13ThingsLA—your new go-to arts calendar—is a partnership between the creative minds and besties of Hijinx Arts’ Heidi Johnson and art critic Shana Nys Dambrot (Flaunt, Village Voice, Artillery). Each weekly edition features 12 hand-curated art exhibitions on view or opening that week, plus a 13th pick from the broader world of arts and culture—in a combination of previews and short reviews.
Heidi has had a long-standing desire to signal-boost the worthy and wonderful culture gems she comes across in her work with artists, museums, independent creatives, and galleries at Hijinx and beyond. Shana’s vision is to fill an obvious chasm in the LA art media landscape—utilizing her decades of experience in the LA art world, her unparalleled access to art offerings across styles, mediums, and neighborhoods, and all her free time since leaving the LA Weekly after six years (where she ran the wildly popular art calendar, a service that has been dearly missed since her departure).
Together, the duo created 13ThingsLA—a place for thoughtful recommendations, original writing, and fresh discoveries. Welcome to a possible future for engaged arts journalism!
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Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Downtown LA. Formerly the L.A. Weekly, she is a contributor to the Village Voice, Flaunt, Artillery, and other culture publications. She studied Art History at Vassar College, and is the recipient of the Rabkin Prize for Art Criticism, the Mozaik Future Art Writers Prize, and the LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Critic of the Year award. Her surrealist novel Zen Psychosis (Griffith Moon) was published in 2020.
Heidi Johnson founded Hijinx Arts in Los Angeles in 2007. With more than two decades of experience building relationships in the arts and culture sector, she has worked with significant art events, including BLINK Cincinnati, Complex Con, The LA Art Show, and DesignerCon, popular brands, including BEYOND THE STREETS, and notable artists such as Mister Cartoon, Shepard Fairy, and Tristan Eaton, to name a few.
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