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LA Marathon
Photograph: Eleonor Segura for Time OutLA Marathon 2015

Things to do in L.A. this weekend

We pick out the best things to do in L.A. this weekend, including our favorite concerts, culture and cuisine

Michael Juliano
Edited by
Michael Juliano
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We don’t know about you, but our mind is always focused on the weekend. It can never come soon enough—which is why we’re already thinking about what new restaurants we want to try or where we can drive for the day. Whether you’re looking to scope out the latest museum exhibitions or watch a movie outdoors, you’ll find plenty of things to do in L.A. this weekend.

We curate an L.A. weekend itinerary of the city’s best concerts, culture and cuisine, every week, just for you.

The best things to do in L.A. this weekend

  • Things to do
  • USC/Exposition Park

Nature lovers rejoice! Spend a day at the Natural History Museum’s Butterfly Pavilion, which will open from March 17 through August 25 with up to 30 butterfly and moth species and an assortment of California plants. The seasonal outdoor exhibit allows for adults and children alike to witness nature up close—we’re talking having bufferlies take flight and land on your arms or shoulders. Prime time for these unique butterfly flight experiences are between 10 and 11am each morning.

  • Things to do

Support women-owned restaurants and dine at some of L.A.’s best spots during the return of this annual food fest. Regarding HER’s RE:Her festival will offer themed menu specials, convos and collabs from women restaurateurs all month long. Highlights from this year include a paella night featuring Casa Vega and Gasolina Cafe (March 22), a chaat party at Benny Boy Brewing (March 10) and a “chefs of the Arts District” dinner (March 20).

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  • Theater
  • Musicals
  • Hollywood

This John Kander–Fred Ebb–Bob Fosse favorite, revived by director Walter Bobbie and choreographer Ann Reinking, tells the saga of chorus girl Roxie Hart, who murders her lover and, with the help of a huckster lawyer, becomes a vaudeville sensation.

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  • Things to do
  • Markets and fairs
  • Downtown Arts District

Every Sunday you can find dozens of food vendors at this market at ROW DTLA, with a mix of much-loved pop-ups and future foodie stars. Look out for this year’s new vendors, including Basket Taco Co, Battambong Barbecue and Taste of the Pacific.

  • Art
  • Installation
  • Boyle Heights

For one summer in 1987, a carnival popped up in Germany with traditional rides adorned with artwork by Salvador Dalí, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Sonia Delaunay and a couple dozen others. And then… it kind of just vanished, sent off into storage for decades. But now, thanks to a couple of art world partners and Drake, Luna Luna has been revived in L.A., restored and reassembled in a soundstage in Boyle Heights.

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  • Art
  • Painting
  • Beverly Hills

Did this past year’s Basquiat exhibition in DTLA leave you wanting more? Head to Beverly Hills where Gagosian will be displaying 50 rarely loaned Jean-Michel Basquiat pieces that were created in L.A. during the iconic artist’s time spent at his Venice studio between 1982 and 1984.

  • Art
  • Sculpture
  • San Marino

You might’ve noticed Johnson’s beautifully carved and gilded redwood organ screen on recent visits to the Huntington. Now, for the first time in four decades, you can see it paired with other pieces he created for the California School for the Blind in Berkeley, California—with 41 works in total on display.

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  • Art
  • Downtown Arts District

In 1993, artist Charles Gaines mounted “ The Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism,” a UC Irvine gallery show that responded to the country’s cultural and political crises with works from then-up-and-coming Black artists. Now, three decades later, Hauser & Wirth has revived the show in two parts: a small reprise of “The Theater of Refusal” with ’90s pieces from Gaines, Gary Simmons and Lorna Simpson, as well as a larger room that continues the show’s themes with recent works from Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Caroline Kent and more.

  • Art
  • Miracle Mile

Judy Baca’s half-mile–long The Great Wall of Los Angeles, a collaborative mural painted in the ’70s along the Tujunga Wash, has received all sorts of museum love in the past few years. But LACMA has a particularly unique show to boast about: The local Chicana muralist and SPARC artists will paint two new sections of The Great Wall during museum hours. The exhibit also debuts a new section of the wall, in honor of activists known as the Freedom Riders, dubbed Generation on Fire.

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  • Art
  • Contemporary art
  • Downtown

This show at the Broad was supposed to debut in April of 2020 to kicks off the museum’s fifth anniversary, but, you know… the world had other plans. Thankfully, you’ll finally have a chance to see this free collection exhibition with a focus on L.A. artists, including Sayre Gomez, Toba Khedoori, Patrick Martinez and Barbara Kruger alongside an entire gallery dedicated to John Baldessari and Mike Kelley.

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  • Art
  • Hollywood

What does living in L.A. look like? It’s a wildly different picture depending on each Angeleno’s point of view, and so to celebrate that diversity of perspectives, Hollywood gallery Jeffrey Deitch will display pieces from a dozen local artists that delve into underground economies, landscapes, surveillance, backyard hangouts and public transit, among other topics.

  • Art
  • Boyle Heights

Your favorite plush ’80s obsession meets the contemporary art market at this show from Corey Helford Gallery, which features pieces of Care Bears-inspired work by 75 currently working artists. Oh, and of course there’s a pop-up shop as part of the Boyle Heights-area show.

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  • Things to do

Expect to hear plenty of people shouting “you can’t sit with us!” during this Mean Girls-inspired experience in Santa Monica. Each ticket comes with an entree and side (think “Stab” Ceasar salad and cheese fries) in a cafeteria-style setting, plus access to the Cool Mom Bar and plenty of photo ops (like Regina’s bedroom mirror, the Burn Book and the talent show). Find it at 2020 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica.

 

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