Courtesy of the artist and Duncan Miller Gallery

Danny Lyon: Cal, Elkhorn, Wisconsin (1968)

"Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders" at Duncan Miller Gallery's Bergamot Station location is one of the most engaging -- and surprising -- photography shows of the past year. Featuring 50 prints from Lyon's landmark 1968 book of the same name, "The Bikeriders" documents four years, 1963-67, during which the artist embedded himself in the daily life of the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle gang.

Armed with a Triumph, a Nikon, and a unique dual perspective as both participant and observer, Lyon was able to access and portray a disarmingly intimate, familiar, and diverse subculture full of family picnics, independent women, and openly gay men -- a sweet brand of Americana that infuses a little Norman Rockwell into its prescient, pre-Easy Rider nostalgia.

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Photo: Noel Bass, Courtesy of the Craft and Folk Art Museum

Ehren Tool's ceramic cups that evoke an army

When it comes to art addressing the violence of armed combat, you might not at first think of ceramic cups. But the use of this delicate, handmade medium to address the horrors of war and the bitterness of wartime propaganda is more than an emotionally powerful bit of irony in the Craft and Folk Art Museum's current exhibition, "Ehren Tool: Production or Destruction."

Tool is a former Marine, and a veteran of the first Gulf War, whose artistic endeavors of the past 20 years has been an attempt to come to terms with the human consequences of military conflict. Tapping into art-historical and folk traditions whereby ceramic vessels are seen as metaphorical avatars of the human body, Tool references the regimentation of combat formations like squads and platoons by creating more than 1000 pieces in total.

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Photo by Brian Forrest, courtesy of MOCA

Installation view of The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Andy Warhol at MOCA Grand Avenue, April 29--August 20, 2012

The exhibit "The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Warhol," which is up at MOCA's Grand Ave location through August 20, is a big, breezy show that borders on eye candy. On balance, it succeeds at making a case for taking an interest in contemporary abstract act -- but it's not all that clear what it has to do with Warhol. Even the several luxuriously gorgeous Warhols in the show are kind of off-brand.

But none of that matters once you get to the side gallery hung with large-scale paintings on paper by the duo DAS INSTITUT (Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder).

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Courtesy of LACDA

Pia Myrvold's Flow, a digital video wall installation

In a world where creative individuals increasingly work in a cluster of disciplines -- actors sing in bands, rock stars paint, poets take up performance art, architects explore couture, rappers write books, etc. -- Norwegian painter, fashion and architectural designer, installation and electronic media artist Pia Myrvold is still a remarkably industrious polyglot.

Her current exhibition, "Immersion" at LACDA, is derived from the large-scale installation Flow: A Work in Motion, staged in Italy as a satellite of the 2011 Venice Biennale, and focuses exclusively on digital art.

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Carol Cheh

From 'Everyman's Infinite Art' at Chapman University's Guggenheim Gallery

The big wave of Pacific Standard Time shows that opened in September are starting to close, so the game is on to see the ones you want to see before they're gone. "Now Dig This!," for example, was totally packed with eager visitors this past Saturday, its second to last day at the Hammer Museum. And yesterday, I made the trek out to the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University to see "Everyman's Infinite Art," a true gem of a little show, tucked deep behind the orange curtain, and filled with whimsy, history, and delight.

The last day of the exhibition is this Saturday, Jan. 14. But theoretically speaking, you don't actually have to go see it. "Everyman's Infinite Art," originally mounted at Chapman in 1966 by artist and then-art department chair Harold Gregor, was a charming early entry in the language-based conceptual art sweepstakes. It primarily consisted of a published set of instructions for making the exhibition out of commonly available materials such as masking tape, ping-pong balls, juice cans, and boxes of envelopes. The instructions were clear and simple but could be installed in a number of ways, for example: "Ten yardsticks lined end to end. A stack of twenty-four white styrofoam coffee cups, open end down." And so on.

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Photo: Nick David. Courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London.

Still from Marcus Coates' 30-minute video Journey to the Lower World

The two-channel video work Journey to the Lower World by British artist Marcus Coates is a high point in an exceptionally engaging exhibition closing today at Pitzer College Art Galleries in Claremont. (You can still see the video online.)

"Synthetic Ritual," curated by the international team of Gabi Scardi and Ciara Ennis, gathers a group of artists hailing from L.A. to South Africa to Albania to Israel for an investigation of how faith and ritual manifest themselves in our daily lives -- sports allegories, for example, figure prominently, as do more secular superstitions and remarkable behaviors.

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Josh White, courtesy Honor Fraser Gallery

Totally doesn't doesn't do its awesomeness justice. But cool...

Shipsearching, Mie Olise's awesome treehouse of an artwork at Honor Fraser gallery, stole the opening-night-in-Culver-City scene for me. You may be wondering, what's a treehouse of an artwork? Is that some newfangled whipper-snapper term for awesome? No, that would make me redundant.

A treehouse of an artwork is one you climb up and sit inside, as if hiding from the world below, with your trusty sleeping bag for comfort, while spying on the gallery-goers below through the spaces between wood slats.

Maybe "treehouse" isn't exactly the vibe it's going for, as the didactic says that Shipsearching speaks to the "intimate and poetic experience of being onboard a ship during a journey." That it does, too. There's a picture of a sailboat projected inside the constructed space.

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Eve Weston

Which roll to use?

"Lady Wrestling, 'the video tape,'" anyone? How 'bout taking in some "John Sex and Co. Burlesque"? These were just some of the posters screaming at me during the opening of Royal/T Café's "East Village West" recently.

The place was a virtual provocativity-off: cocaine and heroine salt and pepper shakers, a kids picture book teaching first words through graffiti, a pre-fab breakup letter on a hanky, because we all know (s)he's gonna cry over you. And that was just the gift shop. Mister purple mannequin wearing tinsel in his banana-hammock was stuck behind plexiglass during the real show, which included Drag King Mo B. Dick as John Sex and a trio of Psych-out Dada go-go dancers.

Now, if that's just "another Tuesday night in WeHo" to me, maybe I've been in L.A. too long. But honestly, what I found most provocative was in stall number two. The art wasn't displayed in stalls. I'm talking about the bathroom.

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courtesy of Saber

Artist/activist Saber has never been one to do anything in a "small" way as evidenced by his world record holding graffiti piece on the L.A. River -- done in 1997 and visible from space before it was buffed last year. His latest projects are no exception. A couple weeks ago he unleashed a genius skywriting campaign over city hall to try to end the L.A. County mural moratorium and this week he joined forces with Occupy L.A. to contribute his Protest Flag, a 32 x 16 ft flag that divides into 64 separate protest signs, with slogans like "Bail Out Skid Row," "Ass, Cash or Grass, Republicans Ride For Free" and "Art Is Not a Crime."

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Courtesy M+B

Matthew Brandt, CHCE0101, 2011, etched copper and fiberglas

I first encountered Matthew Brandt's work when he was still a graduate student at UCLA. During the 2007 open studios, he had his portrait series tacked up on the wall -- photographic images of people he knew, made using the old-timey method of salted paper prints, and incorporating the subject's bodily fluids in the development process.

Thus, the portrait of Jackie contained traces of her skin oil, while the portrait of George held bits of his vomit. It was a memorable body of work that deftly infected the staid tradition of portraiture with the poignancy of the abject and the everyday.

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