13 Things LA: October 23

Blithe Spirits for your art calendar

Gioj De Marco, Them Their Eyes (Billie Holiday), 2019, photo (custom plexi frame), 22 x 36 x 2 in. (Courtesy of OMAS)

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Taking a decided turn toward the psychedelic, PST: Art continues to collide in evolving new ways—at Philosophical Research Society, Night Gallery, The Box LA, and the Academy Museum. Plus a new home for Open Mind Art Space, towards a prodigal home for LACE, and groovy stuff for your home at Downtown Modernism. And in this final issue before the hauntings start in earnest, enjoy consciousness-tickling exhibitions and events at Advocartsy, Descanso Gardens, Five Car Garage, Irrational Exhibits, Libros Schmibros, and a Marc Selwyn/Sebastian Gladstone joint. And on Saturday morning, Shana will be kicking it with sculptor Woods Davy, signing the monograph of his work she wrote with him, inside his new exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery at Bergamot Station. 

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Feature

Matthew Heller, Homage to Music, Isn’t She Lovely (Stevie Wonder), 2024, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 in. (Courtesy of OMAS)

Mixed Tape: Matthew Heller and Gioj De Marco opens Saturday, October 26, 1-4pm at Open Mind Art Space. OMAS inaugurates their new gallery location (congratulations!) with a two person show of visual art made by, with, and about music. At first glance, De Marco’s symphonic, organic pigment tides and Heller’s hand-lettered song-lyric word-painting might appear to have little in common. But in fact, both series are the result of deep love and deeper listening to the music that shaped the artists’ lives. De Marco’s hybrids of sound-vibration drawings, photography, and laser-cut shaped plexi give physical form to the abstract emotions of music. Heller’s paintings recall a youth spent “playing, rewinding, and playing again my favorite songs, transcribing their lyrics in order to possess them” more fully—but are also in dialogue with artists who make concrete poetry in painting form, playing with seeing vs reading, presence vs memory, and sound vs vision. On view through January 18 in West LA; openmindartspace.com. —SND

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