Catch ’Em Before They’re Gone: Winter Art Shows
Escape the winter weather and spend a day wandering the vibrant art museums and galleries of the West. Check out these six exhibitions before many of them move on.
Infinite Love
Yayoi Kusama
Through Sept. 7
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco, California
Immerse yourself in the vibrant world of Yayoi Kusama, where shapes, light, and color engulf the room. The 94-year-old Japanese artist, known as the princess of polka dots, brings her maximalist, Instagram-friendly experiences to the Bay Area with Infinite Love. The show includes two Infinity Mirror Rooms, both dazzling (and dizzying) in their depth. Fitting the exhibition’s name, one of the infinity rooms is soundtracked to the artist reading a love poem. The first batch of tickets sold out before the show opened in San Francisco, so grab yours soon.
Bay Area Now 9
Various artists
Through May 5
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, California
Every few years, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts pays tribute to the Bay Area’s nine counties, featuring artists from all corners; this year marks the ninth iteration. Thirty artists across many disciplines—from geometric paintings to sound art—showcase works that connect past and present and the ties that bind us together. Bay Area Now 9 also includes a variety of live events throughout its run to deepen the exhibition’s interaction with the community and fulfill its mission to treasure connection.
Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads
Ai Weiwei
Ongoing
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles, California
Ai Weiwei has woven together centuries-old heartbreak and the current political climate in his Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. The 12 bronze sculptures mimic those originally crafted in Beijing in the 1750s for the imperial gardens and palace, Yuanmingyuan, which were stolen almost a century later by Anglo-French military forces. The theft still feels raw for many, and the decision to re-create these sculp-tures (and find a home for the new ones in the West) is a nod to the tumultuous relationship between China and the West.
Wrecked and Righteous
Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Jan. 27–May 5
Frye Art Museum
Seattle, Washington
Jessica Jackson Hutchins’s practice integrates everyday objects into conceptual art: think sofas morphed into sculptures and shoelaces woven into ceramics. In her latest exhibition, the mixed-media artist will display new work and older pieces reconfigured over her 30-year career. With highlights including an ambitious two-story fused-glass window, Wrecked and Righteous examines both the suffering and the joy of the body through Hutchins’s creative use of papier-mâché, collage, and performance.
Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom
Paul Pfeiffer
Through June 16
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
The Museum of Contemporary Art presents the first-ever retrospective of artist Paul Pfeiffer, whose work includes photo and video editing to dissect moments of American culture and point out where the camera takes our eyes. He is specifically critical of celebrity worship—his subjects are often athletes—and the media, and his multidisciplinary exploration of these topics is particularly relevant in our screen-heavy world. His exhibition includes new work and more than 30 earlier pieces.
Nudes in Nature
Laura Aguilar
Through Nov. 17
Phoenix Art Museum
Phoenix, Arizona
Artists, such as photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen and mixed-media artist Lita Albuquerque, have long contrasted the human body against the California landscape. The late Laura Aguilar’s work expanded this tradition, turning the camera on historically marginalized women in desert regions across the Southwest. Nudes in Nature highlights nearly 60 of Aguilar’s most iconic images captured over the decades, including the San Gabriel Valley native’s signature black-and-white prints.
Elizabeth Casillas is an assistant editor at Alta Journal. A graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, she has previously written for the Poly Post and Enspire Magazine.
Jessica Blough is a freelance writer. A former associate editor at Alta Journal, Blough is a graduate of Tufts University where she was editor in chief of the Tufts Daily.
Lydia Horne is the research director at Alta Journal. Her writing has appeared in Wired, Racquet Magazine, L.A. Taco, Hyperallergic, and other publications.
