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Category: Adventures in L.A.

  • Apocalyptic Solstice Dance

    Spirits summer solstice with Richie Hawtin at LACMA (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Spirits Summer Solstice Dance at LACMA (Pic: Liz O.)

    The colors flashing across a screen in LACMA’s courtyard were hypnotic and unsettling. A pink Croc morphed into a glossy shade of black. Other sandals shifted between liquid shades of iridescent blue, lavender and bronze, as if vintage Urban Decay bottles had spilled across the art, leaving globs of Oil Slick, Smog and Asphyxia nail polish to ripple across the screen. So prismatic! So toxic! I couldn’t turn away. 

    Spirits is a series of digital sculptures mades by the Irish artist john gerrard using photoscans of 96 plastic sandals that he collected along beaches across the globe and a gaussian splatting technique that allows viewers to stream the images onto their devices and alter them with the touch of a finger. Batches of Spirits have been dropped via LACMA’s website since last December, their release dates coinciding solstices and equinoxes. The third installment of Spirits, all tied to the Mediterranean Sea, was unveiled on June 22, with an in-person component, the Spirits Summer Solstice Dance, headlined by Richie Hawtin.

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  • Imagine Peace with Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at The Broad

    War is Over If You Want It Yoko Ono and John Lennon The Broad Yoko Ono Music of the Mind Photo: Liz Ohanesian
    Inside Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at The Broad (Pic: Liz O.)

    Right before the press preview for Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind began, we were invited to add wishes to one of the olive trees in the plaza outside the entrance to The Broad. I picked up a small white tag and a pen and wrote a single world. Peace. Simple and inoffensive, I thought. Or, maybe not. Peace is complicated according to the politicians who say we need to bomb our way to it. And peace is offensive according to the people who get completely bent out of shape when you suggest that our tax money might be more wisely spent on— IDK— education and health care instead of constant war. But, I know for a fact that I wasn’t the first person who tied a hope for peace onto the Wish Trees for Los Angeles installation and it’s safe to assume that many more will do the same before the exhibition ends in October. 

    Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, which began its tour at London’s Tate Modern two years ago, is a career retrospective of the avant-garde artist that takes visitors from the mid-20th century to the fairly recent past. The exhibition’s stop at The Broad marks Ono’s first ever museum solo show in Southern California, so it is a landmark event and one that shouldn’t be missed. 

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  • Museums Are the Antidote to Slop. Go Visit One This Weekend.

    Defenders of Mother Earth altar by Ofelia Esparza at Vincent Price Art Museum Photo: Liz Ohanesian
    Defenders of Mother Earth altar by Ofelia Esparza at Vincent Price Art Museum (Pic: Liz O.)

    I’ve been on a museum kick lately. Museums are the antidote to the slop that poisons our daily lives. These institutions present art and history with the information and context necessary to understand what we see and hear. They’re curated – the actual definition of the word, not the watered-down marketing department version of it – by people who have done real research to present the materials in the most accurate way possible. I can trust what I see in a museum and that’s comforting when I can’t get through a single scroll without asking truly absurd questions like, “Is that Golden Trump for real?”

    My favorite thing about museums, though, is that the exhibitions are designed to be seen in person. You can take as many photos as you want, but none of them are going to do justice to the art or exhibits. That’s why, instead of my regular recommendations this week, I wanted to encourage people to go out and see what is in your local museums. If you’re reading this in Los Angeles, which I am assuming you are, then I have two specific institutions to shout out. Both are in locations that are easy to visit whether you have a car or use public transit and admission for both is free. 

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  • Delivery Bots are the Harbingers of Doom

    Delivery bots spotted in West Los Angeles from E Line platform (Pic: Liz Ohanesian)
    Westside delivery bots spotted from the E Line platform (Pic: Liz O.)

