissioned US monuments with work by artists partaking with present debates over how we wish to reimagine our nation’s historical past. Ken Gonzales-Day and Tavares Strachan each have interaction in research-based practices that scrutinize who and what will get written into — and out of — mainstream narratives.
Flesh of the Forest
Oxy Arts, 4757 York Boulevard, Highland Park, Los AngelesThrough December 13
Nonetheless from Josèfa Ntjam, “Matter Gone Wild” (2023) (picture courtesy the artist)
Flesh of the Forest brings collectively work by 9 up to date Black artists who concentrate on the forest as a fancy web site of liberation, hazard, historical past, and boundless risk. Curated by Tiffany E. Barber, the exhibition options wide-ranging portrayals of the wilderness as a surreal, liminal house the place historic realities and speculative fictions coexist. Highlights embrace Alicia Piller’s maximalist assemblages constructed from the panorama of LA; Josèfa Ntjam’s video “Matter Gone Wild” (2023) that pulls on gaming, mycology, and cosmic exploration; Reuben Telushkin’s kinetic sculpture connecting international struggles for freedom; and Simphiwe Ndzube’s fantastical mixed-media installations rooted in his childhood expertise of post-Apartheid South Africa.
Guadalupe Maravilla: Les soñadores
REDCAT, 631 West 2nd Road, Downtown, Los AngelesSeptember 13–December 19
Guadalupe Maravilla, “Luz y Fuerza” (2024), oil on volcanic rock (picture by JSP Artwork Pictures, courtesy Guadalupe Maravilla and P·P·O·W, New York)
Guadalupe Maravilla fled his native El Salvador as a toddler throughout its bloody civil struggle, arriving within the US as an unaccompanied little one. He later survived most cancers, a illness he attributes to the trauma of violence, migration, and his beforehand undocumented standing. Les soñadores, his first solo present in LA, consists of sculptures that mirror his private historical past of upheaval and resilience. These embrace “Migratory Birds Riding the Celestial Serpent (Aves migratorias montando la serpiente celestial)” (2021), an undulating serpentine type that includes objects picked up on a recreation of his migration path, and “Dream Backpacks” constructed from volcanic rock, which merge precolonial sculptural precedents with up to date narratives of diasporic dislocation. REDCAT will host a screening and dialog between the artist, the Dean of the College of Artwork at California Institute of the Arts Steven Lam, and its personal Chief Curator Daniela Lieja Quintanar on September 13 at 6pm.
2025 California Biennial: Determined, Scared, However Social
Orange County Museum of Artwork, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa, CaliforniaThrough January 4, 2026
Stanya Kahn, “No Go Backs” (nonetheless) (2020), Tremendous 16 mm movie transferred to 2K video, period: 33 minutes (picture courtesy the artist)
This 12 months’s California Biennial incorporates a modest collection of 12 artists and collectives who discover the hope, nervousness, playfulness, and radical spirit of youth. Tracing threads throughout generations and geography, the exhibition showcases a rebellious DIY perspective grounded in underground, queer, and musical communities. Joey Terrill’s imaginative map “Los Diablos,” begun in 1969 when he was a highschool freshman, will probably be on public view for the primary time, whereas Griselda Rosas presents monster drawings created collaboratively along with her little one. Deanna Templeton pairs pictures of adolescent ladies along with her personal journal entries, Seth Bogart affords cartoonish tributes to lady teams and punk idols, and Stanya Kahn screens her meditative, post-apocalyptic movie “No Go Backs” (2020). Regardless of the rising tide of right-wing autocracy within the US, this present means that the children may be alright in any case.
Soy de Tejas: A Statewide Survey of Latinx Artwork
The Cheech Marin Middle for Chicano Artwork & Tradition, 3581 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CaliforniaOctober 4–January 11
Eva Marengo Sánchez, “Enchilada Plate To-Go” (2020), oil on canvas (picture courtesy the artist)
Latinx artwork is much from monolithic, with regional hubs across the nation formed by their particular geographic and cultural milieus. Angelenos could also be most aware of the quite a few Latinx artists in Southern California, however Texas has its personal Latinx artwork scenes. Curated by Rigoberto Luna, Soy de Tejas brings collectively over three dozen artists primarily based or born in Texas, presenting a various portrait of Latinx cultural manufacturing within the Lone Star State. Highlights embrace Arely Morales’s monumental portraits of service staff, Patrick McGrath Muñiz’s Renaissance-style depiction of migration, Ruben Luna’s explorations of working-class Mexican-American resourcefulness often known as rasquachismo, and Eva Marengo Sánchez’s enchilada nonetheless life.
