Last Chance

Art

Andy Warhol Retrospective--More than a generation after the fact, it can be difficult to recognize just how revolutionary were Andy Warhol’s paintings of celebrities, tabloid newspapers and commercial products like Campbell’s soup. In the modern history of world culture, the rejection of a categorical division between high and low was a singular contribution of American democracy. Warhol’s art declared this truth to be self-evident. At MOCA, the story of how he did it unfolds in a knockout display. The show is big--more than 250 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints--and occupies every gallery of the museum. Happily playing against today’s depressing museum norm, the show includes not one didactic wall label beyond a four-paragraph introduction. Warhol’s art is not about reading text and promoting the primacy of ideas; it’s about the persuasive power of visual excitement. Warhol sure had it, and the exhibition wisely defers.

Christopher Knight

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Ends Sunday at MOCA at California Plaza, 250 S. Grand Ave., L.A., (213) 365-3500.

Theater shows closing this weekend:

Love, Janis--The return of Randal Myler’s tribute to rock ‘n’ roll icon Janis Joplin closes Sunday at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, (619) 544-1000.

Sylvia--A.R. Gurney’s comedy about a man who brings home an adorable stray mutt and shakes up his marriage and mid-life crisis ends Sunday at the Rubicon Theatre Company at the Laurel, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura, (805) 667-2900.