Free events in LA: The best free things to do in the city

The acclaimed Chinese artist kicks off a flurry of activity in L.A. with this takeover of the Marciano’s massive theater gallery, including Ai’s floor-covering “Sunflower Seeds,” which features millions of porcelain seeds, as well as the similar but smaller “Spouts,” a pile of thousands of Song dynasty teapot spouts. “Life Cycle” also marks the premiere of its namesake work, a nearly 60-foot inflatable raft made entirely from bamboo. Inspired by the European refugee crisis, the work employs traditional kite-making techniques to create its passengers, which are often pulled from the signs of the Chinese zodiac—such figures also factor into the astounding mythological mobiles and creatures that surround the black box space.

The most fun part about Invader’s tile mosaics is finding one. There, on an otherwise unassuming block of Los Angeles, is a candy-colored, pixelated Space Invaders minion affixed to a brick wall. So how does a formal gallery show, in this case a career-spanning survey at the Arts District’s Over the Influence, go about preserving that sense of unexpectedness? By covering an entire wall with over 50 new editions of Invader’s out-in-the-wild mosaics. The result, as part of “Invader: Into the White Cube,” is a Where’s Waldo?-like experience of picking out pop culture references, where Hokusai, Captain American, the Smurfs and Super Mario World can all fit comfortably together. You’ve undoubtedly seen Invader’s work. His tile mosaics have not-so-legally graced the sides of buildings across the globe, including 200 works that’ve been installed in L.A. since 1999. This near-20-year anniversary is observed with a row of updated editions of the Los Angeles Invasion Guide, complete with very-L.A. tile mosaic covers (think: the Dude, a cannabis leaf, film iconography). In addition, the exhibition features the premiere of a new series of paintings from the artist’s studio practice. You’ll find the same signature characters, just translated onto a canvas (and, in one case, with the local-favorite addition of a low-res avocado). Now, Invader’s work is heading inside for a career-spanning survey at Over the Influence. The solo exhibition, L.A.’s first in over a decade, will feature ove

Find yourself transported to another realm—at least, if Alexander Calder’s monochromatic abstract sculptures are working as intended—in this survey of 30 of the artist’s “nonspace” pieces. Hauser & Wirth’s stark white gallery provides the perfect high-contrast backdrop for Calder’s all-black metallic sculptures (save for one with a few spots of color); the pieces weren’t purposely curated for their darkness, though, it was simply Calder’s favorite color to worth with. You’ll also find five massive sculptures in the gallery’s courtyard, often with matching maquettes to view inside.

In this dream pairing that you never even knew you needed, artist and director Julian Rosefeldt teams up with actor Cate Blanchett for a 13-channel video installation in which she reads famous artists’ manifestos. To say that Blanchett is simply reading the manifestos, though, would undersell how incredibly she inhabits each fictional character (whether as a scientist, a puppeteer or a homeless man) as she spouts reedited versions of writings from the likes of Claes Oldenburg, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Sol LeWitt and Wassily Kandinsky.

Ragnar Kjartansson’s mesmerizing, musical video installation The Visitors returns as part of this free exhibition about the passage of time. The show includes more than 50 works from the likes of Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Glenn Ligon and Anselm Kiefer. The exhibition also marks the L.A. debut of works from Sharon Lockhart, Sherrie Levine and Ed Ruscha, whose monumental diptych Azteca/Azteca in Decline will be on display.

Seasoned photographer and author Joel Sartore has contributed to National Geographic magazine for over two decades. Now, Angelenos will have a chance to see a glimpse of his stunning photos of some of the world’s most threatened species with this selection of 100 large-format prints. Sartore’s Photo Ark project has brought him to over 40 countries to capture portraits of 8,000 species in his quest to catalog all of the world’s animals before they disappear.

The Beverly Hills gallery, which received an architectural overhaul from Ai Weiwei, hosts a solo show that includes the artist’s hundreds of the artist’s interlocking, marble grass-like works.

A complement to MOCA’s retrospective, this gallery show assembles Leonard’s 412 photographs of storefronts and objects on the brink of obsolescence at the turn of the millennium.