Los Angeles art exhibitions: the best shows to see in January 2025

The New Year in Los Angeles signals the beginning of Awards Season, and with that, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is featuring two special exhibits exploring how science has impacted technology, aesthetics, and storytelling in cinema: Cyberpunk which envisions possible futures through cinema, and Color in Motion, the chromatic explorations of cinema. Elsewhere around the city, BLUM is celebrating thirty years since Yoshitomo Nara's first exhibition in the United States with a new solo presentation, and Mariana: Velázquez’s Portrait of a Queen from the Museo Nacional del Prado presents a rare chance to view this work at the Norton Simon in Pasadena.

Here are the best openings and continuing shows to see in Los Angeles this January taking place at some of our favourite Los Angeles galleries.

Los Angeles art exhibitions: what to see in January 2025

Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, mid-city, until 13 July 2025

Through more than 110 films spanning 130 years (1894–2024), this body of work highlights the role color has played since the earliest days of film history, both as a tool for technological experimentation and artistic expression. The exhibition investigates the role of color in film, from the technological advancements that made its use possible, to the ways filmmakers use color as a storytelling tool, to its psychological impact on audiences.

Nearly 150 objects from the silent era to the digital age will be on view, including rarely exhibited technology, costumes, props, and film posters. Do not miss the legendary ruby slippers designed by Gilbert Adrian from The Wizard of Oz (1939); a Wonka chocolate bar from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971); a recreation of the stargate corridor from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), among many other gems.

academymuseum.org

Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, mid-city, until 12 April 2026

Cyberpunk examines the global impact and lasting influence of the science fiction sub-genre cyberpunk on film culture.

Featuring near-future scenarios set in worlds that eerily resemble our own, these films juxtapose technological advances with social disorder, ecological crisis, and urban decay. The exhibition features more than 25 films, including Blade Runner (1982), Tron (1982), Videodrome (1983), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), The Matrix (1999), Sleep Dealer (2008), and Alita: Battle Angel (2019). Also on view are rare collections from the Academy such as the Vid-Phon telecommunication device in its original booth and concept design drawings by visual futurist Syd Mead from Blade Runner; a matte painting from The Running Man; and concept art from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Located in the museum’s double-height Hurd Gallery, the centerpiece of the exhibition is an immersive media installation where a band of moving images surrounds the gallery space, depicting wastelands, derelict urban settings, and digital landscapes from cyberpunk and futurist films.

Both exhibitions are part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide.

academymuseum.org/cyberpunk

My Perfect Self: Yoshitomo Nara

BLUM, mid-city. until 8 March 2025

Curated by Yeewan Koon, Yoshitomo Nara and BLUM are celebrating thirty years since the artists first exhibition in the United States. This solo presentation at will open on 18 January and features eleven new large-scale bronze sculptures, presented for the first time.

This exhibition highlights Nara’s evolving sculptural practice, featuring mid-size heads exuding a quirky strangeness and dark charm that defines the artist’s work. These heads are integral to Nara’s exploration in clay, intertwining ideas and techniques developed since 2011,but also express a poignant return to his roots. The exhibition also includes painting sand drawings that resonate with the sculptures, inviting deeper reflection on his ongoing experimentation throughout a career that gained international acclaim with his seminal work, The Girl with the Knife in Her Hand(1991.)

blum-gallery.com/exhibition

Mariana: Velázquez’s Portrait of a Queen from the Museo Nacional del Prado

Norton Simon, Pasadena, until 24 March 2025

This is an area opportunity to see this exhibition which centres on the nearly life-size portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria (1652–53) by 17th-century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599 –1660), and has only traveled to the U.S. once before when it was presented at The Met in 1989. The Velázquez portrait will also be shown in relationship to the Museum’s paintings by Jusepe de Ribera, Bartolomé-Esteban Murillo, and Francisco de Zurbarán, displayed in an adjacent gallery, providing another unique chance to experience this essential quartet of 17th-century Spanish painters under one roof.

nortonsimon.org

World Without End: The George Washington Carver Project

California African American Museum, Exposition Park, until 2 March 2025

Co-curated by Cameron Shaw, Executive Director, and Yael Lipschutz, independent curator, this exhibition is part of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative.

