Current Exhibitions

The fourth industrial revolution is marked by the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. Artists Mario Ayala, Gajin Fujita, Jay Lynn Gomez, Sayre Gomez, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr., Greg Ito, Yung Jake, Aaron Elvis Jupin, Lori LaMont, David Leggett, Tidawhitney Lek, Patrick Martinez, Matt McCormick, Jaime Muñoz, Julian Pace, Devin Reynolds, Gabriella Sanchez, Christine Wang, and Eric Yahnker have created a visual language to understand this new and evolving familiar in real time. Individually, the works of each artist inspect the material and psychological effects of virtual reality, over consumption, and environmental crisis among other universal truths. Collectively, their observations zoom out on the very essence of human spirit—in search of connection with each other, within ourselves, and to this physical Earth.

The most significant gift in the Museum’s history was a generous bequest of collector Milton Wichner in 1979. Wichner’s gift of 61 works by European Modernists changed the course of the Museum’s future, expanding the collection from one of regional-focus, to one enhanced by international perspectives. Wichner moved to Los Angeles from the East coast upon completing his law degree from Harvard University in 1936. Between the film industry, the oil boom ,and an influx of Europeans fleeing Nazi Germany, Los Angeles saw a period of tremendous growth, accompanied by the convergence of different cultures and aesthetics. During this time, Wichner met Galka Scheyer who represented a group of contemporary artists, she named Blaue Vier (Blue Four): Alexej Jawlensky, Vasily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, and Paul Klee. This exhibition showcases the works of two of the Blue Four artists, Alexej Jawlensky and Vasily Kandinsky, curated from the Wichner Collection. The Milton Wichner Collection entrusted to the Museum, lives on to perpetuate the memory of this benefactor, and serve as a reflection of his passion and esteem for European abstraction.

Constructed of folded building paper with internal armature, Ring began as a study of spiral motion between concentric circles in 1989. Genie Shenk became interested in the spiral as a means of increment from one circle to another and found this relationship could be defined three-dimensionally with the intersection of two isometric circular forms. As the inner circle diminishes, the outer increases, until a point of equilibrium is reached.

Genie Shenk, Ring, 1990-1999, Tar paper, Gift of the artist  2009.13.a-et

Brimming to the rafters, Points of Intersection by Serbian-American artist Daniela Soberman references the architecture of her family’s first home in former Yugoslavia. Home in this context, is a place of impermanence; a temporary dwelling familiar only because of the people who share in its assemblage. Made of contoured interlocking panels that jut hard edges from the connecting axes, the site-specific installation bears a tremendous presence. Soberman has long been interested in the idea of façades; much of her work appears one way, but is inherently the opposite. This installation is no exception. Despite its monumental scale, the artist’s edifice is light as a feather. The scale, the fragility, and the nature of its construction determined by the hands who came together to build it, speak in equal parts to the constraints we place upon the ‘worlds’ we create. This cobbling together of disparate pieces, reveals an inextricable human spirit.