As artists reassess tradition and chart novel paths forward, October in Los Angeles brings new takes on old forms. David Lloyd and Annie Lapin use myriad techniques and visual languages to offer fresh approaches to painting, the former with technology and the latter with cacophonous garden imagery. Meanwhile, the Perez Bros celebrate lowrider car culture in their collaborative works riffing on monochromes and SoCal “finish fetish,” and Mark Steven Greenfield showcases portraits of influential figures from the Black diaspora as religious icons adorned with gold leaf. A solo show of late artist Joe Brainard presents his singular practice that defied categorization, and Peter Krasnow’s gallery retrospective highlights his ability to mine his European Jewish heritage and longtime home of Los Angeles to create his own aesthetic vocabulary.
In the Beginning: New Paintings by David Lloyd
Spy Projects, 3709 West Jefferson Boulevard, West Adams, Los Angeles
Through October 18
David Lloyd’s hybrid paintings are both visually rich and comically absurd. The artist begins by asking an AI model to reproduce his own artwork, then prints out, collages, and paints on the results, which he then feeds back into AI. Working on shaped panels, he combines these AI collaborations with gestural painting, polished airbrush, and trompe l’oeil techniques, creating uncanny abstractions that challenge notions of authenticity and artifice.
Auras: New Icons by Mark Steven Greenfield
Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, El Sereno, Los Angeles
Through October 22
Auras features two bodies of paintings by Mark Steven Greenfield — Black Madonna (2020) and HALO (2022) — that reconsider the breadth of the Black experience in the Americas by excavating and reframing contested histories. HALO comprises portraits of influential Black figures, from the revered to the lesser-known, including Haitian Revolution leader Toussaint Louverture, famed magician Black Herman, and silhouette artist Moses Williams — formerly enslaved by Charles Willson Peale — portrayed as saintly icons surrounded by gold leaf. Black Madonna depicts a beatific ebony Madonna and child, while Ku Klux Klan members and monuments to white supremacy are vanquished and toppled in the background.
The Perez Bros: Firme
Charlie James Gallery, 969 Chung King Road, Chinatown, Los Angeles
Through October 26
The Perez Bros, a duo consisting of twin brothers Alejandro and Vicente Perez, grew up in a family of car enthusiasts in South Gate. In Firme, the artists celebrate lowrider cars and the culture surrounding them as experienced through the car clubs of Chicano communities in Los Angeles. Each painting references a specific vehicle owned by someone they know, lending the works a tangibly personal sensibility. The exhibition as a whole serves to recreate the energy of a car show, with some vehicles depicted popped up on two wheels via hydraulics and others posed with their hoods open to show off the engine work. Monochromatic canvases awash with bright pinks, greens, and oranges are punctuated by pasted metallics, a nod to the actual cars’ detailed paint jobs, the original “finish fetish.”
Annie Lapin: Unwilded
Nazarian Curcio, 616 North La Brea Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Through November 2
Gardens are places where nature and culture meet, and untamed wilderness is cultivated for sustenance, aesthetics, or amusement. With Unwilded, Annie Lapin engages with this phenomenon by siting the perfectly manicured environments within larger social and cultural networks. As with her previous series, Lapin’s canvases represent a conscious cacophony, incorporating gestural abstraction, appropriated images, and art historical references to complicate the manufactured serenity of some of the world’s best-known gardens — including Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny and the Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg.
Jane Dickson: Are We There Yet?
Karma, 7351 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, California
Through November 2
Angelenos can be particularly wary of outsiders’ conceptions of the city, but sometimes even a New Yorker gets it right. A case in point is Jane Dickson, perhaps best known for her depictions of the gritty side of NYC illuminated by neon and street lights. In the mid-1990s she turned her eye to the highways, nondescript streets, and parking lots of LA, capturing the isolation and boredom, but also the freedom and beauty, associated with our inescapable car culture. She paints with oil and acrylic on astroturf, lending these scenes a hazy, dreamlike quality that captures the surreality of long road trips.
Peter Krasnow
Babst Gallery, 413 South Fairfax Avenue, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles
Through November 9
The late Ukrainian-born artist Peter Krasnow lived in Los Angeles for over 50 years, and is best known for his paintings that explored both his Jewish heritage and life in Southern California. His solo exhibition at Babst Gallery features more than 25 works spanning nearly his entire career — from 1916 to 1979, the year he died — including early self-portraits, drawings, prints, and bright abstract paintings inspired by Hebrew calligraphy.
Pacific Abstractions
Perrotin, 5036 West Pico Boulevard, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles
Through November 9
Highlighting crosscurrents spanning an ocean, Pacific Abstractions brings together artists from Asia and Asian-American artists working on the West Coast to offer a regional perspective on contemporary abstract art. Featured artists include Naotaka Hiro, whose mixed-media paintings bear the marks of his embodied process; Kazuo Kadonaga, known for his material manipulations in works like “Wood No. 5 CI, 1” (984), a cedar log thinly sliced and glued back together; and the late Park Seo-Bo, one of the founders of the Korean Dansaekhwa movement, whose name roughly translates to “monochrome painting.”
American Punchline
Subliminal Projects, 1331 West Sunset Boulevard, Echo Park, Los Angeles
Through November 9
At a time when the American project feels as fraught as ever, this exhibition features artists who address today’s national tensions with biting humor and satire. American Punchline includes the work of Robbie Conal, who has been posting ghoulish portraits of political figures across city streets since the 1980s; Elyse Pignolet, whose traditional blue-and-white pottery is often emblazoned with subversive messages of protest; and veteran art activist groups like Guerrilla Girls and Pussy Riot, among others.
Adam Rabinowitz: Baby Comet
The Finley Gallery, 4627 Finley Avenue, Los Feliz, Los Angeles
Through November 10
Adam Rabinowitz’s luminous canvases draw on twin poles of West Coast postwar culture: the radiant minimalism of Light and Space, and the vibrant pop aesthetics of psychedelia. His installation at The Finley, a gallery on the ground floor of an apartment complex that is only visible to the public through a window, pairs a painting with a glowing, looped projection that fuzzily fades through color gradations, an animated foil to the static wall work nearby. The projection is on view Thursday through Sunday, late afternoon to late night.
Joe Brainard
Chris Sharp Gallery, 4650 West Washington Boulevard, Mid-City, Los Angeles
October 19–November 30
The humble intimacy of Joe Brainard’s paintings and collages belies the thematic breadth they explore, from religion and sexuality to pop culture, art history, and autobiography. Closely associated with the New York School of Poetry, Brainard eschewed a single artistic style or medium, with the major throughlines in his works being discovery, whimsy, and visual delight. Somehow they are flamboyant and subtle at the same time. This solo exhibition features 20 works created between 1966 and 1977, providing a snapshot of his dynamic practice.
