Alex Israel, "As It Lays"

This Los Angeles artist by way of Yale has said that L.A. itself is his subject, and indeed his work—which includes painting, sculptures, videos and his own line of designer sunglasses named for the city's freeways—does suggest a stylish send-up of every aesthetic preconception of la-la land, be it high-cultural (the L.A. Cool School, John Baldessari) or low (Hollywood).