George Washington Carver was a pioneer of plant-based engineering and one of the nation’s earliest proponents of sustainable agriculture. In the early 1900s, he built his 'Jesup Wagon,' a moveable school to share soil and plant samples, equipment, and other agricultural knowledge with farmers. Carver’s then-radical ideas—including organic fertilisers, crop rotation, and plant-based medicines and construction materials—are now recognized as the forerunners of modern conservation. A trained and practicing artist, Carver used sustainable materials such as peanut- and clay-derived dyes and paints in his many weavings and still-life paintings. World Without End explores how contemporary artists and thinkers working today engage with Carver’s ideas and interests. Alongside contemporary artworks by thirty artists and artist collectives, the exhibition includes Carver’s rarely seen paintings, drawings, laboratory equipment, and notebooks.

Both the exhibition and its forthcoming catalogue, which includes previously unpublished material documenting Carver’s life and work at Tuskegee University, reframe and centre Carver’s lasting impact on art and science.

caamuseum.org

Mark Dion: Excavations

LaBrea Tar Pits, until September 2025

Presented as part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this rare exhibition in the museum section of this LA landmark, focuses on Dion’s time working with scientists as an artist-in-residence at the Tar Pits.

Visually, Excavations appears to be a behind-the-scenes space, displaying new work alongside early museum murals, dioramas, and maquettes of Ice Age mammals from the Tar Pits, which is the world's only active urban excavation site for Ice Age fossils.

If you want to take a deeper dive, the companion Field Guide publication take a whimsical look at the aesthetics of museums and scientific methods, as well as the history and relevance of the La Brea Tar Pits.

tarpits.org/mark-dion-pst

Brian DeGraw SP555

James Fuentes, Melrose, until 18 January 2025

New York based Brian DeGraw unveils his sixth exhibition with the gallery and first in Los Angeles - where this body of work was completed. A visual artist and a musician working across virtually all mediums, the exhibition’s title is taken from the Roland SP555 Sampler (an electronic toolkit featuring 16 drum pads), a piece of equipment central to the artists process when making music. As delivered from the sixteen square pads of the SP555’s sample bank, DeGraw will start a composition by pulling many disparate sources, styles, places, and sketches to be recombined, sequenced, processed, and repeated to create something new.

DeGraw’s art mixes autobiographical elements as well as fragments (or samples) pulled from the work of others that further reflect these personal aspects. 24th of 24 (2024) uses the Frank Stella album art of the Phillip Glass Ensemble’s Music in Twelve Parts. The painting was started during the weeks following Stella’s death, which coincided with a rare performance by the ensemble of the album, for which DeGraw was in attendance. This reflects the artists ‘faith in the idea that everything I am drawn to is existing in the same spiritual orbit.’

jamesfuentes.com

NHM Commons

Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, Permanent

NHM Commons is a new wing and community hub featuring 75,000 square feet of renovated space, new construction by architect Frederick Fisher, and landscaping by landscape architect Mia Lehrer. A key design element of the new experience is the building’s transparent glass façade which will enable the public to see into the Museum and its collection while offering views of the park from inside. Other highlights include a new landscaped Community Plaza and Museum entrance, a multi-purpose theater, a new LA-focused retail space, and a grab-n-go cafe from South LA Café. Its centerpiece is an expansive Welcome Center that is free to the public, featuring Barbara Carrasco’s landmark 1981 mural 'L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective'; a temporary exhibit dedicated to NHM’s Community Science initiatives, and Gnatalie, and a 75-foot sauropod dinosaur skeleton with distinctive green fossils.

nhm.org/nhm-commons

The Last Dyes and Pearl Lines

David Zwirner, Melrose Hill, until 1 February 2025

'The Last Dyes', is an exhibition of new dye-transfer prints by William Eggleston. The works are from Eggleston’s celebrated 'Outlands and Chromes' series, as well as several images that were first shown in the artist’s groundbreaking exhibition of color photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1976, and the concurrent publication William Eggleston’s Guide.

