A nationwide general strike, called for Friday, January 30, 2026, in protest of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis, has prompted numerous art galleries and organizations to close their doors. Major commercial galleries like Gagosian, David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Pace Gallery, alongside institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Drawing Center, are participating in the shutdown.
A significant number of New York art galleries, including major players like Pace Gallery, David Zwirner, and Marian Goodman, will close on January 30 to join a nationwide general strike protesting expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The strike is a response to allegations of federal overreach, including the use of deadly force against protestors and the detention of Native Americans, which have fueled widespread outrage.
ARTnews has announced the nominees for the 2025 ARTnews Awards, which honor excellence in art at US institutions and galleries. The awards, now in their second year, feature six categories: Emerging Artist, Established Artist, Lifetime Achievement, Best Thematic Museum Exhibition, Best Gallery Group Show, and a newly introduced Best Historical Artist category. The jury includes five top US curators and two ARTnews editors, with winners to be celebrated in November.
Château Shatto gallery in Los Angeles is presenting a group exhibition featuring works by Minnie Pwerle, Emily Pwerle, Molly Pwerle, and Galya Pwerle, four Indigenous Australian artists from the Anmatyerre community. The show highlights their distinctive painting styles, which often draw on ancestral stories and bold abstract patterns, continuing the legacy of Aboriginal art in a contemporary gallery context.
The group exhibition "Desperate, Scared, But Social" at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art (Langson IMCA) explores the complexities of contemporary social dynamics and collective anxiety. The show brings together diverse artistic perspectives to examine how individuals navigate a landscape defined by political instability, environmental concerns, and the pervasive influence of digital connectivity.
Artist Alex Heilbron presents a solo exhibition at the Los Angeles gallery as-is. The show is featured as a lead review in the February 2026 issue of Contemporary Art Review LA, highlighting Heilbron's continued exploration of painting and visual language within the Southern California art scene.
The article focuses on the curatorial approach and artistic ethos of the 2025 edition of the 'Made in L.A.' biennial, highlighting how artists are actively engaging with pressing social and political issues rather than retreating into quietism or abstraction. It examines specific works and the overall thematic drive of the exhibition, which is organized by the Hammer Museum and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The article "Art as Memorial in Lotusland" by Aleina Grace Edwards appears in the February 2026 issue of Contemporary Art Review LA (CARLA). It is part of a larger issue exploring themes like scent in art, tarot, social urgencies in curation, and video art, positioning it within a critical discussion of contemporary art practices in Los Angeles.
Digital art giants Artnet and Artsy have implemented significant layoffs following their recent merger under the investment firm Beowolff Capital. The cuts, which occurred on April 16, impacted dozens of employees across both organizations, including senior editorial staff such as Sarah Cascone and Eileen Kinsella. The restructuring follows a reported 12% revenue decline for Artnet in early 2025 and involves the shutdown of Artnet's German entity as the two companies consolidate into a single team led by CEO Jeffrey Yin.
The second annual ARTnews Awards have announced their 2025 winners, selected by a jury of five esteemed US-based curators: Ryan N. Dennis (Co-Director & Chief Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), Anne Ellegood (Executive Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), Rosario Güiraldes (Curator of Visual Arts, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis), Ruba Katrib (Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, MoMA PS1, New York), and Victoria Sung (Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive). These jurors reviewed exhibitions held between August 2024 and July 2025, meeting twice alongside two ARTnews senior editors to nominate and select winners across six categories.
Visual artist Dread Scott, playwright Lynn Nottage, and dozens of cultural figures have launched "Fall of Freedom," a nationwide weekend of creative demonstrations scheduled for November 21–22, 2025, to protest rising authoritarianism under the Trump administration. The project invites arts communities to organize independent actions—such as storefront readings, pop-up performances, exhibitions, and workshops—at museums, galleries, classrooms, comedy clubs, or any community gathering space. Participating institutions include the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which will host a "Wear Your Rights" silk-screening workshop, and New York's Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which will turn a gallery into a library of queer art activism books. Other notable participants include artists Marilyn Minter, Robert Longo, and Amy Sherald, who recently canceled a Smithsonian exhibition after concerns over her painting of a Black transgender Statue of Liberty.
