The Fall Guide to Galleries and Museums

The seductive beauty, beguiling promise and startling contradictions of Los Angeles provide rich fodder for creative souls, especially artists. West Hollywood offers a first-rate selection of places where you can appreciate their work and perhaps even find the ideal piece to add to your own permanent collection. Be sure to call ahead to check gallery days/hours or to make an appointment.

Art, Rock, and Fashion Icons

These exhibitions will keep any culture vulture very busy.

The MAK Center for Art and Architecture at Schindler House is essential viewing for any fan of architecture and especially so when the work of a superb artist is on display. London-based Edmund de Waal’s exhibition –one way or other– focuses on sculptures responding to the materials and spaces of this iconic house. The exhibition runs Sept. 15 to Jan. 6, 2019. There is an opening reception on Sept. 15, from 6-8 p.m.

The Morrison Hotel Gallery at the Sunset Marquis Hotel will host a Joni Mitchell exhibit, which opens to the public on Nov. 16. Featured photographers are: Henry Diltz, Graham Nash, Joel Bernstein, Norman Seeff (who is releasing a new book about Mitchell), Jay Blakesberg, Guido Harari, David Gahr and Ken Regan. (The gallery also curated the historic rock photos within the hotel’s scenic grounds.)

On view through Oct. 28 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Pacific Design Center is 69: Déjà Vu. Founded in 2011 by an anonymous local designer, 69 is a line of whimsical, non-gender-specific denim clothing that welcomes people of all ages, races, sexualities and sizes. The solo exhibition is a survey of the groundbreaking clothing with a selection of striking videos and photographs.

Leica Store and Gallery LA is showing Melanie Pullen Unseen Stories from Sept. 20 to Oct. 31. Pullen’s work is influenced by forensic photography, war journalism, cinema and fashion.

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Close to West Hollywood

Rauschenberg: In and About L.A. is showing at the Los Angeles County Museum’s Resnick Pavilion through Feb. 10, 2019.  A major name in American art history, Texas-born Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was a prolific artist who was known for bold experimentation. His first visit to an art museum was in Southern California, while he was stationed at Camp Pendleton in 1944-45. This visit spurred his career choice and he worked here in the years that followed.

The first major international exhibition of American photographer Sally Mann’s work (titled Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings) comes to the Getty Center (adjacent to West Hollywood) from Nov. 16 to Feb. 10, 2019. As the Getty Center describes it: “The exhibition explores themes of family, memory, mortality, and the Southern landscape as repository of personal and collective memory.”

Fashionsistas take note: through Oct. 21, at the Getty Center is Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography, 1911-2011.

Eclectic

Los Angeles loves to take a risk now and then. And so do these visionary galleries.

In mid-November, Denenberg Fine Arts will host a solo show of Valerie Sobel’s highly personal assemblage art. Sobel has led an extraordinary life and, with more than 30,000 Instagram followers, she continues to intrigue and enchant.

Louis Stern Fine Arts is presenting Seann Brackin: Mapping Time and Anita Payró: 1950s-1960s from Sept. 15 to Nov. 3. There will be receptions for both shows on Sept. 22, from 5-7 p.m.

George Stern Fine Arts specializes in early California Impressionism. On view through the month of September is “Small Gems” – paintings that are 16” x 20” and smaller.

At Classic Artforms, which provides custom picture framing, you can see new works from Don Langworthy (contemporary abstract) and portraits by Michael Rubino. Also, the gallery will offer special custom-framing prices for the month of September.

Art Angels, which prides itself on bucking trends, features a revolving curation of inventive and original work. Contemporary Pop Meets Street Art will run through Oct. 26. The artists are: Flore, Stikki Peaches and Sen2, a Puerto Rican self-taught graffiti writer and artist.

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Art Walls for Selfies

Want to give your friends back home a sense of West Hollywood’s unsurpassed views? Check out this handy guide to the most Instagrammable spots.