Evan Nicole Brown

On the genre’s 50th anniversary, “The Motherlode” honors contributions by the women, like Salt-N-Pepa, Roxanne Shanté and Megan Thee Stallion, who’ve made it what it is today.

The team behind the new series returned to the San Gabriel Valley for a two-day pop-up at 626 Night Market, modeled after Asia’s open-air after-dark bazaars.

The comedian goes off-script while revisiting her raw and hilarious memoir, “Leslie F*cking Jones.”

Art: Lilian Martinez/Courtesy of the Artist and OCHI. Photo by Deen Babakhyi.

Essence Harden had a particularly vibrant week at the fifth exhibition of Frieze Los Angeles. Still, for one of the West Coast’s most sought-after curators, Harden’s life perpetually runs off a reserve of creative energy and artistic inspiration. As a visual-arts curator at the California African American Museum, the curator of Frieze L.A. and Focus 2024, and a co-curator of Made in L.A. 2025, Harden spends her time studying art, selecting it, and crafting concepts around it in hopes that it will educate and resonate with a broad and diverse public. Below, Harden speaks to the Cut about the beauty of archives and the ongoing education being in community with artists promises.

How the Frieze L.A. curator uses her intuition to help define visual culture in the West.

When I walked into the entranceway of a Bel Air mansion perched high above the city, I saw journalist Zanna Roberts Rassi getting settled (after the winding golf-cart ride up from the bottom of the hill) and actress January Jones walking in with her sister, both smiling, soon after. Then I saw actor Channing Tatum weaving through the room shaking hands and taking pictures, athlete Odell Beckham Jr. staying warm by the outdoor fire, and actress Sheryl Lee Ralph holding court close to where producer Clara McGregor chatted with friends. Only one person could have brought together this mosaic of people … and that’s Donatella Versace.

“In the past, I did and said a lot of crazy things. I’m just not in that space anymore.”

Red pill or blue pill? Utopia or dystopia? At PST Art — the largest art event in the U.S.— two major shows ask what science fiction says about the modern world.

The renowned artist returns to her hometown to create a public sculpture park for the community that raised her.