This week spans from Glenn Ligon’s text paintings in the Arts District to Charles Arnoldi’s freehand lines in Hollywood, with a Harlem photo archive, a Berkeley-born mystic, and a new body of surreal painting in between. At Hauser & Wirth Downtown, Ligon’s Sit So Your Back Isn’t Against The Door opens Wednesday and runs into January, alongside Jack Whitten’s The Numinous in the same complex. In Glassell Park, Philip Martin Gallery shows newly released and never-before-seen photographs Kwame Brathwaite made between 1961 and 1975, co-curated by Jesse Williams and Kwame S. Brathwaite, with a conversation at Friday’s reception.
On Melrose, Louis Stern Fine Arts opens In Search of the Oracle, seven decades of Ynez Johnston’s paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture, where Maya glyphs, Tibetan thangkas, and Byzantine mosaics turn into creatures prowling invented continents. On La Brea, KP Projects opens a new solo show by Jon Ching on Saturday night. And at Michael Kohn Gallery, Arnoldi, now 80, hangs String Theory, paintings from 2016 to 2019 in which layered lines crowd the canvas and colored shapes settle into the crossings.
See the full lineup below.
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Featured Exhibitions
Hauser & Wirth Downtown | DTLA
Glenn Ligon: Sit So Your Back Isn’t Against The Door
September 30, 2026 – January 17, 2027
@hauserwirth
Glenn Ligon’s new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth’s Arts District complex centers on his text paintings, where borrowed words become the painted surface itself. It opens Wednesday, September 30, the same night as Jack Whitten’s The Numinous in the neighboring galleries, and runs through mid-January.
Philip Martin Gallery | Glassell Park
Kwame Brathwaite: You and I
October 2 – October 31, 2026
@philipmartingallery
Kwame Brathwaite (1938–2023) spent his career making “Black Is Beautiful” visible, through his photographs and the two organizations he helped found, the African Jazz-Arts Society and Studio and Grandassa Models. You and I brings out newly released and never-before-seen work from 1961 to 1975, selected by actor and activist Jesse Williams and Kwame S. Brathwaite, director of the Kwame Brathwaite Archive. The title borrows a phrase W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Stevie Wonder all used to reach their audiences, and Brathwaite’s 1975 portrait of Wonder on stage is in the show. The reception is Friday, October 2, from 6:30 to 9pm, with a 7pm conversation moderated by Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Louis Stern Fine Arts | West Hollywood
Ynez Johnston: In Search of the Oracle
October 3, 2026 – January 9, 2027
@louissternfinearts
Ynez Johnston (1920–2019) worked for seven decades across painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, building a private symbolic language out of Maya glyphs, Tibetan thangkas, Byzantine mosaics, Matisse, and Klee. Her pictures keep returning to fanciful creatures on invented continents, cloud cities bristling with pyramids and palaces, and bulbous ships crossing whirlpools. She had her first museum solo show at 22 and moved through postwar Los Angeles alongside June Wayne, Lee Mullican, and Luchita Hurtado without ever joining a movement. The show opens Saturday and runs into January.
KP Projects | Mid-Wilshire
Jon Ching: Path of Least Resistance
October 3 – November 7, 2026
@kpprojectsgallery
Jon Ching opens a new solo exhibition at KP Projects on La Brea this Saturday, October 3, with a reception from 6 to 9pm. The Los Angeles painter is known for meticulous, surreal paintings in which plants and animals fuse into single organisms. The gallery is also offering private digital previews ahead of the opening.
Michael Kohn Gallery | Hollywood
Charles Arnoldi: String Theory
Opens October 3, 2026
@kohngallery
At 80, Charles Arnoldi has been exhibiting for more than 55 years, and String Theory returns to a series of paintings he made between 2016 and 2019. He drew the lines freehand, close to automatic drawing, letting them stack until the edges of the canvas held them in, then filled the shapes that formed at the crossings with color. The gallery compares the floating forms to Calder. Arnoldi walks through the show on Friday, October 2, at 11am, and the opening reception is Saturday from 6 to 8pm.
Also On View
DTLA
Kathleen Henderson: Clappers — Track 16 — September 26 – November 21, 2026 · @track16gallery
Elika Hedayat: Whispers: Women, Animals and Chimeras — Aabee Bleue Project — September 26 – October 24, 2026 · @aabeebleueproject
Chinatown
Narsiso Martinez: Eat Happy — Charlie James Gallery — September 25 – November 7, 2026 · @charliejamesgallery
Mid-Wilshire
The School of Los Angeles: Herb Ritts, Greg Gorman, and Matthew Rolston — Fahey/Klein Gallery — October 1 – November 28, 2026 · @faheykleingallery
As The Moonbird Flies: Shane Cotton, Simone Griffin and Fiona Pardington — 1301PE — September 25 – November 7, 2026 · @1301pe
Katie Shapiro: The Other Side of the Moon — Hannah Sloan Curatorial & Advisory — September 26 – November 14, 2026 · @hannahsloan_curatorial
West Hollywood
The Shape of Elsewhere — Mash Gallery — September 26 – October 24, 2026 · @mash_gallery
Griffith Park
Promised Lands: California’s Unratified Treaties and Native Resilience — Autry Museum of the American West — September 26, 2026 – March 31, 2027 · @theautry
Monterey Park
Anida Yoeu Ali: The Buddhist Bug — Vincent Price Art Museum — September 26, 2026 – May 22, 2027 · @vpam_arts
Costa Mesa
Tokio Ueyama: The Hollows Between Mountains — UC Irvine Langson Museum of Art — September 26, 2026 – February 28, 2027 · @langson_museum
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