Guide Yuntao Xu’s art show in a gas station, LA’s first gallery run for and by Black artists, iris yirei hu’s reliquaries for a dream, and April Bey’s alien tapestries of human life.

October 27, 2026 — 7 min read

April Bey, "The Secrets We Keep, All the Reasons We Never Tell Someone We Love Them, They’re Worthless." (2026), mink, jacquard, metallic brocade, adorned giant clothespins, beads, and bamboo earrings (photo Brica Wilcox, courtesy the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles)

The art community in Los Angeles is digging deep into history this November, excavating and reframing it through novel juxtapositions and archival findings. Isabelle Frances McGuire tackles the Salem Witch Trials with a video game that bears uneasy relevance to our current age of creeping authoritarianism (just in time for next week’s midterms). Milano Chow draws on the archives of the LA Public Library to create ghostly architectural facades that seem at once familiar and foreign.…