Don’t leave LA Art Week without seeing these 8 Exhibitions

You came to Los Angeles for Frieze.

But if you leave having only walked the fair floor, you didn’t really experience LA Art Week.

Because this week does not belong to one tent. It belongs to the rooms across the city, the galleries that timed their strongest exhibitions to coincide with this exact moment, knowing the entire art world would be in town.

Collectors will move fast. Advisors will be efficient. The fairs will be loud.

These exhibitions are where you slow down.

If you are in LA between February 26 and March 1, do not skip these.

1. Sayre Gomez: Precious Moments

David Kordansky Gallery

On view through March 1, 2026

🔗 Official gallery link: https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com

There is something almost defiant about ending a show on the final day of LA Art Week.

Gomez doesn’t compete for attention. He controls it. The paintings operate with quiet precision, immaculate surfaces that feel both familiar and slightly off-balance. American imagery stripped of spectacle. Architectural fragments. Isolated signage. Landscapes that feel paused mid-thought.

The work sits somewhere between hyperrealism and psychological fiction. You’re looking at something recognisable, but it doesn’t behave the way you expect it to.

This is not a show you photograph and move on from.

You stand in it. You let it work on you.

And during a week built on velocity and transactions, that restraint feels powerful, almost subversive.

2. Ken Gun Min: Strange Days of a Quiet Sun

Nazarian/Curcio

February 21 – March 28, 2026

🔗 Official gallery link:https://www.nazariancurcio.com

Ken Gun Min’s work does not whisper.

It layers mythology, memory, queerness, and personal symbolism into compositions that are unapologetically saturated. The canvases are dense with imagery, recurring figures, iconography, fragments of narrative but they never collapse into chaos.

There’s a theatricality to the scale, yet the emotional tone remains intimate.

During LA Art Week, when attention is fragmented and constant, this show demands focus. It rewards viewers who take time to unpack it.

Collectors who are looking beyond surface appeal will spend time here.

Because this exhibition doesn’t rely on the week’s noise.

It stands independently of it.

3. Wolfgang Tillmans: Keep Movin’

Regen Projects

On view through March 1, 2026

🔗 Official gallery link: https://www.regenprojects.com

Some exhibitions feel timely.
Some feel necessary.

Tillmans feels necessary.

Spanning photography, abstraction, video, and installation, the exhibition reminds you how elastic contemporary image-making can be. Intimate portraits sit beside abstract works. Political undercurrents meet formal experimentation.

The show resists a singular reading, which is precisely the point.

And the fact that it closes on March 1 gives it urgency.

If you care about artists who have shaped contemporary visual language over decades, this is not optional. It anchors the week with international weight and conceptual rigor.

4. Peter Schlesinger – Inaugural Exhibition

Mariposa Gallery

Opened February 22, 2026

🔗 Official gallery link:https://www.mariposagallery.com

A new gallery opening during LA Art Week could feel opportunistic.

This one doesn’t.

Mariposa Gallery enters the week with clarity. Schlesinger’s ceramics lean into wit, form, and material intelligence. Sculptural swans, refined surfaces, and carefully considered compositions create a show that feels personal yet polished.

There’s history here, but also freshness.

During a week obsessed with spectacle and scale, this exhibition proves that refinement, craft, and focus can still command attention.

And the energy of a new space opening while the art world watches makes it even more compelling.

5. Leonard Baby

Half Gallery

February 25 – March 10, 2026

🔗 Official gallery link: https://www.halfgallery.com

Set inside Villa Carlotta, this show alters your pace immediately.

The architecture alone shifts how you move — corridors, corners, historic textures. It doesn’t feel like a neutral white cube. It feels lived-in.

The work itself carries emotional directness. Intimate gestures. Personal narratives. A softness that contrasts sharply with the transactional energy of fair week.

And during a week that runs fast, slowing down feels radical.

This is where you recalibrate.

6. Paulo Nimer Pjota

François Ghebaly Gallery

On view during LA Art Week 2026

🔗 Official gallery link: https://www.ghebaly.com

Downtown carries a different gravity during this week.

Ghebaly’s program has long been known for taking risks, and Pjota’s exhibition meets the moment head-on. Large-scale canvases layered with historical references, cultural fragments, and painterly intensity dominate the space.

The works feel both archival and contemporary, collapsing timelines in a way that mirrors the layered energy of LA itself.

You don’t skim this show.

You confront it.

And it reminds you why serious gallery programming still matters even when the fairs dominate attention.

7. Tonia Nneji

RELE Gallery

On view during Frieze Week

🔗 Official gallery link: https://www.rele.co

Melrose Hill has quietly become one of the most interesting micro-neighborhoods in the city during LA Art Week.

Nneji’s exhibition brings emotional intelligence and layered figuration into that space. The compositions explore identity, memory, and lived experience with restraint and clarity.

Nothing feels rushed.

Nothing feels decorative.

In a week saturated with visual stimulation, this show offers nuance.

It’s not loud.

But it lingers long after you leave.

8. Tarini Sethi

Rajiv Menon Contemporary

February 25 – April 4, 2026

🔗 Official gallery link:https://www.rajivmenoncontemporary.com

Sethi’s work resists quick consumption.

Symbolic structures unfold slowly. Mythic references surface subtly. The paintings hold tension between narrative and abstraction, between spiritual symbolism and contemporary presence.

This is a show that demands attention, not because it shouts, but because it withholds.

If you rush, you’ll miss it.

If you stay, it rewards you.

And that’s what separates the essential from the optional during LA Art Week.

Before You Leave LA Art Week

We think that Frieze will give you scale.
The satellite fairs will give you discovery.
The parties will give you access.

But these rooms give you context.

LA Art Week isn’t defined by how many booths you walked. It’s defined by the spaces you chose to enter when no one was directing you there.

It’s defined by the quiet 15 minutes you stood in front of a painting after the noise faded.

It’s defined by the show you didn’t expect to matter but did.

So move.

Step outside the tent.
Cross neighborhoods.
Let the city unfold.

Because LA Art Week only really makes sense when you see it from the inside of these galleries.

And if you leave without walking into them, you’ve only seen half of it.