I start this off with a welcome home to myself… two weeks on the road, a bit of a blur, but a sincere note that there is something rather refreshing about the art world right now… things feel untamed, a little unhinged, a little messy, a bit of a wake-up call to get back to some basics… I think I may like this chaos… so I’m back with the 3-dot review of some upcoming shows and a feeling that the resulting climate of risk-taking and surprise keeps cultural practice vital and continually reinventing itself.
I wanted to start the column off with the curious case of Poppy De Havilland and her new solo show, Weighted Verse, opening at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica… I have this feeling about Poppy, not so much a hunch, but a gut feeling that her career is about to take off… the work feels like a suspension of time, a bleak but rich universe of movement and a quiet still… it feels like in a world of hyperspeed, there is a direction here that I’m becoming more and more intrigued by… go see this one…
(On view at Richard Heller, May 9-June 13, 2026)
Let’s go to New York for the Haas Brothers… the duo fuse high-end craft with a mischievous surrealism that collapses the boundary between design and sculpture… functional but you need it to be, but you want it to be… Their biomorphic creatures—lavish, tactile, and often unsettling—pair plush textiles, ceramics, and blown glass with an obsessive attention to surface and stitch… and now on at R & Company, Tree House is the first solo show of their Tree series, furthering their investigation of nature and design as compatible partners in the art world…
(On view at R & Company now)
The Adventure of Domenico Gnoli was one of the best shows I have seen this year… Lévy Gorvy Dayan’s space was perfect for it… what I knew of the artist didn’t really matter once you see how the perspective shifts in the work play out in front of you… Gnoli lived from 1933-1970, a short life, with so much potential left behind… but it’s hard to find an artist with such a mastery of shifts in perception and intimacy…
(On view at Levy Goran Dayan, New York, through May 23, 2026)
Celebrating her 100th birthday this year, Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar at Roberts Projects will focus on Saar’s costume design practice… it is also a historic look into Los Angeles’ unique art history, as Saar represents such a vivid and evolved career that has remained in the Southland for decades… featured in our Issue 02, Saar has spent nearly 80 years working in and out of genres and mediums, but wearable art has been a constant, and this show will be a proper discovery with over 200 objects planned…
(On view at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, May 30–August 22, 2026)
And of course… a slew of things going on at Zwirner, but the constant blockbuster tends to be Lisa Yuskavage… this will be her 10th solo at the gallery, and there is a relentless interest in her work over the last 10 years or so, and its warranted… I find myself so transfixed with her backgrounds… all the details… all that she considers… the summer is just beginning…
(On view at David Zwirner, 19th Streets, May 14—June 26, 2026)
The dots by Evan Pricco
