Art

When in LA: Five Must-See Shows Happening Frieze Weekend

Installation view of Huma Bhabha at David Kordansky Gallery.
Installation view of Huma Bhabha at David Kordansky Gallery.

With Frieze and Felix around the corner, we spoke to four LA galleries and a museum about their must-see shows that will coincide with the fairs. Here's what they had to say:

Lucio Fontana, "Ambiente spaziale a luce nera [Spatial Environment in Black Light]", 1948–1949. Image courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

 

"Lucio Fontana, Walking the Space: Spacial Environments, 1948 – 1968"

Hauser & Wirth, 901 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles CA 90013

"Fontana's Spatial Environments were radical in their time and in many ways, as we see painting once again a focus in art, they are still quite radical," said Stacen Berg, a partner at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. "The artist was exploring ways to express color, light, form, and optical experience in his work outside the confines of the picture plane, well before he created the slashed canvases for which he is perhaps better known. He was the first to reverse the formula – the first to put the viewer at the center of the visual exchange, but placing them in environments – which in 1948 was a truly avant-garde gesture.”

Tishan Hsu, Cell, 1987. Courtesy The Hammer Museum.

Tishan Hsu "Liquid Circuit"

The Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024

"This exhibition surveys the prophetic work of Tishan Hsu who since the 1980s has been exploring the impact of technology on the body and human condition," said Sohrab Mohebbi, who curated the show for New York's SculptureCenter, where it will travel after its debut at The Hammer. "Expect sculptures and paintings that in their construction, dimensionality, palette, and vibration are unlike anything you have ever seen and will adjust your art historical spectacles."

Parker Ito, "V550 / Me in the Studio With Red Hat", 2020. Courtesy the artist and Château Shatto, Los Angeles. Photograph by Ed Mumford.

Parker Ito "Longevity Buns"

Château Shatto, 1206 S. Maple Ave, Suite 1030, Los Angeles 90015

Previously, Ito’s output has fallen distinctly between work that is a consequence of the artist’s intake and fervent expulsion, and work that releases interiority by applying pressure to the things that furnish his surroundings. With "Longevity Buns," Ito closes in on the threshold that distinguishes these spaces and pulses between the two," said Olivia Barrett, owner and director of Château Shatto. "Longevity Buns is an exhibition in which the form of the installation describes as much as the material that fills it. A circuit of sculptures, paintings, videos and connective cords and chains encircle the gallery space. All of the composite parts of the exhibition travel to—and through—one another."

Huma Bhabha. "Third Voice", 2019. Courtesy David Kordansky Gallery.

Huma Bhabha

David Kordansky Gallery, 5130 W Edgewood Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90019

"Our debut show with Huma Bhaba marks her first solo exhibition on the West Coast in over 25 years. It's an incredible opportunity to experience the breadth of her current practice in both three- and two-dimensions: a procession of the figurative presences she summons from cork and Styrofoam and detritus, as well as from photographs, ink, and paint," said Kurt Mueller, a director at Kordansky. "In the context of our current political climate, Bhabha's aliens and monsters speak not only to ecological decay and war, but also to the urgency of encountering otherness—hopefully with empathy."

Benjamin Asam Kellogg, The Garden Before/After the Fall, 2019. Courtesy Murmurs.

Benjamin Asam Kellogg, "House of Hours"

Murmurs, 1411 Newton St., Los Angeles, CA 90021

"House of Hours is a study of the symbolic dualities of time and ritual using elements of sacred architectural temples and graphic motifs from Medieval illuminated manuscripts," said Allison Littrell, co-founder of Murmurs. "Deeper investigations probe the meaning of day and night, light and shadow, animate and inanimate."