What caught our eye: Selections from Culver City

November 22, 2024

Installation shot, Blum Gallery. Photo by Arlo Winokur

This past week our intern Arlo explored the Culver City contemporary art scene and stopped in a few galleries. Read on to learn which shows Arlo enjoyed most!

Blum Gallery

Installation view, Hashimoto Contemporary. Photo by Arlo Winokur.

On display at Blum Gallery is LA-based artist Umar Rashid’s exhibition: The Kingdom of the Two Californias. La Época del Totalitarismo Part 2. This is his third solo exhibition with Blum, and his second of his “Epoch of Totalitarianism” narrative. Rashid has created a world in this exhibition that goes beyond just the art. After spending over fifteen years developing an alternate colonial history of California Rashid now is the caretaker of this rich world he built. Paintings like The Battle of Long Beach. Or, Z is for Zorro, the protector. Z is for zilch. Zorro vs the Starman and the old king dies. Tip a 40 in the memory of him. Feel the thiZZ. Ride that somber wave. The quick, black, fox. depict fictional battles of history-altering importance between great native leaders and their “Frenglish” colonizers. Rashid deftly weaves in elements of contemporary pop culture such as music and fashion to catalyze discussions about the connections between the modern California and the California of the past.

No more parties in L.A. Or. The cause has a cost. Run that!, 2024, Acrylic and ink on canvas, Two parts; 37 x 77 x 2 ¼ in. Image courtesy of Blum Gallery.

Hashimoto Contemporary

Installation view, Hashimoto Contemporary. Photo by Arlo Winokur.

Dinner Party (While the World Burns) asks the viewer how we can go live our lives while the world crumbles around us? In his debut solo exhibition with Hashimoto Contemporary, LA-based artist Nicholas Bono Kennedy poses this question through paintings. His compositions are bursting with life: plants, animals, food and signs of human activity are everywhere. Kennedy renders these scenes– recalling classic still lifes– are vibrant, eye-catching and refuse to give in to pessimism. But despite these hopeful signifiers, the longer you look the more the second part of the title (While the World Burns) comes into focus. In the titular painting Dinner Party (While the World Burns) a pleasant scene of food and houseplants is overshadowed by flames licking at the window, encapsulating the anxiety about our future that lurks around each of us as we try to go on living.