February in LA: A Constellation of Exhibitions and Events

West Hollywood

‘George Condo. People Are Strange’ Opening on 15 February, the gallery will inaugurate its second Los Angeles gallery, at 8980 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, with an exhibition of new paintings by celebrated American artist George Condo. With the exhibition’s title ‘People Are Strange’ taken from the hit 1967 song of the same name by legendary—and quintessentially Los Angeles—band The Doors, Condo’s latest canvases are filled with fragmented portraits and abstractions that echo LA’s sublime dissonance. In these large-scale works, the artist renders layered, vibrating planes, lines and geometries that seem to suggest a world of oppositional forces and states, at once solemn and euphoric, connected and entropic, logical and ineffable, beautiful and ugly. In their ability to convey such deep contradictions through Condo’s masterful approach to the medium of painting, the works on view mirror the incongruities and ineffable, seductive power for which the sprawling city of Los Angeles itself is duly famous. ‘People Are Strange’ finds Condo offering up impressions of the strange world around him and, in doing so, capturing something universal about the human condition and the transforming effects of time’s passage.

Downtown Los Angeles

‘Zeng Fanzhi’ Hauser & Wirth’s Downtown Arts District location will host ‘Zeng Fanzhi,’ the first Los Angeles solo exhibition by the renowned Chinese artist, featuring a series of monumental, abstract landscapes presented harmoniously within the distinctive soaring space of the South Gallery. Zeng Fanzhi’s intuitive approach to the canvas is evident in his bold, expressionistic abstractions evoking natural phenomena. Rendered with a dynamism and exquisite palette, these paintings echo the magnetism and perceptual impact of 20th century color field painting but with a distinctively 21st century aura. Heralding Zeng Fanzhi’s latest technical breakthroughs, the works on view initiate the artist’s use of bright, saturated fields of color to define a painting. A seemingly vast expanse of hues, closer inspection of each surface reveals a delicate interwoven palette of vivid pigments. This exhibition marks the latest in Hauser & Wirth’s ongoing series of Los Angeles presentations conceived to introduce the city to the oeuvres of foremost international contemporary artists, further forging connections across geographical and cultural territories.

‘Rita Ackermann. Vertical Vanish’ February will also find Hungarian-born, New York-based artist Rita Ackermann debuting a new body of work at Hauser & Wirth’s Downtown Los Angeles Arts District complex. On view in the North Gallery, ‘Vertical Vanish,’ Ackermann’s first exhibition with the gallery on the West Coast, will unveil large scale gestural oil paintings that synthesize line, color and form. Repeated figures and motifs emerge and then disappear again within fields of saturated color achieved through the artist’s actions—drawing, painting and erasing. Oil, china maker and acrylic are heavily worked into the surface of canvas and raw linen whereby figures are lost and lines are scraped away to reveal shattered compositions. Ackermann’s latest works present a complex layering of visual language oscillating between abstraction and figuration into a subconscious unfolding of form.

The Performance Project With its dedicated home in the East Gallery of the gallery’s DTLA complex, The Performance Project is an ambitious Hauser & Wirth initiative conceived to further foreground the performing arts and explore relationships between the myriad forms of path-breaking creative expression that engage the artists of our time. On 15 February, The Performance Project will kick off its 2023 season of outstanding public programs with ‘It’s All About the AAWWWTTTT!!! Ball,’ a five-category Vogue Ball featuring 30+ House/Ballroom artists, curated by the Iconic Sean/Milan GarconTM of The House of AWT. Three days later, on 18 February, The Performance Project will present GABE—a musical collaboration and a fusion of music, sculpture, comedy and performance as a concerted mediation on queer kinship and commodification—featuring EJ Hill, Jeffrey Michael Austin, DonChristian Jones and Morgan Bassichis.

Join waitlist here for ‘It’s All About the AAWWWTTTT!!! Ball’ and join waitlist here for GABE. Learn more about The Performance Project.

Editions The Book Lab will exhibit selected contemporary and historical artist editions reflecting the gallery’s diverse program, and ongoing support for collaborations between artists and master printers. Divided into four sections and organized by process—woodcut, etching, lithography, screen printing—the presentation will feature examples of each medium from gallery artists and estates including Larry Bell, Jenny Holzer, Glenn Ligon, Paul McCarthy, Nicolas Party and Gary Simmons, and significant historical prints by Eva Hesse, Luchita Hurtado, Takesada Matsutani and Dieter Roth, among others.

Frieze Week

Frieze Los Angeles As the gallery’s exhibitions welcome LA residents and visitors alike, Hauser & Wirth will fill its stand at the Frieze Los Angeles art fair—now in a new location at the Santa Monica Airport—with a celebration of LA artists. The presentation will feature works by Larry Bell, Mark Bradford, Charles Gaines, Richard Jackson, Paul McCarthy, Gary Simmons, Henry Taylor and Diana Thater, as well as the late Luchita Hurtado, Mike Kelley and Jason Rhoades. Preview our booth here.

Visit Paul McCarthy’s Legendary ‘WS White Snow’ Installation For four days only, LAND, The Box and Hauser & Wirth will present Paul McCarthy’s ‘WS White Snow,’ the artist’s largest single work presented in the US, originally exhibited at the Park Avenue Armory in 2013. Like many of LA’s legendary secrets, ‘WS White Snow’ has been hidden in plain sight for the past decade: an 8,800-square-foot artificial forest and a faithful replica of the artist’s family home have stood fully installed in a warehouse in East LA.

Register here for the first and possibly only time to experience the work in situ.

‘Henry Taylor: B Side’  Surveying thirty years of Henry Taylor’s work in painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, this MOCA retrospective celebrates a Los Angeles artist widely appreciated for his unique aesthetic, social vision, and freewheeling experimentation. Populated by friends and relatives, strangers on the street, athletic stars, politicians and entertainers, Taylor’s canvases describe an imagination encompassing multiple worlds. Informed by experience, his work conveys its fundamental empathy in close looking and sharpened social criticism alike. ‘Henry Taylor: B Side’ is the largest exhibition of Taylor’s work to date.

Explore Our New Gallery

Located in the heart of West Hollywood, Hauser & Wirth West Hollywood occupies the site of a vintage automobile sales showroom where a white stucco façade and red tile roofing typify the distinctive 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival style of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The location has been transformed into a 6,000 square foot exhibition space by architect Annabelle Selldorf of Selldorf Architects.

In creating this second LA space, Hauser & Wirth seeks to extend its commitment to a city and cultural community that have been integral to the gallery’s vision and program since its founding 30 years ago in 1992. Los Angeles artists represented by Hauser & Wirth include Larry Bell, Mark Bradford, Charles Gaines, Richard Jackson, Rachel Khedoori, Paul McCarthy, Christina Quarles, Gary Simmons, Henry Taylor, Diana Thater, and the late artists Luchita Hurtado, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley and Jason Rhoades.

‘Our new space in West Hollywood is a manifestation of Hauser & Wirth’s deep commitment to Los Angeles and a love affair with the city that stretches back to the gallery’s earliest days, 30 years ago,’ says Marc Payot, President. In that time we’ve come to know LA through our relationships with our many extraordinary artists and estates based there, as well as our ongoing dialogue and collaboration with the city’s outstanding curators, writers, collectors and colleagues. We have been enchanted and influenced by the city’s defining contradiction: LA is a global arts capital with an almost monolithic presence in the collective imagination, but at the same time it’s a collection of distinctive communities, each with its own personality and rhythm.’