Datebook: Digital manipulations, abstracted canvases, sculptures from trash

Abstract works that reflect on spirituality. Digital pieces that play with our image-saturated world. And a sculptor who embeds his sculptures, guerrilla-style, on the street. Plus: paintings about California and our oceans of trash. Here are five shows to see this week:

Diane Silver, “Sacrament,” at Coagula Curatorial. Seven abstract works — each titled after a different sacrament — reflect on the artist’s Catholic upbringing. (She has since lapsed.) Opens Saturday at 7 p.m. followed by an artist talk, with critic Peter Frank and gallerist Mat Gleason, on Sunday at 5 p.m.; the exhibition runs through Oct. 4. 974 Chung King Rd., Chinatown, Los Angeles, coagulacuratorial.com.

Casey Reas, “Linear Perspective,” at Charlie James Gallery. Reas creates digital collages out of all manner of imagery, from photos that run in the New York Times to the profile pictures of thousands of his Twitter followers. These are then molded into hallucinatory videos that toy with aspects of these mass media. Opens Saturday at 6 p.m. and runs through Oct. 17. 969 Chung King Rd., Chinatown, Los Angeles, cjamesgallery.com.

Eric Ernest Johnson, “Next Door Neighbor,” at The Lodge. A salon-style show bursts with paintings, mobiles and sculptures — all made by Johnson — that riff, in literal and abstract ways, on the landscape of Southern California. Opens today at 6 p.m. and runs through Sept. 26. 1024 N. Western Ave., East Hollywood, thelodge.la.

“Mark Jenkins: Still Life,” at Castanier Gallery. The artist, known for creating sculptures of human figures that he deposits on the street, is having his first show at this Culver City space. Many of Jenkins’ pieces are often placed in uncanny positions: on their knees or with their heads embedded into walls of concrete — a way of playing with the landscape of the city and the human figure in ways that can unnerve. Opens Saturday at 5 p.m. and runs through Oct. 3. 2919 La Cienega Blvd., Culver City, castaniergallery.com.

“Gyre: The Plastic Ocean,” and Cynthia Minet, “The Beast of Burden,” at USC’s Fisher Museum. A pair of exhibitions provide different perspectives on detritus. “Gyre” explores the gyre of trash in the Pacific through art — namely, the ways sculptors, photographers and others have employed discarded plastic as material for assemblages, photographs and installation. Minet, in the meantime, employs piles of plastic scraps to create illuminated life-size sculptures of animals. Through Nov. 21. 823 Exposition Blvd., Exposition Park, Los Angeles, fisher.usc.edu.

FINAL WEEK:

Einar and Jamex de la Torre, “Quemando Las Naves,” at Koplin del Rio. The Guadalajara-born brothers are known for glassworks that riff as much on pop culture as they do on the history of craft. In this new show, however, they are going lenticular, with a series of tripped-out light boxes that look different from all angles and that toy with the imagery of the U.S.-Mexico border. Through today. 6031 Washington Blvd., Culver City, koplindelrio.com.

“Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography,” at the Getty Museum. Photography isn’t just about the image on the paper. It’s also about the processes that led those images to appear. This group show features seven contemporary artists who are all experimenting with ways in which light and chemicals form what we see on the page. Through Sunday. 1200 Getty Center Dr., Brentwood, Los Angeles, getty.edu.

“Korda: Revolutionary Photographer,” at the Museum of Latin American Art. Alberto Diaz Gutierrez, better known by the nickname Korda, is the Cuban photographer who snapped the iconic photograph of Che Guevera looking heroic. He also photographed many significant happenings during and after the Cuban Revolution. MOLAA gathers 19 vintage prints from the late 1950s and early ‘60s, when the country was in a period of great transition. Through Sunday. 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach, molaa.org.

“Chris Francis: Shoe Designer,” at the Craft & Folk Art Museum. Shoes that aren’t so much shoes as they are experimental works of art. Francis, a self-taught designer who lives in L.A., creates designs inspired by street art, Constructivism, Cubism and high fashion, employing plywood, leather and leftover bits of fruit crates. Through Sunday. 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, cafam.org.

“Art and Other Tactics: Contemporary Craft by Artist Veterans,” at the Craft & Folk Art Museum. A group show gathers works — painting, sculpture and even ceramics — by figures whose artistic practice has been shaped by their military service. This includes haunting sculptures of bones as well as decorative porcelain plates that record the lives of women in the service. Through Sunday. 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, cafam.org.

“After Victor Papanek: The Future Is Not What It Used to Be” at the Armory Center for the Arts. A group show examines the legacy of the industrial designer who called for ecologically-sound design and who didn’t believe in patents because they stymied innovation. Runs through Sunday. 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, armoryarts.org.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

“Tongues Untied,” at the MOCA Pacific Design Center. Exploring themes such as desire, love, loss and mourning, this show, drawn from the Museum of Contemporary Art’s collection, looks at the world of art during the dawn of the AIDS crisis. The centerpiece of the show is Marlon Riggs’ feature-length 1989 documentary, “Tongues Untied,” a semiautobiographical look at the black, gay experience. Through Sept. 13. Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, moca.org.

