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August 2026 Spotify Playlist

Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Spotify Playlist

Aug 312026

Courtney Barnett– One Thing At A Time

Every month I listen to the majority of bands and musicians who are playing in Los Angeles and select some for a monthly playlist. It includes a variety of genres and usually newer work by the artists.

This month includes new music from Together Pangea, Shannon Lay, Iceage, Thee Oh Sees, The Womack Sisters, and a song from the Helado Negro/Reyna Tropical project Helado Tropical.

The song above is from Courtney Barnett‘s 2026 album, Creature of Habit.

Below are my selections for August.

Song of the Day- Mute Swan- “Like A Chump”

Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Spotify Playlist

Aug 312026

Mute Swan- Like A Chump

This song is from Arizona band Mute Swan‘s 2026 album, Skin Slip.

They will be playing at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles on Sunday, 9/6/26, for day two of Sway Festival, with Airiel and Deserta.

Yayoi Kusama (1929-2026)

Art, Artists, Ceramic Art, Collage, Conceptual Art, Design, Fiber Arts, Films, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Performance Art, Sculptors / Sculpture

Aug 282026

Kusama- Infinity- Official Trailer

Yesterday it was announced that Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama passed away on August 14th, at the age of 97. Although she had a long career, she became very popular much later in life for her dot-covered sculptures and paintings, as well as her Infinity Mirror Rooms installations. Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013) and  Longing for Eternity (2017), are currently on view at The Broad in Los Angeles.

Kusama: Infinity, directed by Heather Lenz, follows Kusama’s life from her childhood in the mountain town of Matsumoto, to years trying to build a career in New York in the 1960s, her struggles with mental illness, and later, years after her return to Japan, her tremendous career success. The film is a fascinating portrait of an artist who dedicated so much of her energy into making art.

Delaware Art Shows- “The People’s Gallery” at Delaware Art Museum

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Collage, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Digital Art, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Glasswork, Illustration, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Printmaking, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington

Aug 282026

As part of their programming for the nation’s 250th birthday, Delaware Art Museum is showing the work of local artists in their current exhibition, The People’s Gallery. It is a non-juried exhibition which allowed artists at all levels to contribute work.

It’s a fantastic opportunity to see what this community of artists has created and to purchase local art. Check it out before it closes on 9/6/26.

Delaware Art Shows- “Self, Realized” at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Delaware, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film, Wilmington

Aug 262026

Paintings by E. Lizé

The members of this year’s Artist-in-Residence Cohort (ARC) at The Delaware Contemporary, Mo Berrouet, E.Lizé, and Celeste M. Rodriguez, each explored an element of the self for their culminating exhibition, Self, Realized.

This exhibition was curated by Amber M. Chacana, the first ARC curator-in-residence, and closes on 8/30/26.

Paintings by E. Lizé

E. Lizé’s series is titled Familial World.

E.Lizé is a musical artist and trained visual artist, who paints portraits and scenes dedicated to the Black experience. E.Lizé’s goal is to bridge the gap between predecessors and successors in order to remain a catalyst in preserving Black culture and Black history. E.Lizé is dedicated to archiving and preserving cultural and artistic history. She has a strong interest in tangible history and what it means to inherit it.

Inspired by the women who raised her, E.Lizé created these portraits as a way to honor their legacies and their lives (so far). In doing so, she created a personal archive, marked by her own perspective and care for her family.

Paintings by Mo Berrouet

Mo Berrouet‘s series of work is titled Emotional World.

From the museum:

Mo Berrouet is a visual artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with a BFA from West Chester University. Her work explores themes of mental and physical health, personal narrative, and the complexities of the human experience, expressed through a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, ceramics, and photography.

Berrouet delves into the world of her emotions and how they exist within her body, and how her body exists in relation to her emotions. While her subject matter is personal, the emotions and feelings within them resonate with others. For Berrouet, our collective human experiences inspire her.

Work by Celeste M. Rodriguez

Celeste M. Rodriguez chose Cultural World for this body of work.

