Courtesy of the artist

Daido Moriyama's photograph Untitled (2011)

This week, artist and sunglasses designer Alex Israel debuts the talk show he shot in the Pacific Design Center, trombonists perform in a downtown art space, and fringe physicists reinvent gravity.

5. They're a collective, not a choir
The trombone is purportedly the brass instrument with a range closest to the human voice -- it's like a Southern preacher, only "with greater amplitude," said poet James Weldon Johnson. It's also one of the oldest instruments. "Trombone choirs" are old things, too, with centuries' worth of arrangements made just for them. But because the Los Angeles Trombone Collective is expressly not a choir, it avoids all of this. Its members favor retooled trombone solos or music not meant for trombone at all. This weekend, at alt-art space the Wulf, the collective will interpret John Cage and debut new live trombone electronica. 1026 S. Sante Fe Ave., #203, dwntwn.; Sat., May 19, 7:30 p.m. (213) 488-1182, thewulf.org.

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Terry Richardson's James Franco in Drag, Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW Gallery

Franco poses in drag for fashion photographer Terry Richardson, as part of the "Rebel" exhibit currently on display at JF Chen.

"There's just a lot of dicks in there. A lot of porno," painter Ty Williams says, shaking his head. "But I get it, though. I understand the prevalence of penises."

We're standing in the alleyway behind JF Chen, a collectible-furniture showroom and exhibit space, at the opening party for "Rebel," an off-site MOCA multimedia extravaganza produced by the world's most famous grad student, James Franco, in collaboration with an all-star cast of contemporary artists, including Ed Ruscha, Aaron Young, Terry Richardson, Paul McCarthy and Douglas Gordon.

Though Franco was somehow involved in all of the projects shown here, and his ongoing obsession with the sexual secrets and adolescent turmoil behind James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause drives the exhibit, the lineup of bigwigs confers an air of legitimacy lacking at some of Franco's previous shows and stunts.

The exhibit itself has been impressively built-out, looking like a soundstage resembling the Chateau Marmont, with videos playing in individual bungalows and shrubbery strewn with blow-up sex dolls and other detritus referencing the art.

And yes, there were a number of penises on display inside, as Franco and his partners grappled with the pent-up, feverish sexuality of adolescence by exploring, among other themes, the homoerotic tension on-screen in the 1955 film, Dean's real-life bisexuality and a smattering of behind-the-scenes affairs that reportedly took place before and during the shooting of the movie.

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Courtesy the artist, Participant Inc. and LAXART

Installation view of Laura Parnes' County Down

"These people don't have friends, Angel. They have interests, and don't you forget it," Tanya tells her co-conspirator in the opening sequence of artist Laura Parnes' new film County Down. Angel, the precocious rebel-genius played by Stephanie Vella, has just designed a pink hallucinogenic called Quix, packaged in baby bottles and distributed to other teens in their posh gated community. Her popularity has skyrocketed, especially since all the adults in the neighborhood seem to be going slowly mad and anxiety among teens is at a high point. "Right now, it's in their interests to respect us," Tanya adds.

County Down, feature-length and animated using rotoscoping, a technique that turns live action into cartoon, is screening now at LAXART in Culver City amidst paraphernalia from its making, and it's set to be released as a series of webisodes once the LAXART show closes.

The whole thing is very '90s -- it looks like a video game informed by rave culture, anime, McMansions and Clinton-era oblivion. Its protagonist, Angel, could be a composite of a slightly snazzed-up Daria from MTV and Christina Ricci's Wendy from The Ice Storm -- she's different, dark, sassy, smart and maybe dangerous. She has heavy blue eye makeup and a vintage schoolgirl wardrobe, and she's in over her head.

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Susan Vielmetter Projects

Karl Haendel's drawing Tired Dylan (2008)

[Update: This article previously referred to the MOCA festival curated by Mike D as a fundraiser for the museum. Mercedes sponsored the exhibit, but it was not intended as a fundraiser. The item has been corrected below.]

A festival run by a rapper, a Cadillac in a gallery, a soap opera cast with women in white, "taking account of oneself" taken to its extremes: It feels like spring.

5. So what'cha what'cha what'cha want
Until May 6, the Beastie Boy's Mike D is moonlighting as a MOCA curator. He's organized a festival of audio-video art at MOCA. Backed by Mercedes Benz, the festival has no admissions charge and will, MOCA hopes, bring in several thousand visitors. The artist line-up includes Public Fiction, which is the name of the experimental space Lauren Mackler runs in Highland Park. Mackler has orchestrated her own, quirky festival-within-a-festival at the Geffen. She'll present a panel on cults, a set by electronic improvisers NGUZUNGUZU and a broadcast by homeless, artist-run radio station KChung. 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo; events daily through May 6. (213) 626-6222, moca.org.

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Adam Friedman

The new Tree of Testimony exhibit at the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust

Last week was Yom HaShoah, the official day of Holocaust remembrance, a commemoration with good intentions that nonetheless brings up feelings of ambivalence in many Jews I know.

One friend remarked, "Every day is Holocaust remembrance day at my house," indicating she does not share her parents' passion for the subject. Another friend claimed it had been discussed at her Jewish middle school so often that she didn't engage with the subject or talk about it for nearly 10 years afterwards. Though we want to remember the Holocaust, sometimes you can't help feeling desensitized if you talk about it too often.

