January 2022 events calendar for Los Angeles

Dive into literary maps, both figurative in the case of a typescript draft of James Joyce’s Ulysses and literal with J.R.R. Tolkien’s map of Middle Earth, in this collection exhibition from the Huntington Library. Among the 70 items on display, other imaginary maps include Lewis Carroll’s 1876 edition of The Hunting of the Snark, Robert Louis Stevenson’s maps from Treasure Island and Kidnapped and Octavia E. Butler’s maps from notes for Parable of the Talents.

Part singer and part Icelandic force of nature, Björk is returning to L.A. for three inventive nights of ever-astonishing shrieks and croons at the Shrine Auditorium. This time around, she’s teamed up with fimmaker Lucrecia Martel for Cornucopia, what’s being billed as her most elaborate and theatrical concert to date—a tall order considering that her recent tours have featured large all-female choirs, huge video screens, pipe organs, a “gravity harp,” a Tesla coil and narration from David Attenborough.

This vibrant exhibition at LACMA puts the focus on over two centuries of vivid and vital portrayals of Black Americans in portraiture. A mix of mostly paintings with some photographs and sculptures mixed in, the 140 or so works on display all feature Black subjects, dating from as early as 1800 through emancipation, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights and Black Power eras and into today.

“Hayao Miyazaki” features over 300 storyboards, concept images and backgrounds, many of them on display outside of Studio Ghibli’s Tokyo headquarters for the first time. It pulls from the director’s 11 feature films, with a particularly strong tilt toward My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away as well as his lush, enchanted forest settings. Find out more in our full preview of the exhibit.

To mark a decade since the museum’s announcement, the Broad is pulling 57 key pieces acquired during that time period out of its vault. But the most exciting inclusion has to be the return of Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors, a mesmerizing, nine-screen video installation of musicians performing simultaneously in separate rooms of a farmhouse. When you book your ticket, make sure to add on a reservation for Yayoi Kusama’s reopened Infinity Mirrored Room.

The Swiss video artist’s retrospective has turned the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA into a mesmerizing playground of surreal delights. “Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor” crafts a surreal, fully-realized world using projections and furniture that begs for repeat visits.

Raise a glass: The touring production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s immeasurably popular musical is here. Awesome. Wow.

The coming-of-age drag queen musical makes its L.A. debut. Read our five-star review of the London production.

The Academy Museum hosts this six-week program, including a USC symposium and screenings at the museum, that dives into the impact of Jewish, Austrian-born film artists and professionals who shaped Hollywood.

More than 150 wines plus wineries, food trucks, music and a beautiful setting—sounds like a perfect Saturday to us. Uncorked Wine Fest returns to Union Station, sending wine fiends into a frenzy with some incredible varietals. General admission will be able to sip from 6 to 9pm, while VIP gets an extra hour to imbibe starting at 5pm. Tickets include all beverage tastings, with food sold separately.

One fateful afternoon in 1924, Lionel Sternberger contemplated the hamburger he was cooking up at Pasadena’s Rite Spot and thought it needed a little something extra. A simple slice of American cheese later and the cheeseburger was born, spawning hundreds of variations across the country and inspiring Pasadena to celebrate its prodigal son with a week dedicated to all things cheeseburger.

Choose from a few dozen Pasadena restaurants to take advantage of burger deals and special creations and vote in the Cheeseburger Challenge. The annual week-long celebration—which is a mix of takeout and dine-in this year—only confirms what Sternberger knew all along: everything tastes better with cheese.

See early colonial art with pre-Columbian artifacts in this exhibition that re-examines the conquest narrative on the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City).

The Japanese American National Museum marks the 75th anniversary of artist Miné Okubo’s graphic memoir, Citizen 13660, with this visual exhibition. The 1946 illustrated novel captures Okubo’s life in two concentration camps on American soil, and this exhibition includes sketches completed during Okubo’s incarceration at the Tanforan and Topaz detention centers as well as drawings and manuscripts for the memoir.

Space: the final frontier. This is the voyage of a traveling pop culture exhibition. Its latest mission: to stop by L.A.’s Skirball Cultural center. After missing its 2020 debut because of, you know, everything happening here on Earth, “Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds” has finally landed at the Skirball. The exhibition celebrates the sci-fi franchise’s impact on culture, art and technology and its futuristic vision of inclusiveness—but mostly, it shows off some particularly cool Trek relics.

The artist chronicles the lives of the workers at a General Motors plant shutting down after a half century through 67 documentary-style photos and videos, arranged in an assembly-line–like piece of architecture.

This West Coast debut traces the career of legendary scientist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, from her childhood in the U.K. to her years in Africa studying chimpanzees (including a breakthrough discovery of their use of tools) to her current role as an activist and advocate.

Descanso Gardens focuses its attention on its own backyard with an exhibition that chronicles human interaction with the land there from the initial Tongva settlements through today.