Transgresoras: Mail Artwork and Messages, Sixties–2020s
California Museum of Pictures, 3824 Fundamental Road, Riverside, CaliforniaSeptember 13–February 15, 2026
Graciela Sacco, “Urban Intervention No. 2” from the collection Bocanada (1993), artist stamps (© Graciela Sacco Property; picture courtesy Getty Analysis Institute)
Transgresoras is a historic survey of Mail Artwork made by Latinx and Latin American ladies artists from the Sixties to the current day. Mail Artwork emerged as a manner for ladies artists to work outdoors of official channels of creative manufacturing, subverting the repressive censorship of authoritarian regimes and regressive gender restrictions. The exhibition options visible poetry, drawings, efficiency, video, and pictures created by an intergenerational group of artists from throughout Latin America and the US, outlining connections between postal pioneers and up to date artists impressed by their legacy of correspondence. Taking part artists embrace Gala Porras-Kim, Marta Minujín, Cecilia Vicuña, Carmen Argote, Magdalena Fernández, Carolina Caycedo, Regina José Galindo, and Graciela Sacco.
American Artist | Shaper of God: Apple Valley Autonomy
California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los AngelesThrough March 1, 2026
Element of American Artist, “Estella Butler’s Apple Valley Autonomy” (2025), wooden, paint, rusted metal, and archival bins (picture by Dan Bradica, courtesy the artist and Pioneer Works)
Shaper of God: Apple Valley Autonomy is American Artist’s tribute to the late science-fiction author Octavia E. Butler, focusing not simply on her fantastical, prescient oeuvre, but additionally on the familial assist that made it doable. The exhibition is the results of the artist’s long-term analysis into Butler’s archives, comprising over 8,000 objects donated to the Huntington Library upon her loss of life in 2006. By means of sculptures and drawings, American Artist explores Butler’s matrilineal historical past, particularly her relationship to her mom Octavia M. Butler and grandmother Estella, a rooster rancher in Apple Valley, California.
Made in L.A. 2025
The Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Westwood, Los AngelesOctober 5–March 1, 2026
Na Mira, “Sugungga (Hello)” (2024), two-channel Hi8 and HD video, colour, sound, holographic glass, period: 14 minutes (picture by Paul Soto, courtesy the artist)
The seventh version of the Hammer’s LA biennial options 28 artists residing and dealing within the Metropolis of Angels. Throughout movie, portray, choreography, pictures, sculpture, and sound, they seize one thing of the town’s “cacophonous disorder,” as curators Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha observe. Taking part artists embrace Ali Eyal, Patrick Martinez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Carl Cheng, Gabriela Ruiz, Will Rawls, and Hanna Hur, amongst others.
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra: The Awake Volcanoes
Institute of Modern Artwork, Los Angeles, 1717 East seventh Road, Downtown, Los AngelesOctober 11–March 1, 2026
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, “Volver a ti (Coming Back to You)” (2023) (© the artist; picture by Gunter Lepkowski, courtesy the artist)
The Awake Volcanoes marks the first solo US museum present devoted to the work of Chilean-born artist Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, that includes round 200 drawings, pictures, work, and paper sculptures. The artist grew up beneath the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet earlier than settling in Germany within the Nineties, and her work typically engages with themes of violence, repression, and freedom. In her vibrant and visionary work, she attracts parallels between the feminine physique and the lands, the place bodily kinds double as mountains or rolling hills. Drawing on spirituality, fantasy, and psychological themes, she imagines a hopeful world characterised by perseverance within the wake of trauma.
Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston
Skirball Cultural Middle, 2701 North Sepulveda Boulevard, Brentwood, Los AngelesOctober 16–March 1
Trenton Doyle Hancock, “Schlep and Screw, Knowledge Rental Pawn Exchange Service” (2017) (© Trenton Doyle Hancock 2017; picture courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York)
This present units up a dialogue between the work of the late Jewish painter Philip Guston and up to date African-American artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, who cites Guston as a longtime inspiration. The exhibition is anchored by Guston’s notorious Ku Klux Klan work, by which he makes cartoon caricatures of the bigots, undermining their menace with satire whilst he considered them as alter egos. Hancock has engaged with each the specter of the Klan and the shadow of Guston in his exuberant work, by which he depicts his personal avatar, the Black superhero Torpedoboy, alongside Guston’s hooded stand-in. Brimming with humor and sensitivity, the present permits us to thoughtfully contemplate the advanced themes surrounding these works.
Radical Histories: Chicano Prints from the Smithsonian American Artwork Museum
The Huntington Library, Artwork Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Highway, San Marino, CaliforniaNovember 16–March 2, 2026
Amado M. Peña, Jr., “La Lechuga” (1974) (© 1974, Amado M. Peña, Jr.; picture courtesy Smithsonian American Artwork Museum)
Spanning six a long time and that includes a lineage of 40 artists and collectives, Radical Histories showcases Chicano artists’ use of prints as instruments of political protest, solidarity, and cultural engagement. Starting with prints created in assist of putting farmworkers within the late Sixties and the anti-war Chicano Moratorium in 1970, the present consists of subsequent generations of artists who’ve discovered inspiration within the daring graphics and clear messaging of those iconic works. The Huntington’s presentation of this touring exhibition incorporates a commissioned mural by LA-based artist Melissa Govea (Purépecha) in collaboration with pioneering print studio Self Assist Graphics & Artwork.
