Best Things to Do in SoCal This Week: January 26 - February 1, 2026
Detox from color
Pace Los Angeles presents Eyelets of Alkaline, an exhibit featuring new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Lauren Quin in her first solo show at the gallery. This new body of work foregrounds a self-imposed rupture since her last exhibit in New York where she turned from an “overdose” of chromatic intensity to what she describes now as a “detox of color.” Both restrained and kinetic, do not misinterpret Quin’s work as monochromatic considering the brilliant hues that persist as echoes and her lexicon of symbols that recur across her work. It’s through this reduction that Quin betrays the referential powers of color.
1201 South La Brea Avenue
The art of wandering
Steve Roden: wandering opens at UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, an exhibition that reflects the artist’s lifelong commitment to exploring, treasure hunting, and discovery. A self-described “ragpicker,” Roden found meaning from discarded items found while wandering, a practice he developed as a teenager. This exhibit focuses on his works on paper, presenting drawings as a form of travel without a destination. By bringing together elements never meant to meet, the exhibit recreates Roden’s way of walking the world, where curiosity transforms the discarded into something poetic. To learn more about the artist, view the Artbound documentary, The Quixotic Videos of Steve Roden.
18881 Von Karman Ave
#100
Premiere of Beneath the Ashes
The premiere of Beneath the Ashes: The Past Reimagined presents a moving documentary film that honors Altadena as a refuge for Black American families. Directed by Hrag Yedalian, the film centers on Altadena’s African American community and the ongoing fight to rebuild in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire. Through intimate conversations and powerful storytelling, the film reveals both the pain of loss and an inspiring vision for what comes next.
2495 East Mountain Street
Self-reflection, literally
Proxy Gallery in Beyond Baroque presents Observer, Observed, an installation by Sandeep Mukherjee that turns perception back onto itself. Centered on a translucent fiberglass head generated by rotating the artist’s own profile 360 degrees, the work is surrounded by fractured mirrors that reflect and refract light throughout the intimate gallery space. Referencing Edgar Rubin’s 1915 face/vase illusion while nodding to contemporary systems of surveillance, Mukherjee’s installation offers a mesmerizing meditation on selfhood and illumination.
681 Venice Boulevard
Seven artists, 1 museum
The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) starts the new year with Metaphor, an exhibition season featuring seven solo exhibitions and projects that explore visual metaphor, memory, identity, and collective experience. Artists Nathan Huff, Sharon Kagan, Bachrun LoMele, Vojislav Radovanović, Francis C. Robateau Jr., Brian Singer, and Diane Briones Williams use metaphor and memory to reveal complex stories about self, place, history, and imagination. Each exhibit offers a distinct lens on self and place, creating a season-long conversation that asks visitors to look slow and think long.
665 W Lancaster Blvd
A crash course into zero budget filmmaking
Part crash course into filmmaking, part radical act of creative survival, The Bumdog School of Film is a reminder that cinema doesn’t begin with gear or gatekeepers, but rather begins with a stubborn belief. In this workshop, Bumdog Torres recounts his journey from homelessness to completing a 2½-hour feature made with virtually nothing, then distills those hard-earned lessons into a hands-on workshop that proves skills like editing, composition, sound, and storytelling can be learned quickly and applied immediately. This session at McCadden Place Theater is designed specifically for actors eager to translate stage work to the screen, sharpen reels, and understand the nuances of performing for the camera. Equal parts inspiration and practical toolkit, Bumdog’s workshop is less about perfection in favor of the transformative power of making something, even if it’s just a stain.
1157 N McCadden Place