Biography
 
Born 1959 in Long Beach
Lives and works in Los Angeles
 
 
Education
 
MFA California Institute of Arts, Valencia, 1984
BFA California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, 1982
 
 
Solo Exhibitions
 
2026
Galerie Buchholz, Cologne
 
2025
Project Room, 303 Gallery, New York
 
2024
“Art Show”, with Heidi El Kholti, Gaga & Reena Spaulings, Los Angeles
 
2019
“Larry Johnson & Asha Schechter”, Jenny’s, Los Angeles
 
2017
“Larry Johnson, Works from the 80’s and 90’s”, Kimmerich Gallery, Berlin
 
2015
“Larry Johnson: On Location”, curated by Bruce Hainley and Antony Hudek, Reven Row, London
 
2010
“Larry Johnson’s Hits from the 80s”, Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica
“Frame Tales”, Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York
 
2009
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
 
2007
Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica
Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York
 
2001
“New Photographs”, Cohan, Leslie & Browne, New York
 
2000
“The Thinking Man’s Judy Garland and Other Works”, Patrick Painter Inc. / Santa Monica
Modern Art Inc., London
 
1998
Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
I-20 Gallery, New York
Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
 
1996
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver
 
1995
Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
 
1994
Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
 
1992
Rudiger Shottle, Paris
Patrick de Brok Gallery, Knokke
 
1991
303 Gallery, New York
Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Johnen & Schottle, Cologne
 
1990
303 Gallery, New York
Galerie Isabelle Kacprzak, Cologne
Start Regen Gallery, Los Angeles
 
1989
303 Gallery, New York
 
1987
Le Case d’Arte, Milan
303 Gallery, New York
Galerie Isabella Kacprzak, Stuttgart
Kuhlenschmidt-Simon Gallery, Los Angeles
 
1986
303 Gallery, New York
 
 
Group Exhibitions
 
2025
“Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Film, Video, Sound: Ringier Collection 1995-2025”, Langen Foundation, Neuss
“North”, Bodenrader, Chicago
“Eden: An Experimental Group Art Happening & Benefit for the Trans Latina Coalition”, Last Projects, Los Angeles
“A Rrose By Any Other Name”, Hans Goodrich, Chicago
 
2024
“This Might Be It”, Galerie Hussenot, Paris
“Tabula Rasa”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
“When We Were Old: Works from Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection”, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
 
2023
“Some Trees”, The Floating Gallery, Los Angeles
“20”, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
“We Smell Gas”, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York
“Pictures & After”, MAMCO Geneve, Geneva
 
2022
“Sexkino Roland”, Kino Roland, Zurich
“Alex Bag, Art Club 2000, Daniela Rossell, Larry Johnson”, Gaga & Reena Spaulings, Los Angeles
 
2021
“Winter of Discontent”, 303 Gallery, New York
“The Going Away Present”, Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles
 
2020
“Made in L.A. 2020: a version”, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
“The Sewers of Mars”, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York
“Restless Index”, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles
“four corners of the landscape”, House of Gaga/Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Los Angeles
 
2019
“Avengers: Someone Left the Cake Out In the Rain”, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Los Angeles
“Queer Forms”, curated by Howard Oransky, Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota
“The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
“303 Gallery: 35 Years”, New York
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Le Case d’Arte, Milan
 
2018
“say ahh… Larry Johnson, Sister Corita Kent, Adam Stamp”, Indipendenza Roma, Rome
“Inaugural exhibition”, Syz Collection, Geneva
“Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s”, Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
 “Art & Entertainment”, Musée d’art modern et contemporain, Geneva
 
2017
“Top Five Budy Cop Films”, curated by Santi Vernetti, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles
“25 Years Later: Race, Riots and Reform”, Gallery 38, Los Angeles
 
2016
“Urban Space Odyssey”, Patrick Painter, Santa Monica
“Récit d’un temps court”, Musée d’art modern et contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva
 
2015
“Popular Images”, Karma, New York
“Walkers: Hollywood Afterlives in Art and Artifact”, Museum of the Moving Image, New York
“Collecting Lines: Drawings from the Ringier Collection”, Villa Flora Winterthur
“‘Duh? Art & Stupidity'”, Focal Point Gallery, South-On-Sea
 
2014
“In the Crack of the Dawn”, POOL at Luma/Westbau, Zurich
“A Machinery for Living”, Petzel, New York
“Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950”, Mudam Luxembourg / Kunsthaus Graz
“New Pop: Illustrated Americana”, Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York
 
2013
“Le Regard du bègue”, Musée d’art modern et contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva
“Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950”, Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
 
