Best Upcoming Art Exhibits in LA This Fall

A cultural wonderland, Los Angeles' many museums are constantly changing their landscapes to keep repeat visitors coming back for more and to tantalize newcomers with their brilliance. To be sure, the City of Angels has a lot of eye candy to take in during trips to these world class venues devoted to all forms of art. Following are five of the best exhibitions taking space on these outposts' rosters in the coming months.

Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
5909 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 857-6000
www.lacma.org 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, LACMA is showing off with its Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada exhibition through Sept. 27, well worth canceling plans to attend this show centering around the Los Angeles resident who is the founding director of the iconic Watts Tower Foundation. Purifoy, who also introduced the ideas of art appreciation and execution into the California prison system, moved from the City of Angels to Joshua Tree for the last 15 years of his life, where he used all kinds of pure junk to come up with ten acres filled with massive sculptures. Talk about the ultimate in recycling.  

The Getty
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA
(310) 440-7300
www.getty.edu

Through Oct. 18, "In Focus: Animalia" will continue to be mounted at The Getty. Early images of stunning beasts are at the heart of this exhibition, as are more advanced works that utilized more advanced photographic equipment while showing all ways of life among the wildlife, including big game animals on the run in their natural habitats. Photographs by such masters as Horatio Ross, Alfred Stieglitz, William Wegman, Pieter Hugo and Taryn Simon are part of this stirring installation that is not to be missed.

Norton Simon Museum
411 W Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91105
(626) 499-6840
www.nortonsimon.org

On view until Jan. 4, 2016, "A Revolution of the Palette" looks inside the pigment called Prussian blue, a remarkable hue that was so delightful upon invention that cobalt blue and, ultimately, synthetic ultramarine followed, the latter of which was developed by a group of scientists in France who took part in a competition to come up with this spectacular color. These specials blues were artistically utilized by French painters who worked during the Rococo period and on through the introduction of Impressionism, including works created by Corot, Guigou, Monticelli and Dupré. As for Impressionists, the new blues, as they were called, are represented in Guillaumin’s "The Seine at Charenton" and Caillebotte’s "Canoe on the Yerres" River, both works on view at the Norton Simon.

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Reality's Mirror
Reality's Mirror
5909 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 857-6000
www.lacma.org

After Daguerre created a permanent photographic process that meant photography could be seen as a fine art, images were manipulated by other stars of this genre to become, as described for The Magic Medium exhibition, "reality's mirror." More than 150 years of work in photography by such greats, magicians if you will, as Eugène Atget, Matthew Brandt, Jo Ann Callis, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harold Edgerton, William Eggleston and Nic Nicosia are shown in this enchanting exhibition, as are daguerreotypes from LACMA’s permanent collection. "The Magic Medium" is on view at LACMA until Feb. 7, 2016.

Selections From The Permanent Collection 1940-1980
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
152 N Central Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 626-6222
www.moca.org

20th Century Art in all its glory is on view at MOCA through May 28, 2016. The works in this exhibition, made possible through the efforts of the museum's chief curator Helen Molesworth, are from this prestigious outpost's permanent collection. Representing works from 1940 through to 1980, Selections From The Permanent Collection features otherwise underutilized pieces from this four-decade period, including paintings by masterful Mark Rothko. Also on display are pieces by Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Lee Lozano, Helen Levitt, Danny Lyon,  Senga Nengudi, Kenneth Noland, Robert Overby, Dorthea Rockburne, Betye Saar, Emerson Woelffer, and many other artists who shall be remembered for their vast contributions to their chosen field.

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