Fall is already upon us. On the West Coast, that’s more an excuse to plot a day of gallery hopping without the sun bearing down than a sign to break out the puffer. Los Angeles’s galleries have a stacked calendar for the art-curious and aficionados alike, one that includes work by a number of late greats (like Silke Otto-Knapp, David Lynch, and Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato), and even more from emerging names. Here, we’ve charted your entire course through the litany of solo gallery show offerings on view this season.
“Silke Otto-Knapp“
Where: Regen Projects
When: Through Oct. 24
Why It’s Worth A Look: The late German artist Silke Otto-Knapp’s evolution from vibrant watercolors to grayscale abstraction is thoroughly mined in this solo presentation. Various artistic influences are made evident—including the likes of Marie Laurencin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and even Yves Saint Laurent—across small studies, drafts of larger pieces, and never-before-seen works.
Know Before You Go: Otto-Knapp was perhaps best known for her “process of erasure,” which included slathering a canvas with black watercolor, and then scrubbing the paint away to reveal the white underneath. At Regen Projects, her discovery of this method is tracked from testing to completion.
“Keith Sonnier: Inside Light, 1968–1970”
Where: David Kordansky
When: Through Oct. 24
Why It’s Worth A Look: The gallery’s second solo showing of the late Keith Sonnier’s sculptures follows the artist’s early experimentation with neon and argon, the mediums that would later become integral to his practice. The exhibited pieces’ mix of film, tubes of incandescent gas, and other manufacturing materials set the stage for the defining eccentricity of Sonnier’s later performance and installation works.
Know Before You Go: It was during the years explored here—when Sonnier was beginning his career in New York in the 1960s—that he befriended artists including Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, and Gordon Matta-Clark, and took inspiration from the Fluxus movement to incorporate nontraditional materials into his own art.
“No Center No Above No Below” by Ernesto Burgos
Where: Fernberger
When: Through Nov. 7
Why It’s Worth A Look: In Fernberger’s inaugural showing of the season, Ernesto Burgos introduces a new body of bronze wall sculptures. The New York-based artist offers an unexpected and modern approach to one of sculpture’s oldest mediums by rendering it as abstract and fluid.
Know Before You Go: Burgos is also showing a collection of mixed-media, wall-hanging works, his “most ambitious” to date, the gallery notes. The writhing, abstract pieces act as a conceptual precursor to their bronze counterparts, inviting repeated encounters as the viewer takes them in from different vantage points around the room.
“Describing Clouds” by Jordan Nassar
Where: Anat Ebgi
When: Through Oct. 31
Why It’s Worth A Look: In a series of his signature multi-paneled landscapes and mosaics, Jordan Nassar engages with the the traditional Palestinian cross-stitching technique, tatreez. In these new works, such as Jabalia—which pulls from the tiled floor patterns of a fifth-century Byzantine church of the same name in Gaza, now likely damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes—Nassar confronts viewers with history currently being unwritten.
Know Before You Go: The exhibition’s title, “Describing Clouds,” is borrowed from a poem by Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish, that recounts the paths of clouds forming, dispersing, and remolding into new configurations.
“Politics and Theater” by Ariel Parkinson
Where: House of Seiko
When: Through Oct. 31
Why It’s Worth A Look: Combining paintings, theatrical design, photographs, and archival materials from the 1950s through to the ’80s, this exhibition paints a deft portrait of the late Ariel Parkinson’s political surrealism. Her demonic and anthropomorphized figures reimagined classical and experimental theater—from Shakespeare to Maurice Maeterlinck—and mythological tales into grotesque critiques of militarism, pollution, and nationalism.
Know Before You Go: As a scenographer in Berkeley, California, Parkinson spent time working on productions that included The Tempest, Ondine, Rilke’s Elegies, Madame Butterfly, Otello, Le Cid, and Carmina Burana.
“Private Life” by P. Staff
Where: Commonwealth and Council
When: Through Oct. 25
Why It’s Worth A Look: LA-based, London-born photographer, filmmaker, writer, and installation artist P. Staff lands at Commonwealth and Council with an exhibition of nude Polaroids. Some abstract, some washed with color, and some streaked with light leaks, the images of anonymous genitalia sit amongst installations of metal scaffolding, slouching wads of clothing, and LED lights.
Know Before You Go: Staff often focuses on how violence can restructure one’s body, but in “Private Life” they tap into a gentler exploration of visibility and intimacy.
“Virtual Erasure” by David Rappeneau
Where: Castle
When: Through Oct. 31
Why It’s Worth A Look: At Castle, David Rappeneau’s new collection of drawings is set to only exacerbate his cult-following status. The elusive French artist’s hyper-figurative, postmodern pencil, pen, and marker renderings of alien, angelic youth and surrealist landscapes fit perfectly in the cradle of Los Angeles.
Know Before You Go: Rappeneau is somewhat of an art world enigma—he refuses to appear at his openings, conduct interviews, or participate in the everyday public affairs of the art world. He communicates strictly over email, even with his gallery, Gladstone.
