Los Angeles is not slowing down its effort to make known its growth as a global capital for contemporary art. On the contrary, with Pacific Standard Time programming in full swing, four art fairs: Photo L.A., the L.A. Art Show, Art Los Angeles Contemporary, and the Affordable Art Fair Los Angeles graced our city during the month of January.

ARTLOG thrives on the contributions of its incredible community of art lovers, gallerists, museum professionals, and artists who make their work accessible. There are now over one thousand galleries and museums worldwide that manage their profiles on ARTLOG and many more thousands of artists and art lovers who submit shows to us. However, we have heard over and over from our readers that there is so much more outside of art fairs, festivals, and New York City.

Recent exhibitions are revealing a seeming divergence in what art is intended for. On the one hand, there are Damien Hirst spot paintings scattered throughout Larry Gagosian’s global franchise in a spectacular staging of world domination through art—a show/ploy that sits tentatively on the fine line between art and pure marketing. On the other, smaller arts organizations like the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts zeroes in on socially relevant issues and promotes art as activism through programs and exhibitions, such as their current Sound of Silence: Art During Dictatorship (on view January 27 through March 10). It then came as a pleasant surprise to discover what MoMA has in store for the next few months.

In the Hamptons last summer, you may have heard about one very successful “Nose Job.” The exhibition at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton was featured in the New York Times and made a splash on the island. Eric Firestone with curator Carlo McCormick took the noses of fighter planes, reclaimed in a bone yard (where old planes goe to die), and enlisted over twenty artists including the likes of Richard Prince, Raymond Pettibon, and Kenny Scharf to utilize the noses as blank canvases.

Few contemporary artists have the opportunity to show alongside one of their historical inspirations—especially when he is a master of Impressionist sculpture—but British artist Rachel Kneebone is fortunate. Her show of porcelain works which opened last night at the Brooklyn Museum is dotted with (and in fact outnumbered by) Auguste Rodin bronzes, and this is only the artist’s first museum presentation.

Few artists use obscure materials such as Zebra Cakes, fish tanks, and keychains with such lyrical efficacy as the Baltimore-based duo DUOX, a collaboration between Malcolm Lomax and Daniel Wickerham. Their installations often aim to implicate viewers through their movement or interaction and focus on a queer sensibility and a digital context.

Please join Artlog and our friends at Thrillist for this special Art and Wine Crawl on Saturday, February 4, from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. This tour through the Bowery neighborhood includes special talks with artists and gallery owners, wine and beer, and an after party at Gallery Bar on Orchard Street from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

This week is a good time to catch some of the fantastic lecture and performance series at New York’s premier cultural institutions. On Tuesday evening, Clifford Owens and Mickalene Thomas speak at MoMA and Israeli artist and filmmaker Yael Bartana speaks at the Guggenheim. If you can’t make it, both are a part of ongoing lecture series, so be sure to check the museum calendars. At the New Museum, Raed Yassin will perform a ‘multimedia saga’ using footage from Egyptian B-movies and vintage Arabian Pop LPs. All day Sunday, MoMA PS1 celebrates the opening of its Henry Taylor and Darren Bader exhibitions with lectures, readings, and food from the critically-acclaimed restaurant M. Wells.