After the latest frenzy of Artwork Week right here in Los Angeles, this month’s picks give attention to group and collaboration, tracing historic and private networks of connection. Wael Shawky’s movie Drama 1882 is a stylized opera primarily based on an anti-colonial rebellion in Egypt, a fantastic mixture of truth and fiction. Kour Pour’s first LA present in over a decade fuses geometric modernism with Islamic design, reflecting his diasporic identification. An exhibition and efficiency program at REDCAT seems to be on the artistic synergy between experimental musicians Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell, whereas solo reveals from Kim Ye and Isabel Yellin draw on their autobiographical experiences as ladies and artists, albeit in distinct methods. Simón Silva’s daring canvases honor the farmworkers, housekeepers, and landscapers whose important labor typically goes unacknowledged.
Wael Shawky: Drama 1882
The Geffen Modern at MOCA, 152 North Central Avenue, Little Tokyo, Los AngelesThrough March 16
Wael Shawky, Drama 1882 (2024), 4k video, sound, colour, VFX, Arabic (© Wael Shawky; picture courtesy Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Lia Rumma, and Barakat Modern)
Egyptian-born artist Wael Shawky’s movie Drama 1882 (2024) is an eight-part opera primarily based across the Nineteenth-century Urabi Revolution, a nationalist Egyptian rebellion towards British and French colonial powers. Mixing historic accounts and fictional narratives, Shawky focuses on a single cafe brawl throughout this bigger battle, and the way its reverberations performed out over the following 70 years. Filmed at a historic theater in Alexandria, the opera is sung solely in classical Arabic and options units and costumes harking back to German Expressionist cinema. Initially introduced on the Egyptian Pavilion of the 2024 Venice Biennale, MOCA’s presentation marks the movie’s United States debut.
Kim Ye: m0mmy mind market
Chapman College’s Guggenheim Gallery, 315 Palm Avenue, Orange, CaliforniaThrough March 20
Element of Kim Ye, “What’s in your bag?” (2021), latex, pigment, wall paper samples, ceiling tiles, deconstructed jewellery tray, chain, bridal veil, cake topper, synthetic foliage, bio hazard baggage, deconstructed Pleaser, drag present ephemera, feminine condom, diaphragm, silicone, and nitrel glove on felt (picture by Religion Ngyuen, courtesy Guggenheim Gallery)
M0mmy mind market is Kim Ye’s irreverent interrogation of assorted types of labor, from the unpaid and infrequently unrecognized labor of motherhood to the capitalist construction of the artwork world. That includes sculpture, portray, video, and dwell efficiency, the exhibition displays the artist’s personal experiences navigating these techniques, the staged drama of actuality tv, and a susceptible eroticism. On Sunday, March 16, Ye will carry out “A Costco Shopper Analysis,” which the artist describes as a “standup comedy/academic lecture/TED talk” by which she takes on the position of a demographically typical buyer of the large field retailer to touch upon immigration, consumption, and household.
Kour Pour: Discovering My Means Residence
Nazarian / Curcio, 616 North La Brea Avenue, Fairfax, Los AngelesThrough March 22
Kour Pour, “Birth Chart (Finding My Way Home)” (2024), acrylic and block ink on formed canvases (picture courtesy the artist and Nazarian / Curcio)
Discovering My Means Residence, Kour Pour’s first solo present within the metropolis in over 10 years, options stacked and layered work that replicate his diasporic identification as an artist of Iranian and British descent dwelling in LA. Fusing geometric abstraction with parts from Persian miniature portray and Islamic design, Pour’s constructed work weave collectively threads of autobiography and international historical past, of his household’s travels and geopolitical or artwork historic occasions, corresponding to Frank Stella’s 1963 journey to Iran. Along with the present, Pour has curated a concurrent group exhibition, Mehmooni, with work by LA-based Iranian artists Shagha Ariannia, Amir H. Fallah, Nasim Hantehzadeh, Aryana Minai, and others.
Simón Silva: Salt of the Earth
Japanese Initiatives, 900 North Broadway, #1090, Chinatown, Los AngelesThrough March 22
Simón Silva, “Paletero #1” (2024), oil on canvas (picture courtesy Japanese Initiatives)
Mexican-American artist Simón Silva’s work of farmworkers, home employees, paleteros, and landscapers carry a vibrant visibility to the important employees, primarily Latinx, whose labor typically goes unnoticed. Silva casts housekeepers as La Virgen de Guadalupe, enclosed inside sacred mandalas, and paints portraits of migrant employees on fruit crates, their faces lined with hats and bandanas so leaving solely their expressive eyes seen. Paleteros push their carts towards the backdrop of drab freeways and tunnels, solitary figures with stray canine as their solely companions. Within the over 40 work included in Salt of the Earth, Silva depicts these laborers with a way of respect and honesty, honoring their humanity whereas capturing the arduous and infrequently perilous nature of their every day realities.
