Why is there never nothing to do in the Los Angeles art world? We were hoping for a quiet weekend, but there were just too many openings to avoid them all. We decided to park our vehicle on Highland Avenue and take it from there.

Op Art by Julian Stanczak

Op Art admirer at Diane Rosenstein.

First stop was Diane Rosenstein’s gallery with the psychedelic paintings of Julian Stanczak. We were blown away by this Op Art, mostly work from the ’60s and ’70s, with some newer work from the 21^st century. This dizzying experience made us want to get some fresh air and walk to our next stop, the Steve Turner gallery. Three German artists defined their version of what a desert is in a collaboration called “Desert Now.” Julius Von Bismarck, Julian Charrière and Felix Kiessling created an installation of cacti in concrete with a whirling tumbleweed on a treadmill. A cardboard John Muir stood with an iPhone taking a selfie in front of the Sierras. Well what did you expect from the Berliners? But we were happy to take in their witty interpretation of our cherished terrain while we drank cans of cold cheap beer.

John Muir at Steve Turner.

Whirling tumbleweeds.

After that we hoofed it further north on Highland to the Kohn Gallery where Ryan McGuinness treated us to some more psychedelia, but with higher class spirits; Hennessy on the rocks. This was by far the best attended opening of the night. Lots of selfies going on and a few celeb spottings. Shepard Fairey with his wife Amanda were on the run to another celebration but found time to chat up a bit. We complimented him on his recent appearance on Stephen Colbert’s, but he was modest, emphasizing Stephen was an old high-school buddy.

Ryan McGuinness at Kohn Gallery.

Selfie haven with McGuinness’ work.

Now we can rest on Sunday? Not even! One more stop for the weekend; Kim Abeles at the newly reopened POST gallery in Downtown Los Angeles. Art collector/paparazza Marlene Picard was snapping away, though in a bad mood after driving around for hours trying to find parking. The new gallery is in a most peculiar location (right smack in the middle of those low-rent cheap clothing stalls, the ones with the tight leggings on the big-bottomed mannequins). We too were frantically looking for parking trying to avoid the high-priced parking lots—Angelenos have to learn to use public trans people! But once inside the beautiful mid-20s Bendix building, POST Director and Founder HK Zamani and wife/Co-director Emma Jürgensen have once again put together an impressive new exhibition space with their inaugural Abeles show of older work mixed with new (one piece, the artist was overheard saying, was completed only a few hours before the opening!). The show was packed and Abeles was in rare form. Abeles has always done imaginative work dealing with environmental issues. She’s an important LA artist, and we applaud POST’s decision to make it their first show. Good karma.

Kim Abeles at her POST opening. She just finished this piece two hours ago!

Abeles in a older work, photograph.

On our way out, we bumped into Annie Wharton, formerly of The Company in Chinatown, and another stint at the Pacific Design Center. It turns out she’ll be curating the whole fabulous Bendix building, renting artists’ lofts at very reasonable prices. Downtown LA just keeps on going, but we need to stop and recharge for next weekend.