Plus Hammer Museum opens a seventh installment of Made In L.A.
Words by DAVID NASH and ELIZABETH VARNELL
A New Chronicle of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Venice Years
“Heroism, royalty, and the street,” are the words used to describe themes in a 1983 JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT exhibition at Larry Gagosian’s Los Angeles gallery in an archival press release. The typed document, along with receipts for 13 tubes of silver acrylic paint, shirts from Maxfield, and images of nearly 30 monumental works the Brooklyn-born artist created while living at the art dealer’s Venice residence comprise a new volume chronicling his prolific California visits in the early 1980s, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made On Market Street (Rizzoli, $100). In addition to covering three exhibitions in town, the book gathers candid photos, newspaper clippings, essays, and a conversation among the gallerist, filmmaker Tamra Davis, curator Fred Hoffman, and the artist’s sisters. rizzoli.com. E.V.
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Made in L.A. Scene Stealers Arrive at the Hammer Museum
Will Rawls is traversing the HAMMER MUSEUM galleries with performances of Unmade, a series of vignettes the dancer, writer, and choreographer created for the institution’s latest biennial, Made in L.A. 2025. Now in its seventh installment curated by Essence Harden, Paulina Pobocha, and Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture, and photography, plus a mix of media by 28 artists from across the city. Sculptor and painter Alake Shilling, known for the enchanting creatures she dreams up, is also installing her work here. She and Rawls are joined by experimental filmmaker Pat O’Neill; inventor Carl Cheng, whose work explores technology, nature, and ecology; painter and muralist Alonzo Davis, who juxtaposes fragments from other cultures and his own; and many more. Each work is tied to the city, and many will inspire a second look at the streetscapes, flora, and vistas we think we know. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., 310-443-7000; hammer.ucla.edu. E.V.
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Robert Therrien’s Sculptures Are Scaling Up
Massive folding chairs, a colossal card table, and enormous dishes stacked higher than eye level that seem ready to tip are some of Robert Therrien’s most recognizable meditations on scale and material. THE BROAD’s new show and the largest exhibition of his work to date, Robert Therrien: This is a Story, has all those immersive sculptures and much more among over 120 works spanning five decades of the L.A.-based artist’s practice. The daring dimensional pieces, realistically fabricated and often functional ordinary objects, toy with a viewer’s perspective to playful Alice-in-Wonderland effect. Minimalist drawings are also here in this deep dive that includes partial reconstructions of the artist’s studio. Nov. 22, 2025–April 5, 2026. 221 S. Grand Ave., L.A., 213-232-6200; broad.org. E.V.
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Cosmic Constants Take Over MoAD
Blackness as a source of life on earth — imagined through Mikael Owunna’s photographs of models speckled with fluorescent paints and shot in darkness, evoking celestial grandeur — is part of the transportive group exhibition Unbound: Art, Blackness, and the Universe at San Francisco’s MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA. The show, which centers around the limitless possibilities of the cosmos with works by multigenerational artists, marks the museum’s 20th anniversary and spans all three floors. Key Jo Lee, chief of curatorial affairs and public programs at MoAD, organized the exhibit, which addresses metaphysical themes, creation myths, and a post-human future with paintings, collages, glass sculptures, and installations. 685 Mission St., S.F., 415-358-7200; moadsf.org. E.V.
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Desert Artists Open Their Studios in This Annual Art Tour
HWY 62 OPEN STUDIO ART TOURS, the annual multidisciplinary desert-wide event in which artists of the Joshua Tree National Park region invite visitors into their inner sanctums, is back. Held the first three weekends in October, this edition features 225 artists across 133 studios throughout Wonder Valley, Twentynine Palms, Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, Landers, and the Morongo Basin. If it seems overwhelmingly expansive, don’t worry — the event website includes a catalog and a map to help you plan your visit based on your aesthetic and energy levels (there’s also an app). Must-sees include woodworker Aleksandra Zee, painter Teresa Watson, mixed-media artist Colleena Hake, John Henson nail art, and ceramicist John Flores. Activities continue after the sun goes down with Art Tours After Dark, a series of more than 40 performances across the three weekends at watering holes like Joshua Tree Saloon, Red Dog Saloon, and The Palms Restaurant. Oct. 4–5, 11–12, and 18–19. hwy62arttours.org. D.N.
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Abstract Landscapes and Ancient Symbolism Unite in This Solo Exhibition
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1947, Native American artist Linda Lomahaftewa — one of the Hopi Nation’s most revered living artists of the 20th century — has been named the Council of 100’s Distinguished Woman Artist for 2025 at FRESNO ART MUSEUM. This distinction brings with it a solo two-part exhibition, Linda Lomahaftewa: The San Francisco Years: Paintings 1965 through 1972 and Recent Works 2008 through 2024. Pulled from a 2021 retrospective at the Institute of American Indian Arts, private collections, and the artist herself, the show’s paintings — like Sustenance, an oil on canvas completed between 1965 and 1970 — are indicative of the Native iconography and abstract desert landscapes that marked her work during the period when she first relocated to the Bay Area to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, where she later taught. More recent works — such as Pandemic Blue II, 2020, a monotype on paper — similarly unite “the ancient world with the contemporary in a symphony of shape and color.” Aug. 9, 2025–Jan. 11, 2026. 2233 N. First St., Fresno, 559-441-4221; fresnoartmuseum.org. D.N.
Feature image: Alake Shilling, Buggy Bear Is Out of Control on the Long and Winding Road, 2019. Collection of Jeffrey Deitch. Courtesy of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles and New York. PHOTO: Elon Schoenholz.
Portions of this story originally appeared in the Men’s Fall 2025 issue of C Magazine.
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