December 2026
December at a glance: 0 exhibitions opening, 5 closing, and 53 more on view across the city.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Twelve benches by the L.A. sign painter line the Kendall Concourse, drawing on rotulismo mexicano, the tradition of Mexican hand-painted signage.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Picasso's lovers, friends, rivals and himself, portrayed in every idiom from fractured Cubism to his expressive late style. BCAM, Level 3.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Dancing skeletons and personifications of Death in prints from the Renaissance to German Expressionists reckoning with war and revolution. BCAM, Level 3.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Seasonal open-air pavilion where visitors walk among hundreds of orb-weaving spiders, plus tarantula and wolf spider habitats.

Petersen Automotive Museum
Marking 250 years of the United States with American-made vehicles spanning early 1900s classics to modern hypercars.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
Five years of major purchases and gifts, from Julie Mehretu and Henry Taylor to Suzanne Jackson and Charles Gaines, grouped by theme across the galleries.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
Black-and-white portraits by Venezuelan artist Alexander Apóstol cast the archetypal roles of Latin American populist and authoritarian political theatre.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Five decades of the L.A. artist's provocative photography and video, blurring fact and fiction to probe romance, rivalry and the mystery of daily life. BCAM, Level 2.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
LACMA's own Impressionist holdings set among the prints, photography, decorative arts and fashion of late-19th-century France. Resnick Pavilion.

Getty Center · Free
Works by 13 photographers including the Álvarez Bravos, Héctor García and Graciela Iturbide, drawn from a 25-year gift to the Getty tracing a century of Mexican photographic creativity.

Getty Center · Free
Five photographers—Laura Aguilar, Reynaldo Rivera, George Rodriguez, Patssi Valdez and Ricardo Valverde—whose work expanded depictions of Chicano/a communities in Los Angeles in the late 20th century.

Hammer Museum · Free
Chicago artist Mike Cloud's large-scale collaged portraits and mixed-media assemblages exploring consumer culture and childhood.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
After-dark walk-through with glowing installations, projections and artwork by LA artist Maggie West across the museum's indoor and outdoor spaces.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, diverse perspectives on nature, nation, and the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County · Free
A reproduction of a hand-edited draft of the Declaration of Independence, paired with artifacts from 250 years of American civil rights history.

Hammer Museum · Free
An installation using electroforming to grow copper over plants and cables, exploring electricity as a form of interconnectedness.

Fowler Museum at UCLA · Free
Carved guardians, ritual bowls, textiles and video reveal how the Ifugao people's rice terraces entwine sustenance and spirituality.

Wende Museum · Free
Photographs from Argentine newspapers La Razón and Clarín trace four decades of political life, from Perón through coups and rallies to the return of democracy.

Autry Museum of the American West
Historical and contemporary objects, media and art examine how diverse Angelenos have claimed and contested life, liberty and happiness across two centuries of LA history.

Hammer Museum · Free
The Brazilian artist's U.S. institutional debut, centered on her film documenting rural life, reggae and African diasporic memory in Maranhão.

Norton Simon Museum
Bronze, silver and ivory art from Kandy, Sri Lanka's last royal capital before British colonial rule, blending Buddhist devotion and royal patronage.

GRAMMY Museum L.A. LIVE
Handmade sets, props, and original artwork from the "the cure" music video, including her nurse costume and hospital props.

Marciano Art Foundation · Free
Two-part show on Leguillon's collecting practice: 250-plus ads of artists as brand ambassadors, plus his traveling Museum of Mistakes.

Marciano Art Foundation · Free
The US premiere of Dean's 2011 vertical 35mm installation, an 11-minute silent celebration of analog photochemical film.

Skirball Cultural Center
Original comic art and rare artifacts trace how comic books shaped 20th-century American identity, from WWII through hip-hop and civil rights movements.

Hammer Museum · Free
A retrospective of about 150 works by the Lebanese artist, spanning 1970-2011, exploring humor, language, gender and the body.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles · Free
Six-decade retrospective of ~50 rarely seen works by LA artist Carl Cheng, exploring environmental change and technology at the intersection of ecology and identity.

