10 Art Shows to See in Los Angeles This December

This December’s picks focus either directly or indirectly on contemporary social issues, showcasing cultural protest and frameworks for envisioning new possibilities. Phallus :: Fascinum :: Fascism at The Box, for example, counters creeping repression with a deliriously inclusive heterogeneity. Horror at Sprüth Magers features artists who explore revulsion and terror, giving visual form to the very real sense of dread many of us are experiencing. Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack’s assemblages at Night Gallery make poetic use of the discarded objects from the streets of LA, reflecting the turmoil that has recently engulfed the city. The inaugural show at La Plaza Projects features Alan Luna’s subversive engagements with Mexican history and American modernism, while the artists in A Tender Excavation mine the archive to unearth previously untold narratives.

Alan Luna: Modernisisimo

La Plaza Projects, 6460 Whittier Boulevard, East Los Angeles, California
Through January 9, 2026

The inaugural show at the new East LA art space LA Plaza Projects includes two bodies of work by Mexican-American artist Alan Luna. Metametates comprises photographs of metates — traditional stone grinding slabs — digitally arranged in erotic compositions. Referencing early-20th-century photographs of Mexico taken by American photographers like Edward Weston and Paul Strand, Luna’s Metametates cheekily challenge the essentializing lens through which these images portrayed Indigeneity. Meanwhile, his Huipiles Colorados reinterpret Frank Stella’s late-1950s Black Paintings as bright red huipiles, traditional Indigenous garments, offering another reinterpretation of the relationship between Modernism and Mexican culture.

Edith Dekyndt & Richard Long

Okey Dokey Konrad Fischer, 560 North Western Avenue, East Hollywood, Los Angeles
Through January 10, 2026

This exhibition brings together two artists working with the natural world, either through direct physical intervention or AI-aided digital investigation. Imagine Inscape by Edith Dekyndt, in collaboration with the Belgian design studio Unfold, begins with a piece of fossilized wood, its voids and hollows filled in by AI. The results are then woven into bright, monochrome tapestries, lending a sense of tactility to her digital process. Dekyndt’s piece is presented alongside work by Richard Long, the veteran land artist whose analog engagement with rocks and earth offers fresh visions of our everyday experience of nature.

Phallus :: Fascinum :: Fascism

Phallus :: Fascinum :: Fascism at The Box, 805 Traction Avenue, Arts District, Los Angeles
Through January 17, 2026

This overflowing, maximalist group show examines the link between government-imposed sexual and procreative restrictions and repressive militarism exemplified by the fascist state. To counter the notion of normative sexuality, the exhibition brings together almost 200 artists, offering a deliriously swollen multiplicity of transgressive voices. Participating artists include Lynda Benglis, Math Bass, Ron Athey, Mark Verabioff, Corazón del Sol, Barbara T. Smith, and many others.

Sam Shoemaker: Mushroom Boat

Fulcrum Arts, 544 North Fair Oaks Avenue, Pasadena, California
Through January 17, 2026

On August 5, artist Sam Shoemaker traveled 26 miles (~41.9 kilometers) from Catalina Island to Cabrillo Beach in a kayak he had made from mushroom mycelium. Shoemaker has long incorporated fungi into his ceramic vessels, but this project took his mycological experiments outside the gallery walls. Bridging the worlds of art and science, Shoemaker’s maiden mushroom voyage opens up new possibilities for ecologically responsible art and travel. The exhibition features the boat itself and videos and soundscapes captured during his ocean crossing, as well as his open-source research into the creative and practical potential of mycology.

Nancy Lupo

Kristina Kite Gallery, 3400 West Washington Boulevard, Arlington Heights, Los Angeles
Through January 24, 2026

Berlin-based artist Nancy Lupo draws on memory and place in her sculptures, transforming everyday objects through her inventive use of materials. Presented in conjunction with Michael Benevento, Hark features benches she created over the past five years based on real benches. Lupo’s odd doppelgängers maintain a certain resemblance to their subjects, but are painted in unorthodox colors and rendered in materials like fiberglass and Magic-Sculpt. In this way, they point to their real-world origins, while suggesting a fantastical realm just beyond our reach.

Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson

Marian Goodman Gallery, 1120 Seward Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Through January 24, 2026

Casting a Glance gathers work by 18 artists who engage with the late Robert Smithson’s provocative and innovative approach to artmaking. In his brief but influential career, Smithson redefined what the art object could be, exploring impermanence, decay, and duration. He polluted the refined geometries of minimalism with natural materials and created site-specific artworks in the indeterminate suburban zones, far from the urban gallery districts. Participating artists who continue Smithson’s interest in the undefined and in-between include Steve McQueen, Leonor Antunes, and Tavares Strachan.

Horror

Sprüth Magers, 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Miracle Mile, Los Angeles
Through February 14, 2026

This show features a wide-ranging group of artists who draw inspiration from the trauma and revulsion of the horror genre. The exhibition builds on Mike Kelley’s 1993 group show and book, The Uncanny, though curator Jill Mulleady shifts from the original source material’s psychological focus to a more visceral one. Participating artists include Arthur Jafa, Karen Kilimnik, Dario Argento, Antonin Artaud, Kara Walker, and others.

Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack: You Can Hate Me Now

Night Gallery, 2050 Imperial Street, Downtown, Los Angeles
Through February 14, 2026

Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack uses objects found on the streets of the MacArthur Park neighborhood as the building blocks of his sculptures and installations. He weaves these bits of detritus and discarded memories into poetic assemblages that often form the basis for vigorous performances. You Can Hate Me Now (which takes its title from a 1999 Nas song) showcases sculptures made over the past three years, reflecting a turbulent but resilient period in the life of the city.

A Tender Excavation

Luckman Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, El Sereno, Los Angeles
Through February 21, 2026

A Tender Excavation assembles a diverse group of primarily US-based artists who engage with archives to create alternative narratives. Working with family or historical photographic archives, these artists transform these documents through collage, paintings, sculpture, or video, offering new perspectives on migration, diaspora, discrimination, and violence. Through abstraction or distortion, they draw attention to historical erasure and the instability of memory. Curated by Selene Preciado and presented by Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the exhibition includes Zeynep Abes, Mely Barragán, Mercedes Dorame, Star Montana, Camille Wong, and others.

Enrique Martínez Celaya: The Sextant

Wende Museum, 10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, California
Through October 11, 2026

Enrique Martínez Celaya’s “The Sextant” is a recreation of the modernist house in Cuba built by his father between 1957 and ’63, a period that saw both the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is the house where the artist’s family waited for exile before coming to the US, and as such, represents the complexities of his relationship with Cuba. The installation examines both the personal and the political, focusing on how the Cold War played out in the Caribbean and how individuals reconciled their hopes and dreams with everyday realities.

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