From the museum:

Celeste M. Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican-American artist born and raised in Camden, NJ. She received her B.A. in Painting from Rutgers University-Camden. Her work examines the complex relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States through visual storytelling, addressing themes of colonialism, cultural erasure, and resilience. Utilizing video, painting, drawing, sculpture, and collage. She confronts exploitation while honoring Puerto Rican strength. She views art as personal and political, and through her art, reimagines a future for Puerto Rico rooted in dignity and self-determination.

Delaware Art Shows- John Breakey at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Delaware, Painting / Painters, Wilmington

Aug 262026

“Calla Lilly Cloud”, 2024, Acrylic and mediums on stretched linen support

In John Breakey‘s paintings for Passing Each Other, at The Delaware Contemporary, he uses flowers and skies to explore the passing of time.

His statement about the work:

Foreground flowers and background sky move at their own pace and span of life.

Together, composed for specific periods within the day, combined to express captured growth and deliberate movement.

A cloud’s soft color shifts throughout time; they can’t seem to sit still.

And what about the flower? Each blossom evolves, invisibly slow. By days, but finite.

Flowers being what they are, fall.
Clouds, how quickly they can pass.

Like the years, the more one has.
This is my current work; a series that mixes different forms of time.

In the work above, Yellow Calla Lillies (2026) he reorders the panels to explore these ideas even further.

He says this about the painting:

I have an engraving by Aki Kuroda in the studio that speaks quietly to me: Flower X, 2004. Simplicity and grace packed into eight by ten inches. It served as a challenge to make this rendition of lillies more simple. Not graphic, not hard edged like Kuroda’s work but a new version of the work to the immediate right.

There was a deliberate choice to flip the left and right panels: these works are about time.

Two kinds.
Faster as the clouds pass.
Slower; a flower’s young green pigments before moving to dark.

Reordering the panels was my way of asking if moments are what we think they are.
Is how we account for time spent as linear as a best guess recall or something else?

This exhibition closes 8/30/26.

Song of the Day- Indigo De Souza- “Come to God”

Los Angeles Music, Music, Musicians / Bands, Spotify Playlist

Aug 242026

Indigo De Souza- Come to God

Echo Park Rising music festival is back! The FREE two day festival is taking place this weekend at venues around Echo Park in Los Angeles with tons of bands playing– including Indigo De Souza (playing with a long list of bands including Primer, Sedona, and Small Forward at Sticky Rice on Saturday 8/29/26).

The full schedule isn’t up yet on Echo Park Rising’s website, so check their Instagram for the latest.

Flashback- NYC Art Shows- Gladys Nilsson at Matthew Marks Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters

Aug 212026

“Gigantica und der Messerschmitts”, 1965, Acrylic on panel in artist’s frame

“Bird Toy”, 1965, Acrylic on panel in artist’s frame

These paintings were on view in Gladys Nilsson: Honk! Fifty Years of Painting at Matthew Marks Gallery in NYC in the early part of 2020. Nilsson was one of the original members of the Hairy Who, a group of Chicago artists who exhibited together in the mid-1960s.

Now in her 80s, her first museum retrospective, Gleefully Askew, is currently at Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and features paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints from her six decade career. This exhibition is on view until 11/29/26.

For more information, Artforum recently published a great profile of Nilsson in their Summer issue.

Pennsylvania Murals- Jim Houser in Philadelphia

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture, Street Art

Aug 202026

Philadelphia artist Jim Houser created this mural, Wide Open, in 2019 for Mural Arts Philadelphia.

From Mural Arts:

Wide Open by artist Jim Houser features a design that speaks directly to the artist’s view of Philadelphia. Located in the Northern Liberties neighborhood, the mural’s themes include the concept of brotherly love, family and friends, a love of skateboarding and music, and the complex interaction of danger and beauty. The struggle of loss, hope and pride in where one lives intertwine in this striking mural.

His mixed media paintings, seen below, were also recently on view at Philadelphia’s Paradigm Gallery.