Ken Gonzales-Day: Historical past’s “Nevermade”
USC Fisher Museum of Artwork, 823 Exposition Boulevard, College Park, Los AngelesThrough March 14, 2026
Ken Gonzales-Day, “Untitled #36 (Ramoncita at the Cantina)” (1996) (picture courtesy USC Fisher Museum)
LA-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day invented the time period “nevermade” to check with invented historic paperwork that decision consideration to who constructs mainstream narratives and why. This mid-career survey brings collectively greater than 100 works from the previous three a long time that take a look at how race, tradition, and identification are portrayed within the US. The present consists of his haunting investigation of lynching, Trying to find California Grasp Bushes (2002–ongoing); his collection of Decolonial Drawings, recreated interval scenes from Spanish colonization with conquistadors and Native individuals eliminated; and Profiled, a photographic collection that reveals how sculptural busts mirror concepts of race, physiognomy, and purity.
Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Started
Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Miracle Mile, Los AngelesOctober 12–March 29, 2025
Tavares Strachan, “Robert” (2018) (© Tavares Strachan; picture by Andrea D’altoè Neonlauro, courtesy the artist)
Invisibility is a central theme of Tavares Strachan’s multi-faceted apply, particularly because it pertains to the erasure of Black figures and experiences from mainstream histories. Working on the intersection of artwork and science, he has excavated and shipped a two-and-a-half-ton block of Arctic ice to the Bahamas; created his personal house exploration group, the Bahamas Air and Area Exploration Middle (BASEC); and launched a satellite tv for pc into house devoted to Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the US’s first Black astronaut. The Day Tomorrow Started, Strachan’s first museum present in LA, includes a number of immersive environments drawing on nature and tradition, together with a rice discipline inhabited by clay vessels, a gaggle of figurative bronze sculptures, and picks from The Encyclopedia of Invisibility, his exploration of issues unknown and unseen.
Robert Therrien: It is a Story
The Broad, 221 South Grand Avenue, Downtown, Los AngelesNovember 22–April 5, 2026
Robert Therrien, “Under the Table” (1994) (picture by Joshua White/JWPictures.com, courtesy The Broad Artwork Basis)
The late artist Robert Therrien is probably finest recognized for his monumental sculptures of on a regular basis objects comparable to tables, chairs, and dishes that navigate between Pop Artwork and minimalism, with a touch of surrealist whimsy. That is the most important museum exhibition of his oeuvre to this point, spanning 5 a long time and that includes greater than 120 works, from his signature sculptures to enigmatic drawings that draw on cartoon imagery and geometric abstraction in equal measure. Together with many works which have by no means been proven in a museum earlier than, It is a Story supplies a complete take a look at this quintessentially LA artist who continually discovered marvel within the commonplace.
Monuments
The Geffen Modern on the Museum of Modern Artwork, 152 North Central Avenue, Downtown, Los AngelesThe Brick, 518 North Western Avenue, East Hollywood, Los AngelesOctober 23–April 12, 2026
Nona Faustine, “Ye Are My Witness” (2018) (picture courtesy the Property of Nona Faustine and Larger Footage)
Slightly than representing immutable historic truths in regards to the previous, monuments say extra in regards to the narratives that civic leaders wish to convey at a specific time limit. Co-organized by the Museum of Modern Artwork and The Brick, this exhibition grapples with the heated up to date discourse surrounding American monuments. A number of of those —particularly these celebrating Accomplice historical past — have been vandalized or eliminated lately, just for the Trump administration to push for his or her reinstallation. The exhibition juxtaposes decommissioned monuments from cities together with Baltimore, Montgomery, and Richmond with art work by up to date artists comparable to Karon Davis, Cauleen Smith, Kara Walker, and the late Nona Faustine.
The best way to Be a Guerrilla Woman
Getty Middle, 1200 Getty Middle Drive, Brentwood, Los AngelesNovember 18–April 12, 2026
Ute Schendel, “Guerrilla Girls Raising Hand” (1990) (© Ute Schendel and © Guerrilla Women; picture courtesy J. Paul Getty Belief)
For 4 a long time, the nameless collective often known as the Guerrilla Women has been shining a light-weight on sexist and racist inequality within the artwork world, taking museums and establishments to activity with witty posters, public protests, and knowledge visualizations. The best way to Be a Guerrilla Woman delves into their archive, revealing the collaborative work and planning behind their fusion of artwork and activism. Alongside historic art work and ephemera, the exhibition may also characteristic a brand new fee on the Getty Analysis Institute.
