Jennifer Lawrence in X-Men: First Class

Plenty of people walk around Los Angeles in various states of undress, but not many know what it's like to show up somewhere clothed only in paint. Yet body painting is alive and well in our fair city, practiced by a handful of artists who varnish nude or nearly nude models for film, commercials and events ... or just for their own artistic expression.

We tracked down three such pigment slingers to find out how they work, and what it's like to coat the canvas of a living body.

More >>

Shannon Cottrell

Zes

Zes, aka Zeser, aka Zes AWR/MSK, is a Los Angeles graffiti artist with a feral stare that you might only notice in serial killers or creative geniuses. He has been one of L.A.'s most prolific taggers for many years. If you look up every now and again, you may have noticed his burners in back alleys or on the ledges of buildings in Echo Park, but until very recently, you wouldn't see his work in a gallery. And, if he had had his way, you weren't going to.

More >>

Photo by Rick Escueta

Fire Walk With Me title wall, featuring An Old Woman and Her Grandson by Josh Agle (aka Shag)

Twenty years ago auteur filmmaker David Lynch elicited delight and (mostly) rancor from fans by making a film based on his critically successful TV series Twin Peaks called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Only the staunchest of Twin Peaks fans seemed to appreciate the way the film amplified the TV series' elements of surrealism and supernatural horror while painting it a darker shade and removing much of the show's humor.

That said, there was nothing about the Saturday opening of the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me 20th anniversary art show at pop surrealist hub Copro Gallery to suggest that only hard-core FWWM fans were in attendance. It seems that a Lynch-head is a Lynch-head, whether your preference lies only with Blue Velvet and Eraserhead or whether it spans Lynch's entire body of artistic work to include Crazy Clown Time, Dune and his early AFI short films.

More >>

Overduin and Kite

James Lee Byars' The Red Tent (1989) and The Chair for the Philosophy of Question (1996)

The artists on this week's list have endearing idiosyncrasies: James Lee Byars' obsession with the perfect atmosphere, Cai Guo-Qiang's spiritual pyromania and Dasha Sishkin's perverse approach to glamour.

5. Clothing-optional fantasies
If Shel Silverstein, who brought the same twisted humor to his children's books that he brought to his Playboy cartoons, had collaborated with stylishly dark Truman Capote, the results might have been something like Dasha Sishkin's paintings at Susan Vielmetter Projects. These crudely glamorous images show topless or bottomless figures with Pinocchio noses and eyes on their behinds immersed in one long, confusing party. 6006 Washington Blvd., Culver City; through May 12. (310) 837-2117, vielmetter.com.

More >>

Courtesy Cardwell Jimmerson

Ben Sakoguchi's "Untitled" painting from 1968

The lineup is excitingly diverse this week: a reprise of Christian Marclay's now-famous 24-hour film, some lush landscape, a little-known L.A. painter, art like a vintage horror movie and (hopefully) not-boring performance.

5. Landscapes for inmates
Kelly Poe's photographs of rural landscapes are almost too pretty -- deep blue desert skies and forest floors so lush they seem like fantasies. They are fantasies, in a way, since Poe made these images after seeking out seven environmental and animal-rights activists who had been labeled domestic terrorists and imprisoned. She corresponded with the activists, asking them about the most comforting outdoor places they remembered; then she tracked down those places and tried to make her photographs of them as mesmerizing as they were in the activists' descriptions. At LAX Art, you can view the images and read the sometimes arduous correspondence between the artist and inmates with too much passion and time on their hands. 2640 S. La Cienega Blvd., L.A.; through April 14. (310) 559-0166, laxart.org.

More >>

Santa Monica Museum of Art

The VIP group rushes into the gallery at the Santa Monica Museum of Art's eighth annual Incognito

In Incognito, a 1997 romance that posed as a thriller, the Jason Patric who once ran off with Julia Roberts stars as an art forger. The forger naturally has to be "incognito" because he's a wanted man (he's forged a Rembrandt, which is never a good idea). He discovers he's been dating an "incognito" art expert, and the plot unwinds until every "incognito" character has been revealed and all suspicions confirmed in one way or another. None of these reveals is at all shocking, but without them there would be no movie.

"Incognito" means something similar at Santa Monica Museum of Art's annual Incognito benefit. The museum held its eighth such benefit Saturday and, as always, the artists' names were concealed. This way, as museum director Elsa Longhauser has said since she began the event in 2004, buyers can "trust their instincts" and not be bowled over by an artist's fame -- or potential resale value.

More >>

Courtesy Young Art

David Nemeroff and Cara Benedetto's work False Start

This week's list offers artists making rules, breaking rules or trying to figure out what the rules even are. It also includes a walking tour.

5. War against the photograph
Around 2004, painter David Hockney, famous for slick, smart renderings of SoCal swimming pools and uncomfortably posed socialites, regressed. He began taking easel and paints out into the Yorkshire woods, marrying impressionism with plein air. He did this because he'd become convinced painters as far back as the Renaissance had used mirrors and lenses to aid their work. Since the 1400s, he figured, no one has just looked without the help of equipment. Bruno Wollheim's film David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, which screens at LACMA this week, follows Hockney as he tries to escape the influence of the camera. 5905 Wilshire Blvd.; Mon., March 19, 7 p.m.; $10, $7 for museum members. (323) 857-6010, lacma.org.

More >>

Tanja M. Laden

Wilshire Boulevard Temple

If you've ever cruised along Wilshire Boulevard between Western and Vermont, you've probably noticed a massive, domed structure at Hobart Avenue, kitty-corner to an indoor golf driving-range. That building is the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, aka the Best Jewish Reform Synagogue Built by Hollywood, according to our 2011 Best of L.A. issue.

You might have also noticed that, these days, the temple is covered in scaffolding -- signs the 1929 landmark is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar renovation. The large-scale extended project includes a cleaning and restoration of the Warner Murals, commissioned by none other than Jack, Harry and Albert Warner, otherwise known as the Warner Bros. The artist, Hugo Ballin, would have been a whopping 133 years old today, so what better time to revisit his work than the present?

More >>

Photo by Brian Forrest.

Installation shot of Mike Kelley's Silver Ball

This week's list includes a tribute, disguise, displacement, hoarder and megalith. It runs the gamut, in other words.

5. Banana face
Urs Fischer likes obstructions and disguises. Better yet are obstructions that double as disguises. For his exhibition at Gagosian in Beverly Hills, he's blown up vintage head shots of celebrities to epic proportions, Photoshopped them so they look contemporary, then obscured their faces with discordant objects: eyebolts, bananas, sliced-open peppers. 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills. (310) 271-9400, gagosian.com.

More >>

Susan Vielmetter Projects

Still from Stanya Kahn's

Our list this week includes not just a video with someone dressed in a penis costume but also Ellsworth Kelly, a hidden Koreatown gallery and the ubiquitous Judy Chicago.

5. Making money sing
CamLab, the two-person troupe Anna Mayer and Jemima Wyman, wants art to be social, spontaneous and sensual, preferably all at once. They've staged two performances at MOCA since 2012 began, one of which involved rainbow pajamas and a bedroom installed in front of Rothko paintings. Their third and final performance is Thursday. Called Two in the Bush, it will include "instrumentalizing" money, so that currency actually produces sound, plus handcrafted costumes and a set by supersincere Highland Park band Hotel La Rut. 250 S. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Thurs., March 1, 7-10 p.m. (213) 626-6222, moca.org/party/camlab/.

More >>