Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Hayashi Wilder, Emily Small, Jade Ichimura, and Renée Reizman pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Hello Variable West! I’m excited to guide you through Southern California’s art scene for the next six months. To briefly introduce myself, I’m Renée Reizman, an interdisciplinary artist and writer. I work within diverse communities to co-create dialogues and amplify stories about the ways infrastructure and public policy contribute to social inequality, and my writing often highlights arts, culture, and communities that address these same issues.
During my Cliff Notes stint, you’ll likely see me gravitate towards exhibitions that dig into the relationships between humanity and land, our built environment, climate change, emerging technology, oppressive laws, and social justice. While I’m much more drawn to a concept than an artistic medium, I’m also a sucker for fiber arts and I may scan the region for shows lush with precise embroidery, kitschy quilts, funky tapestries, and modern weaving.
Without delaying further, here are my three picks for September
Carmen Argote: gajes del oficio
Pitzer College, Claremont, CA
September 13–December 6, 2025
Argote comes from a family of seamstresses, and it was that craft that helped the Argote family establish financial security when they emigrated from Mexico to the United States. In gajes del oficio, Argote reflects upon her industrial lineage by showcasing scrolls, sculptures, and clothing made from compostable items like fruit and coffee.
I’m most looking forward to seeing her handmade jumpsuits, substitutes for the uniforms her mother and grandmother wore in garment factories. The clothing also represents the attire migrant workers don while picking oranges in California’s citrus farms, or the high-viz safety gear that protects them in the Inland Empire’s network of overheated warehouses. These industries employ many immigrants, who ICE is disappearing off the streets as they commute to and from their workplaces. Argote’s exhibition weighs the types of violence undocumented citizens risk facing: the mundane, daily exploitation in low-wage, backbreaking industries, or the unseen terror that awaits in an ICE detention facility.
Reflection: What skills did you inherit from your family?
Ai Makita: Metabolizing Machine
Baert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
September 13–October 18, 2025
Sometime in the late 90s, in an effort to nourish my childhood dream to become a veterinarian, my dad bought an anatomical model kit called the Visible Dog. It featured a heap of bones and organs, which we arranged, painted, and carefully suspended into a clear acrylic mold of a Boxer. It was a long, arduous project, far too advanced for my age, but when complete, it was a point of pride. My dad eagerly showed it off to every friend and family member who peeked into my bedroom during their visits.
Ai Makita’s stunning oil paintings of machines remind me of the Visible Dog. She manages to paint the sheen of X-ray vision over the tangled mess of bolts, tubes, and motors that make up industrial equipment, as well as the sparkle of chrome and matte surface of a PVC pipe. By zooming in on the guts, Makita makes common machinery look like alien monsters, strange organisms ripe for horrific scientific experiments. With the AI market exploding and ChatGPT convincing people of its sentience, these fantastical interpretations are far from science fiction.
Reflection: What’s the most complex machine in your life?
Rare Earth: Critical Minerals in the USA
Center for Land Use Interpretation, Culver City, CA
Starting August 8, 2025
I’m a CLUI stan, so I had to give a little shoutout to their newest exhibition, which puts a spotlight on Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine, the only rare earth metal mine in the United States. A presentation primarily made up of photography, video, and research documents the importance of this operation and other mining claims in the nation, which have speculators on the hunt for one or more of the 50 minerals the U.S. has deemed critically important to the economy. Though the era of the Gold Rush feels like a thing of the past, prospectors are still very much among us. This time, they’re looking for things like lithium, cerium, and erbium, which are crucial ingredients for things like computer chips, electric vehicle batteries, and fiber optic cables.
Reflection: What is under your feet right now?