But no matter how frequently you'd like to deeply consider the Holocaust, a particularly meaningful way to do it is by visiting the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust's new Tree of Testimony exhibit, which opened this past weekend.

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The Box L.A.

Leigh Ledare's Double Bind (2010)

Pacific Standard Time, that half-year, regionwide paean to L.A.'s art history, officially ends on March 31. A show of vintage photographs and one last performance event send it off. Everything else on this week's list is forward-looking.

5. Rebel with a camera
When MOCA staged its big Dennis Hopper retrospective in 2010, it showed glossy, blown-up versions of Hopper's The Fort Worth 400. The exhibit included none of the vintage, 6-by-9-inch 1960s prints of hippies, artists, the Kennedys, Warhol and roadways. Small, scuffed, yellowed and animated by time, these prints by the guy who seemed to be everywhere and know everyone are at Craig Krull Gallery as part of Pacific Standard Time. 2525 Michigan Ave., #B-3, Santa Monica; through April 17. (310) 828-6410, craigkrullgallery.com.

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Courtesy of the artist

A view of Natalie Bookchin's "Now he's out in public and everyone can see"

After Tiger Woods ran into a fire hydrant and his wife pulled him bleeding and unconscious from his Escalade, and after he withdrew from tournaments and admitted to serial infidelity, vloggers talked about it. Artist Natalie Bookchin, whose other projects had already dragged her deep into the pile of "junk, not-junk and precious material" that is YouTube, came across some of these Tiger-Woods-reaction vlogs. They fascinated and frightened her, and so she searched for more.

"People were taking on different voices" -- sometimes impersonating characters in the story -- "and saying things like, 'He used to be white, now he's black,'" she says. That had always been a frustration with Tiger, his refusal to just be "black." "Cablinasian," he once called himself (a word he coined to combine caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian). But now that he'd been sexualized by media scandal, no one could overlook his blackness, some vloggers pointed out. Vloggers also "kept slipping," Bookchin found. "They'd be talking about Woods, then suddenly about Barack Obama."

"Now he's out in public and everyone can see," Bookchin's installation in a darkened gallery at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), is the culmination of a project that started with Woods and lasted the next two and a half years. Bookchin watched, archived, edited and then repurposed YouTube videos in which people, speaking into webcams from bedrooms, kitchens or offices, expounded on scandals around well-known African-American men.

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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.

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From Ze Frank's Kickstarter page, in which he wants to revive The Show -- "Same same, but different"

Ze Frank sometimes makes you feel a little stupid. But it's not on purpose -- he's pretty brilliant. In case you've forgotten, Frank was the occasionally singing, speed-talking, non-blinking (he edited out his blinks) online genius from The Show, an early exercise in interactive Internet video intellect, creativity and pop culture. When The Show's one-year run ended in 2007, it had a legion of fans called "Sportsracers" and its own universe of in jokes (i.e., the running fool, duckies and an "earth sandwich," where two people on opposite sides of the earth put bread on the ground).

Setting up on Kickstarter a few weeks ago, Frank began to create what he hopes will evolve into an alternate reality game/show/experience of sorts. We say "of sorts" because Frank's not entirely sure what will happen. We'll get to that in a minute.

Ending Friday, Frank's wildly successful Kickstarter campaign lasted 10 days and included his signature absurd whimsy. (Don't you dare call it "twee" -- the man has an Ivy League degree in neuroscience, after all.) He promised his backers all sorts of Ze Frank-style oddities in return for their contributions, including but not limited to: jars into which Frank himself will whisper words of encouragement, plastic babies that might not "grow up into a Ken doll" without your support, signed signatures, potato stamp art, black-on-black ducky T-shirts, and tons of The Show swag. If you're confused, don't worry, he's more than adept at explaining it -- cool college professor adept.

Basically, Frank's got some new shit up his sleeve and it will blow your mind -- and he told us all about it.

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Courtesy of the artist

Ming Wong as both detective J.J. Gittes and mogul Noah Cross in his film Making Chinatown

The final scene of Roman Polanski's 1974 film Chinatown is the only one actually set in Chinatown. The others take place in downtown offices, fancy clubs, Hollywood houses or Valley groves. But even though the last scene was shot on location, in the real Chinatown, Spring Street has been emptied of life and all you see are the funny, small storefronts that look stylized enough to be on a studio lot. So when artist Ming Wong shot his own Chinatown, he staged the last scene in front of a blank backdrop. "I figured I could not be more fake than the original L.A. Chinatown," says Wong, "so we shot in the black, in the 'unknown,' in the non-place."

For "Making Chinatown," his exhibition at downtown's RedCat art space, Singapore-born, Berlin-based Wong turned the galleries into a fake studio back lot. He made large-format prints of stills and props from Polanski's film, attached them to plywood backboards and rebuilt the sets in 2-D.

Then he filmed in the gallery, playing every main role himself -- Jack Nicholson's detective J.J. Gittes, Faye Dunaway's femme fatale Mrs. Mulwray, Mrs. Mulwray's daughter Katherine and her billionaire father Noah, all connected by blood, sex or both. This means sometimes he's in bed with a blond-wigged version of himself, sometimes he's arguing with himself or slapping himself across the face. "The figures reflect themselves like in a hall of mirrors," says Wong, who's of Chinese descent, "and their being 'Chinese' whilst there are all these references to the 'mysterious' Chinatown further adds to the complexity. ... Sometimes, you can't tell what's going on."

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