    “I can’t really hate the robots,” I say to my husband, about a half-mile or so into a walk up Sawtelle. We’ve passed a smattering of delivery bots already. The one in front of me is a green, doe-eyed model named Noor. “When I see them, I think of Wall-E.”

    Almost immediately, déjà vu hit. Did we have this conversation before somewhere closer to home? Maybe near 7th Street, where downtown’s IRL bot armies tend to congregate? “I know I’m being emotionally manipulated,” I add. I’m anthropomorphizing the tech that’s contributing humanity’s demise. Or, something like that. I can’t bring myself to hate the robots, but they are definitely harbingers of doom. 

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  • Choose Your Own Adventure at LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries

    Flower Day by Diego Rivera and a sculpture of Chicomecoatl at LACMA David Geffen Galleries (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Flower Day by Diego Rivera and a sculpture of Chicomecoatl at LACMA David Geffen Galleries. (Photo: Liz O.)

    There’s no right way to travel through the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA. I just happened to see Flower Day, a Diego Rivera painting where calla lilies are piled high on the shoulders of a vendor, as soon as I walked into the museum. Nearby was a small statue of the Aztec goddess Chicomecoatl. This seemed like a good place to start, so I began to walk an open pathway beyond the ancient Colima sculpture of a dog that stands guard, through a collection of works that’s some 2000 years old and into a passage of Latin American paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Quickly, though, the art around me looked more familiar, more like the L.A. I know. I was in a nook with rafa esparza’s adobe wall sculpture, …we are the mountains in front of me. To my right was one George Rodriguez’s photos from the Chicano movement. I turned my head slightly to the left and spotted a Smiths t-shirt out of the corner of my eye. That has to be one of Shizu Saldamando’s drawings, I thought. It was. 

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  • My First Trip to New, Chinatown Concert Venue Pacific Electric

    Voxtrox live at Pacific Electric in Los Angeles, March 26, 2026 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Voxtrox live at Pacific Electric, March 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

    “You should see the green room, it’s like a boutique hotel,” says Voxtrot singer Ramesh Srivastava on stage at Pacific Electric. It’s Thursday night and the Chinatown concert venue has been open about week, with Voxtrot’s headlining concert being just the second, open-to-the-public event here. The newness of Pacific Electric is very much a part of the buzz in the atmosphere. You can see it in the way the crowd moves about the unfamiliar space, peeking around corners to see where the bathroom is, glancing up from the ground level to catch a view of the balcony. You can see it, too, in the staff, so fresh-faced and friendly. They’ve yet to be grizzled by entitled party people and messy drunks. 

    I was at Pacific Electric to see Voxtrot, who I had recently interviewed, but, given that the venue is brand new, this post is focused on the space itself. (Here’s the link for the story on Voxtrot.) You may have read about Pacific Electric previously, as it was featured in the L.A. Times and Time Out prior to the opening, but, maybe you want to read about the experience from someone who went to a show there. 

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  • Dancing to the No Kings Beat in Downtown Los Angeles

    Los Jornaleros del Norte performing at the No Kings protest in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 28, 2026 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Los Jornaleros del Norte performing at the No Kings protest in downtown Los Angeles on 3/28/26. (Pic: Liz O.)

    “Cumbia de la Cobra” leads me deeper into the protest. It’s a banger of the genre with a hypnotic, Middle Eastern-ish melody. I follow the cumbia rhythm through a throng of folks holding signs against ICE and war and Trump towards the sound of horns that are definitely being played live. I hit gridlock at the top of a set of stairs leading down to Broadway. Parked on the street that cuts between two levels of Gloria Molina Grand Park is the mobile People’s Stage, where Los Jornaleros del Norte are performing. The crowd, dancing on stairs and sidewalk, is large, but it’s only small fraction of the turnout for the downtown Los Angeles No Kings rally on this sunny Saturday afternoon in late March. 

