13ThingsLA: March 12

Respect the Desert for your art calendar

Desert X 2025, Sanford Biggers, Unsui (Mirror) in Palm Springs (Photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy Desert X)

The fifth edition of Desert X is one of its strongest; plus exhibitions and events from Alexandra Grant, Wonzimer Gallery, The Brick, Queering Digital, ArtNight Pasadena, The Middle Room Gallery, Launch LA, Royale Projects, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Tierra del Sol Gallery, The Pit, and BODYTRAFFIC Studio. And don’t forget, Sunday, March 16 is Museums Free for All Day across the SoCal region—a perfect chance to brush up on your institutional acumen.

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Feature

Desert X 2025, Sanford Biggers, Unsui (Mirror) in Palm Springs (Photo by Shana Nys Dambrot)

REVIEW: Desert X 2025 is now open Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, and Palm Springs. Organized by Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and this edition’s Co-curator, Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, the 2025 Desert X Land Art biennial (its fifth edition) is one of its strongest. Each artist on this year’s slightly shorter list of participants has achieved a conceptually engaged, site-specific project at (mostly) monumental scale; and the relatively compressed geographical perimeter helps make for an experience that can be completed in one day that still feels meaningful, satisfying, and thorough in its exploration of the perennial ideas at the core of the Desert X ethos. Among those ideas, artists have centered interpretations, critiques, and amplifications of ideas about the myth of the “empty” desert, the haptic, visceral cognition of travel and stillness, the intervention of the forces of nature in the best-laid plans, the region’s embedded histories of indigeneity and migration, wellness culture, industrial agriculture, movies about freedom, the threats of resource scarcity and climate chaos and attempts to address them, and the stewardship of public lands. All the works this year are impressive, in tones ranging from quiet to exuberant, mysterious to whimsical, ceremonial to sequined. But since everyone asks, I guess my personal favorites were Jose Davila’s modular marble henge meditating on presence and absence across borders, Alison Saar’s roadside body shop for the soul, Sanford Biggers cloud candy, Sarah Meyohas’ serpentine sand-garden wall, Ronald Rael’s one-tree oasis adobe maze, and Agnes Denes’ towering native plants pyramid. Installations are open through May 11 across the Coachella Valley; desertx.org. And as a special treat for our paid subscribers, find in-depth coverage and pictures of all the “DX25” works HERE. —SND

Alison Saar, Jose Davila, Sarah Meyohas, Agnes Denes (Photos by Lance Gerber, courtesy of Desert X)

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