MOCA is pleased to present a 35-year retrospective of painter Kerry James Marshall, co-organized by the MCA Chicago, MOCA, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art under the leadership of MOCA’s Chief Curator Helen Molesworth. Marshall’s figurative paintings have been joyful in their consistent portrayal of African Americans. The now nearly 600 year history of painting contains remarkably few African American painters and even fewer representations of black people. Marshall, a child of the civil rights era, set out to redress this absence. “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters,” Marshall has said, “and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility. You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it. That determined a lot of where my work was going to go…”

Over 180 ancient glass objects from the collection of Erwin Oppenländer are featured in this exhibition.

Sometimes artists make the best curators. And sometimes galleries organize better exhibitions than museums.

Both happen with “Roll Call: 11 Artists From Los Angeles” at L.A. Louver. Organized by Gajin Fujita, the exhibition reprises “Art in the Streets,” an overblown extravaganza that the Museum of Contemporary Art organized in 2011. In that half-baked sprawl, the art all but disappeared into City Walk-style displays and social events.