LACMA offers some fabulous exhibitions that run into 2022. Be sure to pop in over the holiday, or in January to catch some of these that we have spotlighted. Each exhibition has a different closing date, so be sure to check LACMA’s website for run dates, hours and admission. You can find all of the below exhibitions in the Resnick Pavilion…except for the first one.

Image (Left): Dannielle Bowman, Vision (Garage), 2019, inkjet print, 30 × 24 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LENS: Photography Council, 2021, © Dannielle Bowman, digital image courtesy of the artist and Sasha Wolf Projects; Image (Right): Janna Ireland, The Black Suit, 2012, inkjet print, 40 × 32 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Ralph M. Parsons Fund, © Janna Ireland, digital image courtesy of the artist

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents “Family Album: Dannielle Bowman, Janna Ireland, and Contemporary Works from LACMA. The exhibition features the work of artists of color who examine themselves and history through the visual language of family photographs. Drawn primarily from LACMA’s permanent collection, Family Album presents more than 50 works by 26 artists, many of whom are from Los Angeles. The exhibition presents new work by Dannielle Bowman and Janna Ireland among contemporaries including Germane Barnes, Mark Bradford, Micaiah Carter, Tony Cokes, Genevieve Gaignard, Sandra de la Loza, Leslie Hewitt, Star Montana, and Zora Murff. This exhibition can be seen in the Charles White Elementary School Gallery; On view: November 27, 2021 – June 4, 2022; 

Closing in April 2022….if you missed “The Obama Portraits” by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald which was only on view through January 2, 2022, and is on tour from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG), you will enjoy LACMA’s “Black American Portraits.” Remembering “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” guest curated by David Driskell at LACMA 45 years ago, this exhibition reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces. Spanning over two centuries from c. 1800 to the present day, this selection of approximately 140 works draws primarily from LACMA’s permanent collection and highlights emancipation and early studio photography, scenes from the Harlem Renaissance, portraits from the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, and multiculturalism of the 1990s. Black American Portraits chronicles the ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Countering a visual culture that often demonizes Blackness and fetishizes the spectacle of Black pain, these images center love, abundance, family, community, and exuberance. Resnick Pavilion; On view: November 14, 2021–April 17, 2022;

LACMA marks the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City) with “Mixpantli: Space, Time, and the Indigenous Origins of Mexico.” This exhibition subverts the traditional narrative of conquest by centering the creative resilience of Indigenous artists, mapmakers, and storytellers who forged new futures and made their world anew through artistic practice. Nahua scribes gave the name mixpantli, or “banner of clouds,” to the first omen of the conquest, depicting this omen as both a Mexica battle standard and a Euro-Christian column enveloped in clouds. Mixpantli, then, reflects the bringing together both Nahua and Christian worldviews, and the efforts of Indigenous peoples to reorient space and time in a new world and era. This show puts early colonial art in conversation with pre-Columbian artifacts to showcase the deeply Indigenous worldviews that shaped early Mexico. Find this exhibition in the Resnick Pavilion; On view: Dec 12, 2021–May 1, 2022;

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Forever), 2017, digital print on vinyl wallpaper and floor covering, dimensions variable, Amorepacific Museum of Art (APMA), Seoul, installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, 2017-18; photo by Timo Ohler, courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers

Opening on March 20, and running through July 17, 2022…Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. CLICK HERE to read a review from one of our writers – Barbara Kosoff.

Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) is a world-renowned Los Angeles–based artist who tackles contemporary culture with criticality and wit. Taking cues from our image-saturated cultures, Kruger interrogates the hierarchies of power and control in works that often combine visual and written language. As an active consumer and vigilant viewer of popular culture, Kruger grapples with the accelerated ways pictures and words instantaneously flow through media. Co-organized with the Art Institute Chicago, LACMA, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the exhibition spans four decades and features 33 works, including Kruger’s single-channel videos from the 1980s, digital productions of the last two decades, large-scale vinyl room wraps, multichannel video installations, and audio soundscapes throughout LACMA’s campus. Further, the exhibition includes new video works that re-imagine the artist’s most iconic vinyl pieces. Curated at LACMA by Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, and Rebecca Morse, Curator, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, this exhibition is the largest and most comprehensive presentation of Kruger’s work in 20 years. BCAM Level 2; On view: March 20 – July 17, 2022;

Visit LACMA’s website for more info about additional exhibitions along with hours, admission, etc.

Where: LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., LA 90036
Phone: (323) 857-6000
Website: https://www.lacma.org/