2012
“The Perfect Show”, 303 Gallery, New York
“Arctic Summer”, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
“25 Years of Talent”, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
“Don’t the Sun Look Angry at Me”, Royale Projects, Los Angeles
 
2010
“How Many Billboards?”, Art in Stead, MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, Los Angeles
“Rive Gauche/Rive Droite”, Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York
“The Last Newspaper”, The New Museum, New York
 
2009
“Geography of the Imagination”, Lead Apron, Los Angeles
“Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
 
2008
“Endless Summer”, Glendale College Art Gallery
“Heroes and Villains”, Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York
“Idle Youth”, Gladstone Gallery, New York
 
2007
“Good Morning, Midnight”, Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York
“L.A. Desire”, Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, Düsseldorf
 
2006
“Kunst aus Los Angeles der 60er bis 90er Jahre”, Kunstverein Braunschweig
“Hiding in the Light”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York
 
2005
“Interstate”, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York
 
2004
“Sign Language”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
“100 Artists See God”, organized by Independent Curators International; Naples Museum of Art, Naples / The Jewish Museum, San Francisco / Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach / Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester / Institute of Contemporary Arts, London / Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach / Albright College Freedman Art Gallery, Reading / Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville
 
2003
“Ishtar”, Midway Contemporary Art, St. Paul
“Unreal Estate Opportunities”, PKM Gallery, Seoul
 
2002
“Mirror Image”, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
“Summer Reading”, Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles
“23rd Annual Benefit Art Auction”, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
 
2001
“The Slide Area”, James Van Damme Gallery, Brussels
 
2000
“The Big G Stands for Goodness: Corita Kent’s 1960s Pop Exhibition Tour”, Luckman Gallery, California State
University, Los Angeles / Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan / Donna Beam Fine Arts Gallery, University of Nevada, Las Vegas / Art Gallery, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio / Beaver College Art Gallery, Arcadia University, Glenside
 
1998
“Sunshine & Noir. Art in L.A. 1960-1997”, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli / Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Los Angeles
 
1997
“Sunshine & Noir. Art in L.A. 1960-1997”, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk / Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
 
1996
Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York
“Just Past: The Contemporary in MOCA’s Permanent Collection, 1975-96”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
“Sampler 2 - More Videos from Southern California”, David Zwirner Gallery, New York
“Larry Johnson / Allen Ruppersberg”, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles / Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York
 
1995
“25 Years: An Exhibition of Selected Works”, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
“About Place: Recent Art of the Americas”, The Art Institute of Chicago
“In a Different Light: Visual Culture, Sexual Identity, Queer Practice”, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley
“Narcissistic Disturbance”, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
“New Testament”, Marc Foxx Gallery, Santa Monica
“Untitled (Reading Room)”, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
“Word for Word”, Beaver College Art Gallery / Arcadia University, Glenside
 
1994
“Group Show: Dan Graham, Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, Lincoln Tobier, Larry Johnson”, Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco
“In the Field: Landscape in Recent Photography”, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
“Los Angeles Mind Quakes: Breda Fotografica ’94”, Museum de Beyerd, Breda
“Love in the Ruins: Art and the Inspiration of L.A.”, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach
“Romance”, Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery / Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
“Benefit for Dennis Cooper’s ‘Frisk'”, Thomas Solomon’s Garage, Los Angeles
 
1993
“The Language of Art (Die Sprache der Kunst)”, Kunsthalle, Vienna / Kunstverein, Frankfurt
“Legend in My Living Room”, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
“Object Bodies”, Emison Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle / Turman Art Gallery, Indiana State University, Terre Haute
“Painter Editions”, Johnen & Schöttle, Cologne
“Standing Still and Walking in Los Angeles”, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills
 
1992
“Bedroom Pictures”, Asher / Faure, Los Angeles
“Group Drawing Show”, Stuart Regen Gallery, Los Angeles
“Hollywood, Hollywood”, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
“Lust for Life”, Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles
“There Is a Light that Never Goes Out”, Amy Lipton Gallery, New York
“True Stories: Mark Dion, Renee Green, Larry Johnson, Karen Kilimnik, Raymond Pettibon, Jack Pierson, Jim Shaw”, Institute for Contemporary Art, London
“Voyage to Los Angeles”, Castello di Rivera, Trofarello
 
1991
“1991 Biennial”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
“Außenraum-Innenstadt”, Sprengel Museum, Hannover
“Matthew Barney, Michael Joaquin Grey, Larry Johnson, Liz Larner, Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff, Rosemarie Trockel, Meg Webster, Lawrence Weiner”, Stuart Regen Gallery, Los Angeles
“A Dialogue about Recent American and European Photography”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
“Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?”, The Hyde Collection, Glen Falls
“New Work by Gallery Artists”, 303 Gallery, New York
“Words & #s”, Museum of Contemporary Art / Wright State University, Dayton
“Vero, Vero”, Le Case D’Arte, Milan
 