'Pearl Lines' is the gallery’s first exhibition with Brooklyn-based artist Walter Price since the announcement of his representation earlier this year. Marking Price’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, the show includes paintings from a new body of work that pays homage to car culture, with its particular significance to the city and its environs. Across the canvases, sleek automobiles are stamped into rows of busy traffic with splintered and spectral forms.

davidzwirner.com/

Form Is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form

Lisson Gallery, Hollywood, until 11 January 2025

For his first Los Angeles show in a decade, multi-disciplinary artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto, debuts 'Brush Impression, Heart Sutra' (2023) in America. Presented on a dramatic, large-scale, curved wall, Sugimoto arranges 288 unique gelatin prints of Kanji characters in order of the Heart Sutra, a fundamental scripture of East Asian Buddhism. Seven of the artist’s 'Sea of Buddha' photographs will hang on surrounding walls, six individual photographs and one triptych, each capturing a grouping of individually unique buddha statues from a revered ancient shrine in Kyoto. The series of works will transport viewers back centuries, offering a vision of the Buddhas as the monks would have seen them in the early morning light.

L.A. Story

Hauser & Wirth West Hollywood, until 4 January 2025

This is your last chance to catch this group exhibition inspired by the 1991 film with a cross-generational array of works by artists from David Hockney to Ed Ruscha, depicting the celebration of Los Angeles as a place unlike any other. Co-organized by Ingrid Schaffner, senior curatorial director, and Mike Davis, senior director, in dialogue with the film’s writer and star Steve Martin. ‘I’m thrilled that ‘L.A. Story’ is the focus of so many wonderful artists and a wonderful gallery, Hauser & Wirth, which is just across the street from the Troubadour, where I first stepped foot on Santa Monica Blvd., which began my L.A. sojourn,” said Martin.

Edward Keating Main Street: The Lost Dream of Route 66 and Ed Justice JR Fleeting Moments

Leica Gallery, West Hollywood Design District, until 6 January 2025

Main Street is the culmination of 11 years of travels along Route 66 — the 2,400-mile stretch between Chicago and Santa Monica, called the “mother road” in John Steinbeck‘s The Grapes of Wrath. Keating, who won a Pulitzer for his Ground Zero images for Time magazine, ventured westward and back, insightfully documenting life along the road and lives of Americans that have clung to it.

Also at Leica, influenced by the Pop Art movement of the 1950’s and 60’s, along with the Surrealist Movement that started in the 1920’s, Ed Justice JR, sees the world as fleeting moments, rather than the continuous flow of daily life. ‘The power of a still image to capture a fleeting moment and make it a permanent memory has always captivated me. My work is a reflection of the tangible world,’ said the artist. As such, he looks for subjects that are in plain sight and works to capture them with unexpected representations. ‘I try to remove myself from the everyday world, but the everyday world is seen in my photographs.’

New Waves and Impermanent

PERROTIN, Mid-City, until 25 January 2025

Perrotin is presenting two compelling exhibits, one is a solo presentation by artist Leslie Hewitt of 'New Waves', which brings together a selection of her acclaimed still life photographs, and places them in conversation with two other powerful works: a floor sculpture that pays homage to the lost outlines of everyday spaces and ancestral sites submerged by systematic oppression, eminent domain, and other forces often collapsing within anti-blackness; and a collaboration with artist Jamal Cyrus that functions as an open-ended event score. These Parroting distinct bodies of work speak to the intersection of ordinary objects, lived spaces, and material associations as they exist within the larger context of social and political histories.

Plugged In: Art and Electric Light

Norton Simon, Pasadena, until 17 Feb 2025

Presented in the Museum’s lower-level exhibition wing, this show features eight prolific artists who incorporated electric light into their practice to shape and respond to sweeping artistic and social change. These works were produced between 1964 and 1970, and encompass a collection by Walter Askin, Laddie John Dill, Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin, Jess, Robert Rauschenberg, Allen Ruppersberg, and Andy Warhol. This show is concurrent with the Getty-led initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide.