“Form Follows Feeling” by Oliver Lee Jackson
Where: Lisson
When: Through Nov. 7
Why It’s Worth A Look: After spending time carving marble in Italy in the 1980s, Oliver Lee Jackson turned to sensual, corporeal paintings, sculptures, and prints that modernize classical techniques and silhouettes. For his first LA showing with Lisson, the California-born and -based artist presents a series of new works he created by combining fragments of old, unfinished pieces.
Know Before You Go: For much of his career, Jackson’s sculptural output has been an overlooked cache in his artistic portfolio. The pieces seen here are the first since his 2024 commission for the High Line, “A Journey.”
“Felipe Suzuki“
Where: Karma
When: Through Oct. 24
Why It’s Worth A Look: In his first show with Karma, Brazilian artist Felipe Suzuki presents a series of semi-abstract, serene still lifes. Following the lessons of early Surrealism, Suzuki’s works blend a calming presence with an uncanny sense of reality.
Know Before You Go: While Suzuki’s work is distinctly contemporary, he utilizes a number of historical techniques in its conception, including the Apelles palette, a classical four color pairing system born in Ancient Greece, and a layering of oil paint and calcium carbonate, once used to fuse Renaissance frescos to walls.
“Countervision” by Monica Majoli
Where: June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND)
When: Sept. 24 – Nov. 21
Why It’s Worth A Look: At the largest archive of lesbian documents and art on the West Coast, photographer, painter, and printmaker Monica Majoli presents a new cache of drawings based on archival research she conducted on the Ovulars photography workshops that took place between 1979 to 1983 in a rural Oregonian commune.
Know Before You Go: Majoli focuses on the works of Ovulars participants such as Tee A. Corinne and Honey Lee Cottrell.
“worthless serpentine” by Marley Freeman
Where: Parker Gallery
When: Through Oct. 31
Why It’s Worth A Look: In her fourth solo with Parker Gallery, painter Marley Freeman puts herself and her work in conversation with a singular figure of Californian mythology: Joan Didion. With thick, smeared strokes of hand-mixed gesso, Freeman creates abstract portals to what she considers the essence of “home,” outside of any physical location.
Know Before You Go: The painter, originally from Massachusetts, found a strange semblance of her childhood hometown in Didion’s 2003 essay collection about California, Where I Was From. The show’s title, and a number of work titles, make reference to the collection, as Didion writes that she “knows how to distinguish gold-bearing ores from the glittering but worthless serpentine [she] preferred as a child, an education to no point, since by that time gold was no more worth mining than serpentine and the distinction academic, or possibly wishful.”
“Thomas Demand“
Where: Matthew Marks
When: Through Nov. 7
Why It’s Worth A Look: Here, photographer Thomas Demand presents a new body of work that captures 18th and 19th century models of opera and ballet sets from Switzerland, Germany, and Monaco—the latest in his “Model Series,” begun in 2011. The models set the stages for pieces including Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Rossini’s Guillaume Tell operas.
Know Before You Go: Demand has also included new photographs of scenes he constructed himself, printed directly onto copper—nodding to Renaissance-era techniques and early printmaking practices.
“David Lynch: LA”
Where: Pace Gallery
When: Through Dec. 23
Why It’s Worth A Look: Highlighting the legendary director’s photography of his longtime home, “David Lynch: LA” captures almost 30 years of the city through Lynch’s eyes. It’s also the first exhibition of his work in Los Angeles since his 2025 passing.
Know Before You Go: Before moving to LA and directing his debut feature, Eraserhead, Lynch spent five years in Pennsylvania studying painting, a practice that deeply informed the visual language of his photography and filmmaking. This showing places five of his photography series in dialogue for the first time.
“Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato“
Where: David Zwirner
When: Sept. 23 – Oct. 31
Why It’s Worth A Look: A singular talent in 20th-century Brazilian painting, Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato documented the changing scenery of his home in Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s first planned cities. By reducing his environmentally-focused landscapes and still lifes to simple, geometric forms, Lorenzato extracted the subtle beauty of the Brazilian countryside as it was on the brink of mass-urbanization.
Know Before You Go: The late artist himself once worked in construction in Belo Horizonte. But after breaking his leg required him to quit, he began painting full time and capturing the remnants of a changing Brazil.
“Everything I See I Swallow” by Alessandra Acierno
Where: Sea View
When: Through Oct. 24
Why It’s Worth A Look: Central to painter Alessandra Acierno’s never-before-seen body of work at Sea View is the doppelganger. Throughout murky, virescent paintings, the indication of imitation is ever present—each subject an ambiguous double to another face on the canvas, whether it be a representation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or of a mother and daughter.
Know Before You Go: The young painter’s unsettling figures purposefully challenge the viewer to look away, creating discomfort in the act of public viewing, and questioning one’s own privacy.
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