Los Angeles: Reveling in the Ruins of the Past

Los Angeles

May 11, 2022 • View in browser

Soft Scenes of a Rough Life of Labor

Daisuke Fukunaga depicts Japanese workers as tired but happy. Are they, really? | Jennifer Remenchik

The characters of Daisuke Fukunaga’s Beautiful Work, on view at Nonaka-Hill, occupy a unique and strange liminal space between work and sleep. Throughout the exhibition, Fukunaga keeps a seemingly simple concept — pleasant paintings of workers — remarkably unexpected.

In these paintings, the worker appears solitary, and, with a few exceptions, entirely alone on the picture plane. While this setup could easily be depicted as lonely or sad, somehow Fukunaga manages more emotional complexity than that, keeping them in a space more akin to the dreamy.

Reveling in the Ruins of the Past

In attempting to convey atrocities that confound language, artist Phyllida Barlow comes up against a paradox with no easy resolution. | Natalie Haddad

Otherworldly Beings Hidden in Quotidian Scenes of LA

Aryo Toh Djojo’s paintings capture the jarring moment of looking at a familiar photograph, only to notice something slightly amiss. | Jeanha Park

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CLOSING SOON

Phil Peters, “Schematics 3” (2022), Drafting vellum, drafting film, yellow trace, ink, graphite, marker, colored pencil, and tape, 24 x 24 inches (photo by Paul Salveson, courtesy Canary Test)

Pil Peters: The Port of Long Beach Recordings
Canary Test through May 11

Daisuke Fukunaga: Beautiful Work
Nonaka-Hill gallery through May 14

Aryo Toh Djojo: This Too Shall Pass
Sow & Tailor through May 15

Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation
Hammer Museum through May 15

Phung Huynh: Donut (W)hole
Self Help Graphics and Art through May 27

ON VIEW

Hayao Miyazaki
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures through June 5

Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor
Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art through June 6

how we are in time and space: Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, and Barbara T. Smith
Armory Center for the Arts through June 12

Ebon: Fear of a Black Planet: A project by Black Kirby
Culver Center of the Arts through June 19