Robert Rauschenberg’s monumental ‘Green Shirt’ (1965–67) is an intricate marriage of technical skill and artistic vision and a focal point of the exhibit. The sculpture resembles an amalgam of commercial signage, adorned with multicolored neon tubes bent into motifs derived from Rauschenberg’s substantial body of work. Newly added in November, a film series Low Key: The Magic, Wonder and Horror of Light is presented in conjunction with the show.

Lightscape by Doug Aitken

Walt Disney Concert Hall, opening 16 November and continuing at
Marciano Art Foundation from 17 December 2024 until 15 March 2025

Artist Doug Aitken is collaborating with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Marciano Art Foundation on a multimedia world premier artwork Lightscape at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The modern mythology propelled by music asks the questions, “where are we now?” and “where are we going?” The ‘answers’ play out in is a shapeshifting act of contemporary storytelling that unfolds in various stages: a feature-length film, a multi-screen fine art installation, and a series of live musical performances.

The world premiere of the concert iteration of ‘Lightscape’ caps off the LA Phil’s daylong Noon to Midnight: Field Recordings festival, with Grant Gershon leading the LA Phil New Music Group and the Los Angeles Master Chorale in a hypnotic series of original soundscapes and minimalist compositions to accompany Doug Aitken’s vivid moving images. Following its concert premiere, the work migrates to the Marciano Art Foundation in the form of a multi-screen art exhibition running from with weekly live music activations curated by the LA Phil, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and Aitken.

When the Veil Thins

Compound, Long Beach, until January 2025

Located in the Zaferia District of Long Beach, Compound’s latest exhibition is curated by Mari Orkenyi and renowned artist Tofer Chin, whose own installation with an imposing black painted fence, THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD, AND IT IS IN THIS ONE is on display in the LAB. In the main building, he is joined by revered and local emerging artists such as Amir H. Fallah, Analia Saban, Aryana Minai, Jamal Gunn Becker, Mia Weiner, Mike Nesbit, Molly Haynes, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Thomas Linder, and Todd Tourso for ‘When the Veil Thins.’

Permanent fixtures at Compound include a commissioned outdoor mural by Grammy award-winning artist Dave Van Patten and Kashira Edghill, to the courtyard sculpture garden with ‘Until All Is Dissolved’ by Roksana Pirouzmand, which you can admire from a seat at Union restaurant and bar by celebrated Baryo chef Eugene Santiago. Newly appointed executive director January Arnall, who hails from The Hammer Museum in Westwood, and MCA Chicago, will help to implement special guest art talks and exhibits, local artisan craft markets and a wellness series with local practitioners.

Post Human

Jeffrey Deitch, Hollywood, until 18 January 2025

In 1992, ‘Post Human’ was a ground-breaking exhibition that showcased the work of thirty-six young artists interested in technological advancement, social and aesthetic pluralism, and new frontiers of body and identity transformation. Curated by Jeffrey Deitch, these artists were exploring the same questioning of traditional notions of gender, sexuality and self-identity that was taking place in the world, and still is today.

More than thirty years later, Deitch revisits the theme, bringing the discourse into the present. The show includes several of the key figures who participated in the 1992 exhibition in dialogue with some of the most interesting artists continuing the exploration of these themes today. Participating artists include Urs Fischer, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, Alex Israel, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Paul McCarthy, Pippa Garner, Chris Cunningham, Sam McKinniss, Pierre Huyghe, and Arthur Jafa.

Gustav Metzger. And Then Came The Environment

Hauser & Wirth, Downtown Los Angeles, until 5 January 2025

In conjunction with the Getty’s PST ART initiative, this is the late artist’s first solo exhibition in LA. And Then Came the Environment’ presents a range of Metzger’s scientific works -as an early proponent of the ecology movement and an ardent activist- merging art and science from 1961 onward, highlighting his advocacy for environmental awareness and the possibilities for the transformation of society, as well as his latest experimental works, created in 2014. The exhibition title comes from Metzger’s groundbreaking 1992 essay ‘Nature Demised’ wherein he proclaims an urgent need to redefine our understanding of nature in relation to the environment.