1990
“De Afstandt”, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam / Le Case D’Arte, Milan
“The Charade of Mastery: Deciphering Modernism in Contemporary Art”, Whitney Museum of American Art,
Downtown at Federal Reserve Plaza, New York
“Constructive Anger”, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston
“Drinking and Driving”, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art
“The Indomitable Spirit”, International Center of Photography, New York / Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los
Angeles
“The Köln Show”, various galleries, Cologne, Germany
“Landscape as Stage”, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
“Language in Art”, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield
“Word as Image: American Art, 1960-1990”, Milwaukee Art Museum / Oklahoma City Art Museum / Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
“The Young and the Restless: Vanguard Artists from the Current SoHo Scene”, The Sales and Rental Gallery / The Baltimore Museum of Art
 
1989
“Art About AIDS”, Freedman Gallery / Albright College, Reading
“Beyond Family of Man”, Northeastern University Art Gallery, Boston
“David Bussel, Nan Goldin, Larry Johnson”, American Fine Arts Co., New York
“California Photography: Remaking Make-Believe”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York / Aspen Art Museum / University Art Gallery, University of New Hampshire, Durham / Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids / Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, Virginia Beach
“Departure”, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York
“Erotophobia”, Simon Watson Gallery, New York
“A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
“A Good Read: The Book as Metaphor”, Barbara Toll Fine Arts, New York
“Image World: Art and Media Culture”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
“The Photography of Invention: American Pictures of the 1980s”, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington D.C. / Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
“To Probe and Push: Artists of Provocation”, Wessel-O’Connor Ltd., New York
 
1988
“Aperto 88”, 43rd Venice Biennale
“Christoph Andres, Larry Johnson, Ken Lum, Hans-Jorg Mayger, Harald F. Muller, David Robbins”, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
“A Drawing Show”, Cable Gallery, New York
“Information as Ornament”, Feature Gallery and Suzanne Rezac Gallery, Chicago
“Larry Johnson, Liz Larner, Charles Ray”, 303 Gallery, New York
“Modes of Address: 25 Years of Language in Art”, Whitney Museum of American Art, Downtown at Federal Reserve Plaza, New York
Wilma Tolksdorf Gallery, Hamburg
“Utopia Post Utopia: Configurations of Nature and Culture in Recent Sculpture and Photography”, Institute of
Contemporary Art, Boston
 
1987
“Around and About”, Galerie Hufkens / Noirhomme, Brussels
“CalArts: Skeptical Belief(s), The Renaissance Society”, The University of Chicago / Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach
“The Castle”, Documenta 8, Kassel
“Contemporary Diptych: Divided Vision”, Whitney Museum of American Art, Stamford / Equitable Center, New York
Galerie Christoph Dürr, Munich
“The Image in Singular”, Amer Galerie, Vienna
“Industrial Icons”, San Diego State University
“Larry Johnson, Tony Tasset, Christopher Wool”, Kuhlenschmidt-Simon Gallery, Los Angeles
“New Photo”, Feature Gallery, Chicago
“The New Who’s Who”, Hoffman Borman Gallery, Santa Monica
“New York-Wien”, Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna
“On View”, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
“Perverted by Language”, Hillwood Art Museum, C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University, Brookville
“Photographs”, Annina Nosei Gallery, New York
“The Spectre of Saturation,” McIntosh / Drysdale Gallery, Washington D.C.
 
1986
Cable Gallery, New York
“Stephen Frailey, Larry Johnson”, New Strategies, Los Angeles
“P”, 303 Gallery, New York
“Uplifted Atmosphere, Borrowed Tastes”, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo
 
1985
“James Casebere, Larry Johnson, Jeff Koons”, 303 Gallery, New York
“Proof and Perjury”, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art
“Synaesthetics”, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City
 
1984
“Three Artists Select Three Artists”, Artists Space, New York
 
 
Projects
 
2004
“The Last Of The Blood And Guts Brigade”, Daniel Mendel-Black, Mark Roeder, Sixteen: One, Santa Monica, CA
(organized by Larry Johnson)
 
1995-1996
“Dark Memories Hovering Below the Transparent Screen of the Present will Project Images of Reality in Sharp
Silhouette to Create the Pleasurable Effect of a Double World”, Marc Foxx Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (organized by Larry Johnson)