Hammer Museum

Tackling issues like immigration rights, workers’ rights, climate justice and women’s rights, the work of Los Angeles artist Andrea Bowers is nearly always imbued with a message. Her latest exhibition at the Hammer Museum (which debuted in Chicago) assembles a collection of work that documents decades of activism, including a Radical Feminist Pirate Ship Tree-Sitting Platform and a video piece that features Indigenous rights activists fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline project.

Everyone’s favorite NPR member station has a hand in a slew of summer concert slates at public plazas and beloved museums, and this summer’s schedule is particularly packed. Familiar KCRW DJs and local buzz bands will be providing free, open-air tunes on select nights from July through September at the Hammer Museum, One Colorado, CAAM, Descanso Gardens, Bowers Museum, the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, JANM and—our favorite—the party-till-midnight bashes at Chinatown Central Plaza. This year’s lineup features Ambar Lucid, Hana Vu and Mark de Clive-Lowe, among others, and KCRW DJs including Anthony Valadez, Jason Bentley, Novena Carmel and more. The details slightly differ at each spot, but you can typically expect a bunch of food trucks, beer gardens and after-hours museum admission. Regardless of the location, you really can’t go wrong with any evening spent at Summer Nights.