Isabel Yellin: Mothership
Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Artwork, Pepperdine College, 24255 Pacific Coast Freeway, Malibu, CaliforniaThrough March 30
Set up view of Isabel Yellin: Mothership at Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Artwork, Pepperdine College (picture by Joshua Schaedel, courtesy the artist)
Isabel Yellin’s first museum present options undulating silicone work and sinuous metal-and-silicone sculptures, jumbles of tangled strains that vibrate with energetic stress. The works throughout Motherhood have deep psychological roots, as effectively, functioning as a manner for Yellin to course of her grief over the demise of her mom, Anne Locksley, who took her personal life in 2008. She started this sequence shortly after rediscovering her mom’s personal work. The exhibition superbly brings collectively work by each mom and daughter, organising a transferring artistic dialogue between the 2.
Flesh World: Monica Berger and Sofia Heftersmith
Central Server Works DTLA, 334 Important Avenue, Suite 5012, Downtown, Los AngelesMarch 8–April 12
Sofia Heftersmith, “Bare Your Teeth” (2025), acrylic on canvas (picture courtesy Central Server Works)
Flesh World gathers work by Monica Berger and Sofia Heftersmith, two artists who tackle conventional depictions of the feminine type with a nod to so-called “lowbrow” aesthetics and mass media symbolism. Heftersmith attracts on basic pin-ups, sideshow posters, and spiritual iconography, reveling within the grotesque and corporeal, whereas Berger’s ladies straddle New Wave and Fauvism, their neon-hued our bodies marked by tattoos and theatrical make-up. Taken collectively, their work provides assured, compelling visions of femininity that complicate easy voyeuristic pleasure.
fortieth Anniversary Exhibition
Michael Kohn Gallery, 1227 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, Los AngelesThrough April 19
Bruce Conner “The White Rose” (1967), 16mm, black/white, sound, 7 minutes (© Conner Household Belief, San Francisco; © 2021 The Jay DeFeo Basis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; picture courtesy the Conner Household Belief )
Michael Kohn’s eponymous gallery has been a fixture of the Hollywood artwork scene since its founding in 1985 and relocation to Highland Avenue in 2014. He opened with an exhibition of artists from New York, however has since established a broad roster, with a number of notable LA artists together with Lita Albuquerque, Wallace Berman, Joe Goode, and Chiffon Thomas. This fortieth anniversary exhibition options work by a big selection of artists who’ve exhibited on the gallery, corresponding to Keith Haring, Alicia Adamerovich, Martha Alf, Kenny Scharf, Gonzalo Lebrija, and plenty of others. The present will even embody the premiere of the restored model of Bruce Conner’s movie “The White Rose” (1967), documenting the extraction of Jay DeFeo’s monumental portray “The Rose” (1958–1966) by means of the window of her San Francisco residence.
Bruce Nauman: Pasadena Years
Marian Goodman Gallery, 1120 Seward Avenue, Hollywood, Los AngelesThrough April 26
Element of Bruce Nauman, “Studies for Holograms” (1970), suite of 5 screenprints, version of 100 plus 10 artist’s proofs (picture by Elon Schoenholz, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery)
Bruce Nauman lived in Los Angeles — first on the Pasadena residence of Walter Hopps, after which in Altadena — between 1969 and ’79, an extremely productive time early on in his profession. Pasadena Years presents a choice of sculptures, installations, sound works, video, and works on paper, highlighting Nauman’s expansive conception of the chances of artmaking throughout this particularly formative interval. Notable works embody “Revolving Upside Down” (1969), a video of the artist performing easy actions; “Microphone/Tree Piece” (1971), which transmits the sound of a tree rising into the gallery; and architectural installations that invite viewer participation, corresponding to “Performance Corridor” (1969), and a recreation of “Text for a Room” (1973–2025).
World of Echo: Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell
REDCAT, 631 West 2nd Avenue, Downtown, Los AngelesMarch 15–Might 4
Arthur Russell, “In the Light of the Miracle” (1982) (picture courtesy Steve Knutson/Audika Data, and REDCAT CalArts Theater)
World of Echo is an exhibition and efficiency sequence that explores connections between two wildly influential figures in experimental music: Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell. That includes audio, video, and different archival supplies, the present seems to be on the varied collaborations between the 2 from 1975 till their premature deaths in 1990 and 1992, respectively, and the way their compositions spanning classical to jazz to disco embodied themes of liberation. A trio of performances from orchestral collective Wild Up brings their groundbreaking music again to life.
Gustave Caillebotte: Portray Males
Getty Middle, 1200 Getty Middle Drive, Brentwood, Los AngelesThrough Might 25
Gustave Caillebotte, “Floor Scrapers” (1875), oil on canvas (picture courtesy Musée d’Orsay. dist Grand Palais RMN / Patrice Schmidt)
The Impressionist artist Gustave Caillebotte is remembered for his work that depicted on a regular basis French life with a notable air of realism. Portray Males houses in on one side of his apply, showcasing his depictions of male figures. With pictures of working males, younger professionals, cafe scenes, and household and associates, the exhibition argues that Caillebotte was portraying trendy types of masculinity that exemplified a break with conventional norms of the period.
