LA Fall Art: Underrecognized Histories
This fall, Los Angeles galleries and museums host exhibitions focusing on Chicanx community, trans mutual aid, Indigenous fire stewardship, and critiques
Los Angeles galleries and museums are presenting a fall season of exhibitions that examine underrecognized artists and movements. The shows challenge established narratives, focusing on Chicanx community, trans mutual aid networks, Indigenous fire stewardship, and the impact of militarism in Asia and the Pacific, according to a report from Hyperallergic.
Monica Majoli presents new drawings inspired by the Ovulars, a series of influential lesbian photography workshops held between 1979 and 1983. The exhibition, Countervision, pairs these works with archival material from the feminist Sisterhood Bookstore, which operated in Westwood from 1972 to 1999.
Trans Mutual Aid Networks
Hold Each Other’s Hands: Trans Mutual Aid, 1966-1996 at Oxy Arts explores communal care systems built by transgender people over three decades. Taking its name from a phrase used by activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the exhibition examines networks of communal care established by transgender people from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, framing them as models for the future. It features archival materials on unhoused trans youth in 1960s San Francisco and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970s New York, alongside work by six Los Angeles-based artists.
Indigenous Perspectives and Fire
The group show Nurtured Flames at the Armory Center for the Arts features Indigenous artists exploring concepts of Native fire stewardship. This exhibition is part of a season that includes a critical look at militarism in Asia and the Pacific at REDCAT gallery.
Critiquing Power in Asia and the Pacific
The exhibition Flesh Witness at REDCAT examines the impact of militarism in occupied regions, including Hawai‘i, Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Samoa. Organized by the diasporic Korean arts nonprofit GYOPO and scholar Amy Kahng, the show features eleven artists and collectives. Their work critiques how power is reinforced through the landscape, media, and structures of occupied lands over the past fifty years.
Major Museum Retrospectives
Major institutions are hosting significant career surveys. The Hammer Museum presents a retrospective of the late Beirut-born artist Huguette Caland, who spent much of her life in Los Angeles. The Getty Museum presents an exhibition of five influential Chicanx photographers, offering various views of Los Angeles. Another show examines the work of Tokio Ueyama, situating it within the larger cultural and political framework of his era, which included his incarceration alongside thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II.
Questioning Historical Narratives
Artifacts from an Unborn Empire at the Brand Library and Art Center challenges the idea that history is written solely by the victors. The exhibition questions accepted chronologies and the power structures that support them. It includes work by 22 artists, such as Rubén Esparza, whose piece pays tribute to unheralded labor.