Candida Höfer

Sean Kelly, Hollywood, opening 16 November until 11 January 2025

Curated by renowned architects Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston of the LA-based firm Johnston Marklee, this exhibition explores the intersection of architecture, photography, and cultural history. Recently awarded the 2024 Käthe Kollwitz Prize, Candida Höfer’s work is a testament to the enduring influence of architectural and cultural heritage, through the lens of one of the most respected photographers of our time.

Inspired by German/Prussian architect Erich Mendelsohn, who navigated the complex cultural landscape of Europe post-World War II, Johnston Marklee have created a literal and metaphorical division within the gallery space. The gallery will be split into two distinct halves, with one side showcasing Höfer's photographs from North America and the other from Europe. This horizontal division symbolizes the cultural and architectural dialogue between the two continents, offering viewers a profound visual experience that bridges historical and contemporary perspectives.

Diane von Furstenberg: Woman Before Fashion

Skirball Cultural Center, Brentwood/Bel-Air, until 31 August 2025

This U.S. debut explores the remarkable life and work of fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg's career, from the 1970s to the present day including a selection of items drawn from the DVF archives along with ephemera, fabric swatches, media pieces, and information on her philanthropic work. Garments from Greco-Roman drapery to kimonos, dance uniforms, and fellow designers that explore the connections between these historical pieces and her designs.

New artifacts also shed light on von Furstenberg’s life as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a war refugee, offering additional perspective on the factors that shaped her life and work, including a spotlight on the designer’s mother Lily Nahmias featuring audio, images and text that explore her experience as a member of the resistance. Skirball Cultural Center President and CEO Jessie Kornberg commented, ‘Jewish connection to garment industries and needlepoint trades spans continents and generations. Past exhibitions like the retrospective on Rudi Gernreich or the textile art of Aram Han Sifuentes celebrated these connections.’

Fragments

Friedman Benda, West Hollywood, until 1 February 2025

Paris-based French designer Ferréol Babin unveils his first solo gallery exhibition, marking the first time a comprehensive body of his work will be on view to the public. Informed by extensive study of wood-working techniques in France and Japan and his participation in an immersive artist residency by BRH+ in Turin, Babin evokes historical methods and motifs through his own poetic approach. Offering ambiguity for the viewer to wonder how a piece is made, Babin leaves behind fragments so one can discover the meaning of an object on their own.

Scientia Sexualis

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, until 2 March 2025

ICA LA is kicking off it’s fall exhibition, Scientia Sexualis, by showcasing a group survey of contemporary artists whose works take up the fraught relationship between sex and science. Organized by Jennifer Doyle (Professor of English, University of California, Riverside) and Jeanne Vaccaro (Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Museum Studies, University of Kansas), and accompanied by a major scholarly publication (the title from French philosopher Michel Foucault’s landmark text, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (1976), the exhibition is part of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide.

Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics

LACE at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, East Hollywood, until 5 January 2025

As part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this exhibition revisits the collaborative artistic practice of the late Beatriz da Costa (1974–2012) as an investigation into technoscientific experimentation, politics, activism, and art-making, contextualized for our contemporary moment.

Curated by LACE’s former Chief Curator/Director of Programs Daniela Lieja Quintanar with Ana Briz, the project weaves together an exhibition, public programming, performances, educational workshops, and study groups as an evocation of da Costa’s approach to the intersections of ancient and non-academic forms of knowledge.

Breath(e)

HAMMER MUSEUM, Westwood, until 5 January 2025

Presented in partnership with Conservation International, this show is comprised architectural, décor, new tech, recycling materials, living organisms - all intertwined and connected to climate and social justice. Curated by artist Glenn Kaino and guest curator Mika Yoshitake and features more than 100 artworks by 25 international artists. The sprawling exhibition will fill the majority of the Hammer’s galleries and outdoor spaces, and includes specially commissioned works by Mel Chin, Ron Finley, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Garnett Puett, and Lan Tuazon.