    In the background I hear someone on a megaphone saying something about a big baby. I look up and see that the team of people maneuvering the President Poopypants— IDK if that’s really it’s name, but it should be— balloon is headed towards this makeshift dance floor. We scooch around as Trump’s diaper-clad behind floats above us, but the party continues. 

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  • Some Monuments Need to Be Toppled

    Toppled, paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside MOCA Geffen Contemporary for Monuments (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    The toppled and paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside Monuments at Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (Pic: Liz O.)

    Jefferson Davis looks like he’s been clocked. The oversized, bronze statue of the  onetime president of the Confederacy is laid out on the floor of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. He’s splotched and tagged with paint, dried pink streams running down the length of the statue like blood. Walk up close and you’ll see that the top of his head has been pounded flat. An outstretched arm, partially severed from the shoulder, may have once given him the appearance of a savior. Now, it looks like he the one who needs saving. I study the hulking figure for a few moments, snap a couple photos and continue through the museum. Some monuments are better left down for the count. 

    Monuments, a collaboration between MOCA and The Brick that’s on view at the Geffen Contemporary through May 3, is an exhibition juxtaposing decommissioned monuments with contemporary art to explore U.S. post-Civil War history. The Jefferson Davis statue, which was dedicated in 1907, lived in Richmond, Virginia, where it was part of a whole complex of Confederate monuments. In 2018, a local commission in Richmond recommended its removal, but that didn’t happen until two years later, when the statue was paintbombed and toppled during protests following the murder of George Floyd. 

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  • Depeche Mode, Fontaines D.C. and War Child: The Wars Change, But the Protest Songs Remain the Same

    Photo of antiwar protestors in front of Los Angeles City Hall on March 7, 2026 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Protesting outside City Hall, March 7, 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

    As the Santa Ana winds whipped through Los Angeles, downtown protestors clung to signs that read, “Invest in peace not the Pentagon” and “War crimes don’t hide sex crimes.” A string of activists spoke on the steps of City Hall. They led us in a run of chants all of which could be summarized in one point: end the wars. 

    Before walking to the Saturday afternoon protest, I listened toHelp (2), the War Child compilation album that came out on Friday, for the second or third time. On it, Depeche Mode covers “Universal Soldier,” written by Buffy Sainte-Marie in the early 1960s. It’s a striking condemnation of war made all the more ominous when performed as a dark, synthpop song. Listen closely and you might swear you hear jets in the background. Even if you’re only playing the song in the background, you can’t miss the resignation in Dave Gahan’s voice when he delivers the closing line, “this is not the way we put the end to war.” 

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  • The Day the Crowds Came Back to Chinatown

    Crowd gathers outside a gift shop on Broadway in Los Angeles' Chinatown
    A crowd gathers outside a gift shop on Broadway in Chinatown (Pic: Liz O.)

    One of the first things I learned after moving to Chinatown was to avoid walking down Broadway on the weekends. This was well over a decade ago- before the high rent apartments and perennial line at Howlin’ Ray’s were a thing- and the sidewalk scene on the neighborhood’s main drag was poppin’ throughout the weekends. Back then, trying to get from Point A to Point B was like maneuvering your way through a house party where your goal is to squeeze through a tightly packed crowd of people and stuff without knocking over a vase or getting stabbed by a pointy plant. Then the pandemic happened and, perhaps like most of downtown save for Little Tokyo, the crowds didn’t come back in the same numbers.

    On the Saturday after Lunar New Year, though, Chinatown felt like it did before lockdown. I walked along Broadway- after the past six years, I forgot my old rule- and quickly backed up against a wall, near a row of plants, to let large group of teenagers pass. I got caught in wave after wave of gridlock and teetered along the curb trying to bypass the nearly impenetrable crowd in front of Yang Chow and the oversized stroller parked between a store and a rack of tchotchkes. At Scoops, which was my destination, my first two ice cream choices were sold out and the third nearly so. It had been busy all day, I heard, and, even as dinner time approached, people were still hanging around. 

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