Upcoming Events, May 2026 - Please Join Us!
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Events
Posted May 03, 2026
Events
Posted Apr 24, 2026
Brad Donenfeld Book Signing and Discussion for "Looking. Seeing," Saturday, April 25th from 4:00 to 6:00 PM!
Please join us Saturday, April 25th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM as we host a book signing and discussion with Los Angeles-based artist and photographer Brad Donenfeld in conjunction with the publication of Looking. Seeing. Beautifully produced and printed, it is a comprehensive survey of fifty years of his creative visual work beginning with his iconic sixties headshop poster Peace Man - produced as a teenager - through his own recent personal color photography. He will be joined for what promises to be a thought-provoking discussion of his artistic evolution with gallerist and art consultant Eli Consilvio. If you cannot attend and would like to purchase a signed and numbered limited edition copy of Looking. Seeing., please place your order here.
Book of the Day
Posted Mar 28, 2026
Book of the Day: "Tempo Redux" by Sean Maung
The East Hollywood gay (and more) bar Club Tempo is a genuine L.A. institution, and friend of Arcana Sean Maung has a new zine out of his photographs taken at Tempo—which has been a longtime subject of his. Fun! Joy! Companionship! It is our book of the day. (self-published, 2026)
Book of the Day
Posted Mar 19, 2026
Book of the Day: "Modern Barragan"
"Modern Barragán is a personal book that unfolds and recounts multiple encounters the contemporary Mexican artists Lake Verea have had with Luis Barragán's oeuvre since 2006. This book unveils photographic depictions of the architect's work and private spaces as a tribute and a celebration, an anthem of love and admiration. While spending time in his private home, as enthusiastic aficionados enchanted by the elements of his house, the game unfolds. In his home, the artists' quest was to get as close as possible, so close as to caress the walls and floors. The artists measured their own bodies with his, sat in his chairs, opened his closets, listened in silence and kissed in the enchanted garden. The house is portrayed in daylight, under the light of the full moon, by streetlight, in thunderstorms, using flash and by rubbing the walls and floors with aluminum sheets to reveal its history through the textures." Book of the Day. (Hatje Cantz, 2026)
Events
Posted Mar 01, 2026
Brandon Ruffin: Migration Patterns - Book Signing + Discussion - Saturday, 3/7/26, 4:00 - 6:00 !
Please join us at Arcana on Saturday, March 7th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM for a discussion about and celebration of Brandon Ruffin's book Migration Patterns.
If you aren't able to attend on Saturday, you can order a signed copy of Migration Patterns here.
If you aren't able to attend on Saturday, you can order a signed copy of Migration Patterns here.
Rooted in personal history and collective memory, Migration Patterns offers a powerful reflection on the enduring presence of Southern Black culture in Northern California; particularly in the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and Ruffin’s hometown, Richmond.
The project opens with Siobhan, a poem by Enjoli Flynn-Ruffin, and is accompanied by an essay from journalist and cultural critic Pendarvis Harshaw. Together, these texts frame the book not simply as a collection of photographs, but as a lyrical meditation on legacy, migration, and the evolving meaning of home.
As a descendant of Louisianans who moved west during the Great Migration, Ruffin explores how culture is carried across distance and time. How it adapts, resists erasure, and remains encoded in language, movement, and ritual. Rather than illustrating history in a didactic sense, Migration Patterns moves with a quiet intimacy, allowing traces of Southern identity to surface through atmosphere, memory, and presence.
Woven into the work is a contemplative tension between life and death, between arrival and departure. Ruffin stands in the stillness of both birth and mourning, asking what it means not only to migrate across land, but also across spiritual thresholds. In this sense, Migration Patterns becomes not just a document of physical relocation, but a reflection on the migrations we each undergo: into being, into legacy, and eventually, into memory.
The work is especially attuned to the emotional terrain of transition. It considers what is lost and what endures when communities are displaced or transformed, and how those shifts impact one’s sense of belonging. At its heart, Migration Patterns is a reflection on lineage: on what it means to be the continuation of a story, and on the responsibility of documenting that story with care.
With this monograph, Ruffin adds a vital voice to the canon of contemporary Black photography. One that bridges past and present, personal and communal, silence and testimony.
Events
Posted Feb 22, 2026
Gus Van Sant: Paintings - Discussion and Book Signing at Arcana 2/28, 4:00-6:00
Please join us at Arcana on Saturday, February 28th between 4:00 and 6:00 PM as we welcome Gus Van Sant to celebrate his beautiful new book Paintings. A conversation between Mr. Van Sant and editor Leah Gudmundson will be followed by a signing.
