From Monet’s Venetian visions to Sophie Calle’s intimate investigations
Words by DAVID NASH and ELIZABETH VARNELL
San Francisco
Claude Monet’s Serenity-Seeking Impressions at the de Young
Venice has gripped the imagination of creatives spanning J.M.W. Turner, Lord Byron, Henry James, Thomas Mann, Rick Owens (who showed four collections on the Lido), and Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello (who commissioned a mirrored Doug Aitken installation on Certosa Island). Claude Monet’s transformative trip to the city, just after the turn of the century, inspired the then 68-year-old to paint architectural subjects and hauntingly deserted waterways, 20 of which are assembled among 100 works in Monet and Venice at the DE YOUNG. Here, devising his version of the Venetian view, he worked out the play of light on water and the reflections he’d been trying to depict in his own garden at Giverny. Often painting from a gondola, Monet studied the sky, canals, open ocean, and surrounding buildings and worked out how to depict their luminous interplay. The fleeting moments and impressions he captured are all at the first exhibition devoted to the works since their Paris debut in the previous century. March 21–July 26. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., S.F., 415-750-3600; famsf.org. E.V.
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Los Altos
Carl Hopgood Expands His Chair Therapy at Madsen Gallery
L.A.-based sculptor Carl Hopgood has returned to MADSEN GALLERY in Los Altos for a second solo exhibition, Empty Chairs and Manifestations of Love, consisting of his inventive neon installations and mixed-media immersive works. Here, ordinary chairs are stacked, shaped, and affixed with words that evoke affirmations or contemplative phrases, drawing on themes that Hopgood returns to frequently, from self-reflection to refuge to abandonment. “The sculptures are a development of ‘Chair Therapy,’ in which I combined found and vintage wooden chairs with neon lights shaped into positive words to provide hope, love, and support in times of so much uncertainty, divisiveness, and political divides. I knew I wanted to manifest love and togetherness,” Hopgood says. “After all, love is so much stronger than hate.” Hopgood is joined by C contributing editor David Nash and gallerist Amy Madsen for a panel discussion of his work and his inclusion in Michael Petry’s Mirror Mirror (Thames and Hudson) on Wednesday, March 18, 6–8 p.m. 351 Main St., Los Altos, 650-714-4834; apmadsen.com. E.V.
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Costa Mesa
Sophie Calle Mines Her Life in an Orange County Survey
Five decades of work exploring human relationships — begun long before care, love, trust, power, and intimacy began to be performed and played out publicly online — is on view at Sophie Calle: Overshare at the newly renamed UC IRVINE LANGSON ORANGE COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus. Calle is a French conceptual artist, writer, and director. Her provocative investigations, which pair photographs with text, feel sociology project adjacent — and seem to have anticipated the rise of social media. Her fascination with stories about real and imagined lives and interactions frames her ongoing series, Autobiographies, begun in the late 1980s. My Mother, My Father and Me (2024) includes a bit about Calle accidentally calling her deceased father’s cell and getting the text “Who r u” in response. Hunting for both prey and romantic companionship are juxtaposed in On the Hunt (2020/2024). Boundaries between public and private are probed through photography, video, text-based works, and installations. Through May 24. 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa, 714-780-2130; ocma.art. E.V.
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Pioneertown
High Desert Art Fair Takes Over the Pioneertown Motel
Built by Hollywood actors and investors in 1946 as a Western-inspired movie set, Pioneertown — on the outskirts of Joshua Tree and a two-hour drive from Los Angeles — isn’t just a place where life imitates art; it’s also the setting for the third annual HIGH DESERT ART FAIR. Cofounded by Candice Lawler and Nicholas Fahey, the dealer-led, hospitality-centric two-day art happening takes place at the historic Pioneertown Motel, where more than 15 regional galleries converge to reimagine rooms and public spaces of the motel into site-specific gallery settings. Expanding its reach across the desert arts and music community, Shepard Fairey will DJ the opening night party at Red Dog Saloon on Friday, March 27, and Devo cofounder Mark Mothersbaugh will headline a show in collaboration with adjacent music venue Pappy & Harriet’s. Independent galleries making their mark this year include Boxo Projects, Fahey/Klein, John Doe Gallery, Megan Mulrooney, and Yucca Valley Material Lab. Programming will also include lively discussions with local cultural figures like collectors Patsy Marino and Kevin Comer; artists Ryan Schneider, Gisela Colón, and Phillip K. Smith; and designers like Ryan Lawson and Martyn Lawrence Bullard. March 28–29. Tickets available online. 5240 Curtis Rd., Pioneertown; highdesertartfair.com. D.N.
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Napa
Serge Sorokko Galleries Doubles Down in Napa
Adding to its footprint in downtown Napa, SERGE SOROKKO GALLERIES has opened a new primary exhibition space to show the trove of work by a stable of postwar and contemporary artists, many of whom have been with the founder for years. On view are works by Donald Sultan, Hunt Slonem, Leonard Baskin, Yuri Kuper, Jordy Kerwick, Miguel Condé, Jean-Pierre Rives, and Adébayo Bolaji. “At a time when many galleries are consolidating or closing, we’re choosing to expand,” Sorokko says. “We believe deeply in the experience of seeing museum-caliber art in person, and in creating spaces where that encounter feels welcoming and connected to everyday life.” Like the existing gallery at 1500 1st Street, the larger space also includes Craig Steely Architecture’s rotating circular partitions for focused artist presentations, and the sculptural forms shape both spaces. The smaller gallery, now dedicated to exhibitions, houses Uzbekistan-born photographer Joseph Kiblitsky’s identity exploration, Cuba: Two Worlds — One Vision, comprising nearly 50 color photographs taken in Havana and Miami’s Little Havana, first mounted in Germany’s Osthaus Museum Hagen with black-and-white images. 1301 1st St., Napa, 415-421-7770; sorokko.com. E.V.
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Culver City
A Benefit Show Exploring Landscapes at Wienholt Projects
A trove of works depicting the ways landscapes are impacted by the hierarchies of power created by Barry Ginder, Dewey Nicks, Marc Swanson, Katya Granova, Renée Levin, Michelle Alexander, Cruz Ortiz, Russell Young, and many more artists is on view at The Culver Hotel, the flatiron-style landmark built in 1924. The exhibition, Landscape and Power, Paisaje and Poder, organized by the MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SANTA BARBARA and WIENHOLT PROJECTS, is built around a central concept summed up in a David Horvitz poster emblazoned with the words, “Nobody Owns the Beach.” Part of the museum’s series of 50th anniversary celebratory programs, the works foreground land as foundational for life and each work in the benefit exhibition is for sale with revenue shared between the artists and the museum. 9400 Culver Blvd., Culver City, 310-558-9400; mcasantabarbara.org. E.V.
March 6, 2026
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