Hammer Museum · Free
A retrospective of over 60 works from the Jamaican-born artist's 50-year career in geometric abstraction, including her Broken Construction series.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles · Free
Yokoyama's first institutional solo show: ceramic sculpture, experimental animation and holography exploring metamorphosis and underworld mythologies.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles · Free
Commissioned mural on ICA LA's 7th Street facade: silhouetted bodies in nature drawn from queer archives, topographic maps and community photography.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Examines how Marilyn Monroe shaped her own public image within the classical studio system, with rare artifacts and screen-worn costumes from Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
First major museum retrospective on Los Angeles ceramic artist Doyle Lane (1923-2002).

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Photographs by Laura Aguilar made 1984-1992 documenting Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Los Angeles, drawn from her estate.

Norton Simon Museum
Manet's ambitious, near-life-sized painting of the 1867 firing-squad execution of Emperor Maximilian, on loan from the National Gallery, London.

Petersen Automotive Museum
Nearly 200 rare early American motorcycles from Professor Richard Bunch's collection, spanning the pioneer era through the Great Depression.

Getty Center · Free
Traces the four hand-crafted stages of a medieval book—preparing parchment, writing, painting and binding—through manuscripts from the Museum's collection.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Celebrates Studio Ghiblis 2008 film Ponyo through over 100 rare hand-drawn animation artworks, including original art by Hayao Miyazaki, many shown in North America for the first time.

The Broad · Free
Collection show on how media shapes history and memory, with Guadalupe Rosales, Hank Willis Thomas, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Warhol and Mickalene Thomas.

Petersen Automotive Museum
Screen-used vehicles and production prototypes marking 25 years of the Fast & Furious franchise's most iconic builds.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County · Free
Rare, spectacular mineral and crystal specimens, some displayed publicly for the first time.

Petersen Automotive Museum
Marking the 100th anniversary of the Daimler-Benz merger with a broad range of Mercedes-Benz models spanning the marque's engineering history.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Life-size orca replicas and Indigenous Pacific Northwest Coast art explore the bond between orcas, people, and the ocean.

Chinese American Museum
The museum's inaugural show in its newly expanded gallery: seven decades of Diana Shuiu Wong's abstract works blending traditional Chinese and contemporary Western aesthetics.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Sandy Rodriguez's largest installation to date, including a 20-foot map of the United States painted on hand-processed amate-fiber paper.

Craft Contemporary
Colombian artist's first LA solo show, juxtaposing colonial bronze casting with Indigenous weaving to examine the conquest of the Americas.

Craft Contemporary
Indigenous artist collective's residency 'Fuego Medicinal' on fire, natural dyes, textiles and California native-plant craft traditions.

Craft Contemporary
Nine artists from the California Community Foundation Fellowship use fire as a lens on cultural perseverance, identity and ancestral memory.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
A two-story immersive installation exploring six aesthetic themes of cinematic light and color -- sunrise/sunset, moon, neon, candlelight, fireworks, and campfire -- via synchronized projections and an original score.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
Immersive environments by Julian Charrière on water systems and planetary fragility, including a new commission for the inaugural Schmidt Environment and Art Prize.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)
A new commission by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña: a collaborative 'quipu of encounters' on the water crisis, linking communities in Chile and Los Angeles.

Autry Museum of the American West
Works from the Autry's Native American collections explore Knowing, Creating and Transference, curated in part by three contemporary Plains Indian artists reflecting on their traditions.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Immersive exhibition on horror cinemas cultural impact, with props and costumes from Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and more, across six themed chambers.

Petersen Automotive Museum
A chronological timeline of record-setting automobiles from the postwar era to today, tracing how aerodynamics and powertrain design chased raw speed.

Wende Museum · Free
Co-curated with a NASA historian, this show pairs Cold War-era and contemporary artworks with artifacts like a full-scale Sputnik-1 model on the Space Race and cosmos in art.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Betye Saar's Huntington-commissioned site-specific installation: a 17-foot vintage wooden canoe with found objects including birdcages and antlers.

Petersen Automotive Museum
Explores the design dialogue between American automakers and Italian coachbuilders, pairing American mechanical strength with European styling.

Petersen Automotive Museum
Traces Waymo's evolution from Google's self-driving car project to a leading autonomous vehicle company, showing the tech turning sci-fi into reality.

California Science Center · Free
17,000-sq-ft exhibition with 25+ interactive activities exploring the science of sports and movement, featuring LA-based mentor athletes; on view through the 2028 Olympics.
A short note now and then when something new opens worth your time.