Four Los Angeles-based artists—Kelly Akashi, Christina Quarles, Adam Ross, and Kathryn Andrews—are navigating the long-term recovery process one year after devastating wildfires destroyed their homes, studios, and archives. Despite significant losses, including Adam Ross’s archive of 5,000 drawings, the artists have demonstrated remarkable resilience by securing temporary workspaces and continuing to produce new work for major events like Frieze Los Angeles and the Whitney Biennial.
Los Angeles art institutions are presenting a diverse slate of spring exhibitions. Highlights include a major retrospective of conceptual artist Michael Asher at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a sprawling group show on Chicanx photography at the Riverside Art Museum and the Cheech, and an exploration of the Black Arts Movement through photography at the Getty. Other notable shows feature Arshile Gorky's road trip-inspired works at Hauser & Wirth, an audiovisual film exhibition at the Variety Arts Theater, and a presentation of Steven Arnold's queer baroque aesthetics at Del Vaz Projects.
Los Angeles art institutions are presenting a diverse array of summer exhibitions, ranging from career-spanning surveys to historical reassessments. Highlights include Jeffrey Gibson's beadwork at the Broad, a survey of Barbara T. Smith's early Xerox works at the Marciano Art Foundation, a retrospective of Noah Davis at the Hammer Museum, and a group show at the California African American Museum addressing the legacy of Altadena's Black community after the Eaton Fire. Other notable shows include Nancy Buchanan's retrospective, Will Rawls at the ICA LA, Karl Haendel at the Weisman Museum, and a Jack Kirby exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center.
This fall, Los Angeles museums are presenting a diverse array of exhibitions that explore community, justice, and historical reclamation. Highlights include a historical survey of Mail Art in Latin America, a traveling exhibition of radical Chicano prints from the Smithsonian at the Huntington, a show at the Getty drawn from the Guerrilla Girls' archive, and a two-person exhibition at Skirball pairing Philip Guston with Trenton Doyle Hancock. Other notable shows include 'Monuments' co-organized by the Brick and the Museum of Contemporary Art, solo exhibitions by Guadalupe Maravilla at REDCAT and by American Artist on Octavia E. Butler, and the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art. The article also lists shows at Oxy Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and other venues, featuring artists such as Ken Gonzales-Day, Tavares Strachan, and Stanya Kahn.
Various Small Fires (VSF) founder Esther Kim Varet opened a new gallery space, VSF OC, in Tustin, Orange County, in April 2025. The inaugural exhibition, “The Orange Curtain,” features Southern California contemporary artists Edwin Arzeta, Jackie Castillo, and Marcel Alcalá, all born and raised in Orange County. Curated by Varet, the show explores the cultural and political divide between Orange County and Los Angeles, and runs through May 31. The opening drew local art leaders, collectors, and families, including Heidi Zuckerman, CEO of the Orange County Museum of Art.
Two new art exhibitions are tackling the aesthetics and ideology of the online "manosphere," a network of communities promoting hypermasculinity and often misogyny. The shows, 'The Manosphere: A New Hope?' at the New Museum and 'Soft Boys' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, use video, sculpture, and installation to dissect this digital subculture and its visual language.
The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts (MKFA) has announced the recipients of its 2026 Infinite Expansion Grants (IEG), awarding funding to nine contemporary arts organizations across Los Angeles County. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the grant program, with six of the nine organizations receiving MKFA funding for the first time. The grantees include Art in the Park, Clockshop, and Color Compton, among others, each undertaking projects that explore themes of place, memory, diaspora, and community resilience through exhibitions, installations, and public programming. The grants were selected by a jury of five arts professionals including Tiffany Barber, Jibz Cameron, Justen Leroy, Jenny Lin, and Rodrigo Valenzuela.