“Rafa Esparza: I Have Never Been Here Before,” at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Over the course of several weeks, Esparza transforms the galleries of this Hollywood space with thousands of adobe bricks that he made with his father. He is using these to create an elliptical structure that obscures the corners of the venerated white box. Through Sept. 13. 6522 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, welcometolace.org.

“Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action,” at the Getty Museum. An exhibition jointly organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Frick Collection in New York brings together nearly 50 drawings and four paintings by the 16th century Italian Renaissance master known for bringing an unprecedented naturalism to art. Through Sept. 13. 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, getty.edu.

Ave Pildas, “Hollywood Boulevard: The ’70s, at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Prostitutes, homeless and the star-obsessed. For three years in the early 1970s, Pildas photographed the habitués of Hollywood Boulevard, capturing the grittiness of one of L.A.’s most famous thoroughfares. This exhibition gathers more than 50 prints from that era. Through Sept. 13. 6522 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, welcometolace.org.

“Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition,” at the Hammer Museum. Where is the art in a medium that all of us practice relentlessly on a daily basis? This exhibition argues that part of it lies in composition. Artists such as Stan Douglas, Thomas Demand, Jeff Wall and Catherine Opie all carefully consider the ways they set up and frame their subjects. Through Sept. 13. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, Los Angeles, hammer.ucla.edu.

“Petra Cortright: Niki, Lucy, Lola, Viola,” at the Depart Foundation. The L.A.-based digital artist’s latest exhibition features a video crafted from animations of strippers she downloaded from a website specializing in adult entertainment, among various other new works. Through Sept. 19. 9105 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, departfoundation.com.

“David Hockney: Painting and Photography,” at L.A. Louver. The British artist is known for creating painted and photographic works that play with depth and perspective: canvases featuring torqued and bending rooms and photographic collages that create complete images out of fragments captured on film. Now, Hockney is playing with the possibility of digital photography and is stitching together images in ways that explore some of these notions. Through Sept. 19. 45 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, lalouver.com.

“The Art of Hair in Africa” at the Fowler Museum. This exhibition brings together an array of African hair ornaments made with wood, beads, copper wire and ivory — some of them embellished with delicate bas relief carvings. It also will include a film by Ghanaian American artist Akosua Adoma Owusu called “Me Broni Ba (My White Baby),” about the role that hair plays. Through Sept. 20. UCLA, North Campus, Los Angeles, fowler.ucla.edu.

Norbert Tadeusz, “Studio,” at the El Segundo Museum of Art. The German painter, known for his colorful contorted figures, often presented in surreal scenarios, is little known in this country. But this exhibition — a collaboration between ESMoA and the L.A. County Museum of Art, which curated the show — provides an opportunity to get acquainted with his work. Through Sept. 26. 208 Main St., El Segundo, esmoa.org.

Mark Bradford, “Scorched Earth,” at the Hammer Museum. In Bradford’s first solo museum show in his native Los Angeles, the artist is unveiling a dozen works, including a new series of abstract paintings and an audio installation that riffs on the macho nature of stand-up comedy. This one is not to miss. Through Sept. 27. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, Los Angeles, hammer.ucla.edu.

Marcia Hafif, “From the Inventory,” at the Laguna Art Museum. The artist, known for producing monochromatic installation pieces that play with color, tone and the material nature of paint, is getting her first solo museum show in her native California in 40 years. The show gathers a series of works made in her Laguna Beach studio, such as her Red Paintings and Pacific Ocean Paintings. Runs through Sept. 27. 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, lagunaartmuseum.org.

Noah Purifoy, “Junk Dada,” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The sculptor who turned the detritus of the Watts riots into sculpture and transformed a patch of desert in Joshua Tree into a wild assemblage museum is finally getting his due: a solo museum exhibition at LACMA. This includes work from early in his career, as well as a dozen assemblage works that he and other artists crafted for “66 Signs of Neon,” the seminal post-riots show held at the Watts Towers Arts Center in 1966. Through Sept. 27. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, lacma.org.

“Touching the Past: The Hand and the Medieval Book,” at the Getty Museum. A new exhibition looks at medieval illumination in the context of its original purpose: in books intended to be touched, handled and read. Through Sept. 27. 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood, Los Angeles, getty.edu.

“Mutated Game Form,” at Nan Rae Gallery. Video games have had myriad influences on popular culture and graphic design; this show tracks the way they have affected the world of contemporary art. The exhibition features sculpture, video and painting by a range of contemporary artists. Through Sept. 27. Woodbury University, 7500 Glenoaks Blvd., Burbank, mcd.woodbury.edu.

Ben Jones, “Ben Jones Ben Jones, Ben Jones…” at Ace Gallery. A founding member of the art collective Paper Rad, known for producing multimedia installations and wild animations that fused the psychedelic with the 8-bit, Jones is opening his first solo exhibition at Ace. The show will include a mix of boldly colored sculpture and painting that tips its hat to color minimalism as well as video games. Through September. 5514 Wilshire Blvd., second floor, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, acegallery.net.

“Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby,” at Cal State Northridge Art Galleries. The artist who helped launch titles such as “The Avengers” and “X-Men” into the public imagination remains one of the most influential comics artists of all time — and this exhibition documents his career, which lasted for more than half a century. For comic book geeks, this one should be a site of pilgrimage. Through Oct. 10; a special public reception will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday. 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, csun.edu.

“In Focus: Animalia,” at the Getty Museum. Drawn from the museum’s collection of photographs, this small show focuses on the relationship between human and animal as defined by the camera’s lens. This includes work by early 19th-century photographers who captured dogs, wild felines and even taxidermy game in early photographs and daguerreotypes. Through Oct. 18. 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood, Los Angeles, getty.edu.

“Documenters and Storytellers: Photographic Narratives in the 20th Century,” at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College. An exhibition drawn from the museum’s extensive collection of photography looks at the ways in which documentary photography has been employed in artistic ways. The show features well-known photographers, such as Leon Freed, August Sander, Leon Levinstein and Eve Arnold. Through Oct. 18. There will be a special opening reception at 7 p.m. Sept. 12. Scripps College, 1030 Columbia Ave., Claremont, rcwg.scrippscollege.edu.

“Vitality and Verve: Transforming the Urban Landscape,” at the Long Beach Museum of Art. The museum has commissioned a series of new murals by well-known urban artists such as Saber, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Jeff Soto, Tristan Eaton and Audrey Kawasaki. These are all part of the summer arts festival Pow! Wow! Long Beach! Extended through Oct. 25. 2300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, lbma.org.

“Someday Is Now: The Art of Corita Kent,” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Known for a groundbreaking body of work that combined faith, activism, snippets of found text and bold color, Kent was a Catholic nun who also had a prolific career as a fine art printer. Through Nov. 1. 490 E. Union St., Pasadena, pmcaonline.org.

“Shelter: Rethinking How We Live in Los Angeles,” at the Architecture and Design Museum. As L.A. reaches the limits of sprawl, city planners, developers and designers are thinking about how to do more with less: less space, less material and a greater attention to questions of environment and density. This exhibition asked six architectural teams to consider housing options for the L.A. of the future. The examples vary from the radical (a series of buildings occupying strips of Wilshire, developed by Kulapat Yantrasast and the team at wHY Architecture) to the more restrained (a proposal by LA-Más that would pump up the density on granny apartments). Through Nov. 6. 900 E. 4th St., downtown Los Angeles, aplusd.org.

“To Live and Dine in L.A.,” at the Central Library. The history of a place can be told through its texts: its books, its accumulated government documents and its menus, too. Critic and writer Josh Kun has pored over the Los Angeles Public Library’s extensive historic menu archive and put together a show that tells a layered story about L.A.’s food and design — but also stories of politics, culture, society, race and gender. See an image gallery. Through Nov. 13. 630 W. 5th St., downtown Los Angeles, lapl.org.

“Adams, Curtis and Weston: Photographers of the American West,” at the Bowers Museum. More than three dozen images produced by three of the most iconic American photographers tell the story of the American West — through dreamy images of landscape as well as the people who once inhabited it. Through Nov. 29. 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana, bowers.org.

“KLAM Radio,” at 323 Projects. Performance artist Lenae Day and writer Anna Kryczka have teamed up to put together a paean and parody to the bizarre art of small-town radio — in this case, in the fictional desert settlement of San Ranchito. This includes spoofs of public radio and right-wing talk. And, of course, there’s the station’s hilarious promotional slogan: “Jam out with your KLAM out.” The podcasts are all available on the 323 Projects website. Listeners are welcome to call the gallery’s line (323-843-4652) to leave dedications for the KLAM DJs. Through December, at 323projects.com.

“Various Small Fires (Working Documents),” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A show that illuminates unusual bits of LACMA history: the plan to have a robot patrol the galleries or the time a dog worked as a security guard. Included in the mix is Ed Ruscha’s working sketch for his infamous mid-’60s canvas, “The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire.” Through Feb. 7. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, lacma.org.

“Noah Davis: Imitation of Wealth,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue. In 2013, Davis recreated a series of works by famous artists and put them on display at the Underground Museum, his alternative art space in Arlington Heights. The idea was to display works of high cultural value in an unlikely setting. Now, the Museum of Contemporary Art has recreated the install — a work made more poignant by the artist’s passing last week. (The piece is viewable through the windows of a storefront space adjacent to the museum free of charge.) Through Feb. 22. 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles, moca.org.

“Hard Edged: Geometrical Abstraction and Beyond,” at the California African American Museum. A new exhibition features the work of 46 artists — from emerging figures to well-established names — working in the arena of geometric abstraction. This includes works by fresh voices and standard bearers, including well-known figures such as Rashid Johnson, Senga Nengudi, David Hammons and Tim Washington. Through April 24. 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, caamuseum.org.

“Islamic Art Now” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Contemporary works from LACMA’s permanent collection by 20 artists who live in or have roots in the Middle East look at questions of society, gender and identity. Runs indefinitely. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, lacma.org.

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