PLEASE NOTE: * No RSVP is required. * Books will be available for sale at $85 plus sales tax beginning at 3:00 PM on the 28th and will be kept to one per person. We will not be offering pre-sales on this limited item. * If you cannot attend and would like a signed copy of Paintings, please send us an email. Should there be copies remaining after the event, we will fulfill requests in the order in which they have been received.
This first ever published monograph on Van Sant's paintings gathers together a wide overview of his practice. Sequenced in an achronological and associative manner, the book presents different series in surprising rhythms, focusing on recurring motifs and themes throughout widely varied modes accumulated during decades of work.
Bound inside out, this hardcover publication has a unique objecthood that imparts the suggestion of having been intimately handled by its makers. The outside covers feature two test screen-prints and is signed and stamped on the back, alluding to Van Sant's painting practice as literally the flipside of his storied career in filmmaking.
Paintings is the inaugural title from Blue Moon Press, the new artist-book imprint founded by Leah Gudmundson as a cousin to the Paris-based subcultural arts magazine Blue Moon she has helmed since 2015.
Events
Posted Feb 17, 2026
Jill Goldman Book Signing Saturday, 2/21!
Please join us this Saturday, February 21st between 4:00 and 6:00 PM as we welcome Los Angeles-based artist, activist, and filmmaker Jill Goldman to celebrate the launch of her new Hybrid LLC monograph, Disentanglement / Re-Embodiment.
"Disentanglement / Re-Embodiment documents five years of bold, deeply embodied work at the edge of art and politics. Developed between 2020 and 2025, the work spans video, performance, photography, installation, and political research, unfolding in a single, cohesive publication that investigates how we live inside of – and push back against - patriarchal power and environmental crisis. Its content centers on ten performance works, staged internationally by Goldman and collaborators weaving over two hundred images of performance documentation, film stills, research ephemera, and installation views. The book includes critical essays by Asti Hustvedt and Alex A. Jones, as well as extracts from conversations between the artist and noted thinkers shaping contemporary feminist, abolitionist, eco-critical, and anti-militarist discourse including Amy Ziering, Yasmeen Hassan, Sumaya Awad, Catherine Coleman Flowers, Nina Menkes, Ruchira Gupta, and Tanya Selvaratnam." Jill Goldman is an activist, filmmaker, and artist whose work incorporates dance, performance, photography, and video. Her immersive multi-media installation / performances explore memory, autobiography, the gendered body, and ritual transformation. She received her BA from Bennington College and her MFA from UCLA Film School. She is the director of the feature film Love Is Like That, as well as many award-winning short films, including “fort / da,” “Holding Margie’s Hand,” “Sally Goes Shopping,” the music video for Lenny Kravitz’s “Blues for Sister Someone,” and the short documentary “Genevieve, Girl Before the Mirror."
We look forward to seeing you this Saturday for the opportunity to meet and greet Ms. Goldman - and to pick up a signed example of her engaging new book! If you cannot attend and would like to purchase a signed copy of Disentanglement / Re-Embodiment, please place your order here!
In the News
Posted Feb 05, 2026
New York Times Chooses Arcana as one of Los Angeles' Favorite Places for Art!
We’re pleased as punch to be included in Jason Farago’s New York Times round up of his top LA Art spots.
OK, OK we’re an honorable mention, not one of the venerable top 5, but it is very gratifying to be included in such good company.
Thank you, Mr. Farago!
Book of the Day
Posted Jan 31, 2026
Book of the Day: Five Footnotes Toward an Architecture by Mark Lee
From the publisher: "Architect Mark Lee presents a body of work on the basis of five considerations: on history, on cadence, on autonomy, on America, and on point. On the occasion of his fifth and final year as Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, architect and educator Mark Lee strings together five 'footnotes' to assess the relationship between architectural education, research, and professional practice. Evoking a similar position that marked his tenure, Lee delivers a lecture that embraces dialogue, context, and precedent, and rejects the notion of a heroic manifesto in favor of the footnote: 'something ancillary, something used for referencing and providing citations for metanarratives that already exist.' And why five? 'It’s a ubiquitous number in the culture of architecture. Five orders, five architects, five points.' Copublished by Harvard Design Press." Extra credit: Mark Lee designed the entire of our store! Book of the day!
Miscellany
Posted Jan 29, 2026
Closed Friday, 1/30/26
We will be closed on Friday, 1/30/26, in solidarity with the Nationwide General Strike.
Fight the power and stand strong.
photo by Tina Modotti, 1926