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard

LACMA, mid-Wilshire, until 5 Jan 2025

This is the first-ever museum survey of the Venezuelan-born, L.A.-based artist’s prolific career. Spanning over five decades, the exhibition explores ceramics, paintings, and drawings, including an important selection of works made collaboratively with her husband, Michael Frimkess, and numerous works never-before shown in public. With insights into the artist's fascination with illustrations from art books, popular media, animation, autobiography, and the comedy of everyday life, celebrating the inventiveness of Suarez Frimkess’s practice, securing her position in the recognized, longstanding tradition of artists working with ceramics in California.

Intuit Dome

Inglewood, permanent

One of the most exciting art collections to hit Los Angeles can be found at the new home for the LA Clippers in Inglewood. The cutting-edge sports venue recently unveiled the monumental, site-specific, outdoor artworks commissioned for the Intuit Dome which opens to the public this August. The $11 million public art collection features a collection of globally recognised artists, selected by Ruth Berson, former deputy director of curatorial affairs at SFMOMA, who have deep ties to Los Angeles and intertwine their artistic talents with sports.

Glenn Kaino’s massive sculpture Sails, made of painted steel and wood looms in the form of the clipper ships that connected the world via the ocean’s trade routes. In this ship, basketball is the cultural wind that can connect us all.

Michael Massenburg’s mural of printed porcelain enamel on steel panel features figures of basketball, tennis, and soccer players, singers, musicians, and dancers, titled Cultural Playground expresses the artist’s belief that 'the two most profound things that unite people are the arts and sports.'

Jennifer Steinkamp’s digital artwork Swoosh, uses the entire surface of the Intuit Dome, designed by the architectural firm AECOM, with five animations will transform the surface of the dome and light up the sky with geometric panels.

Patrick Martinez’s sculpture Same Boat uses a neon sign to create an image that reproduces a statement by the late Civil Rights leader Whitney M. Young: “We may have all come on different ships but we’re in the same boat now.”

On a wall adjacent to Same Boat, you will find Kyungmi Shin’s stained-glass mosaic with stainless steel tracery, Spring to Life. For this work, Shin drew inspiration from Centinela Springs, the now-vanished water source in South Los Angeles that once supported the Tongva people and the land they cultivated. (If you would like to see more of Shin’s work, the artist has a solo exhibition at Craft Contemporary until 8, September 2024.)

The Dome opening features an exhibition of photographs by Catherine Opie (on loan from MOCA) evoking the experience of community. “We designed Intuit Dome to be a place that brings people together,” said Gillian Zucker, CEO of Halo Sports & Entertainment. “When it came to our public art, we wanted to deliver a collection that is as compelling to people well versed in art as it is to a novice viewer. We are eager to make these unique works, from these amazing artists, available to everyone.”

Josh Kline: Climate Change

MOCA, downtown Los Angeles, until 5 January 2025

Josh Kline’s dystopian science fiction installations took five years to fully produce but they could not be more on target with the current political and environmental climate concerns in America. This exhibition transforms the galleries at MOCA Grand Avenue with photography, moving image work, and ephemeral materials.

Also at Grand Ave., NTS Radio is in residency, in the museum’s newly opened cultureLAB space offers a summer-long collaboration of live broadcasts and music programming located on the Sculpture Plaza at MOCA, or tune in at nts.live

Mineo Mizuno: Homage to Nature

The Huntington, Pasadena, until 25 May 2029

The Huntington holds a library with British medieval manuscripts, including the 15th-century Ellesmere tome of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; 16 themed gardens with more than 83,000 living plants; an art museum and more.

In the main garden area on the vast grounds, Mineo Mizuno’s sculpture celebrates the beauty of wood in its natural state and emphasises its potential as a reusable and renewable resource. This site-specific work explores the fragility of the Earth’s ecosystem, as well as the destruction of the forest and its potential for regeneration.