store

What sounded like a very cool L.A. Art Week party ended up getting a bit too rowdy. On Sunday night the Los Angeles Police Department was called to a former 99 Cents Only store on Wilshire Boulevard where an opening night party was underway for a week-long pop-up called “99CENT,” organized by former tagger and blue-chip artist Barry McGee and presented with the Hole gallery.

An LAPD public information officer confirmed that officers responded to a disturbance call at the location, which is just down the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Academy Museum, at 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Police arrived to find “a large group of about 20 or 30 people, drinking and playing loud music.” The crowd dispersed on its own after law enforcement arrived.

Neighbor Rebekka Mueller, who lives across the parking lot from the store, said that a concert at the event had attracted hundreds of people, a number of whom took to tagging four or five neighboring businesses, including the now-closed historic Googie-style Johnie’s Coffee Shop.

The event drew plenty of respectful art fans, Mueller said, “but attracted lots of other people, and they started tagging the whole building — but not in an art way. And then it spilled over to the businesses nearby, to an insurance company, and then two apartment buildings were completely tagged … and they had no security on site when this happened. So this was very alarming for the neighborhood.”

Cole Schiffer, whose family owns the 99 Cents building, said he was sorry that neighbors’ structures were tagged and that he has been working all week to paint over the tagging.

“We didn’t know that this would happen. I was pretty naive about the graphic art world,” he said. “We’re business owners, we spend a lot of time removing graffiti. My mom grew up in this neighborhood. My grandparents lived and died here, so honestly, it’s a little sad and crazy to see this graffiti all over the neighborhood.”

Schiffer said things had calmed down after Sunday night and that the Hole gallery was working to avoid problems for the rest of the week’s festivities.

In a brief story about the event, Times freelancer Mariella Rudi noted that the 99 Cents store had been transformed into, “a dense, joyous artist flea market” featuring, “more than 200 contributors and well over 4,000 works.” When Rudi was there on Sunday night she said she didn’t see any destructive behavior.

“Paintings are stacked against old shelving. Shopping carts hang from the ceiling. You can even check out your purchases at the register, complete with a sticker and a receipt,” Rudi wrote, adding, “Graffiti-heavy aisles will thrill fans of Beyond the Streets, but a handwritten sign near the entrance offers a final note: ‘Please, no tagging inside. Owners are cool.’ ”

The pop-up will feature puppets from Bob Baker Marionette Theatre this Sunday, as well as an Anti-Fascist Zine Fair. This whole scene is right up my alley, and I say, “Yes, please,” to more edgy arts programming featuring outsider artists and youthful rebellion.

But it seems a minority of guests decided to dishonor the spirit of the event by disrespecting the boundaries put into place by organizers.

Even neighbors who complained, like Mueller, said they were big supporters of the arts and that a lot of great art was on display inside the store — they wished the situation had played out differently, and they hope Sunday night’s grand finale proves more in control.

Mueller said that although organizers had painted over many of the tags, the situation at Johnie’s had not yet been remedied.

I’m Times Arts editor Jessica Gelt, and I’m here for all the colorful underground fun — and the angry dissent that often comes with it — but none of the destruction of property.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
All My Sons
Oánh Nguyễn directs Antaeus Theatre Company’s production of Arthur Miller’s 1946 Tony-winning play about a Midwestern family facing a moral reckoning after World War II.
Through March 30. Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 E. Broadway, Glendale. antaeus.org

Detail of a photo by Lou Bopp, seen in the documentary “All the Empty Rooms.”

(Netflix)

All the Empty Rooms
Photos memorializing the bedrooms of children lost to school shootings captured by photographer Lou Bopp and reporter Steve Hartman and featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary short film directed by Joshua Seftel, are on display at an outdoor installation.
Through Monday, Sunset Triangle Plaza, 3700 Sunset Blvd.

And What of the Children?
Writer-director Ryan Lisman’s play blends drama, dark comedy and horror in a psychological thriller about a trio of siblings in the Witness Protection Program.
Through March 15. The Broadwater Black Box, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. events.humanitix.com

Front and Center: Emerging Artists with the Colburn Orchestra
Salonen Fellows Mert Yalniz and Aleksandra Melaniuk will lead a varied program of concerto works spotlighting up-and-coming soloists. The performance will be live streamed.
7 p.m. Friday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand. Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu

John Giorno in Andy Warhol’s “Sleep.”

(Andy Warhol/John Giorno Collection, John Giorno Archives. Studio Rondinone, New York, NY.)

Sleep
John Giorno, the subject of the exhibition “John Giorno: No Nostalgia,” stars in Andy Warhol’s 1964 five hours and 21-minute silent film. Free with a reservation.
5-10:30 p.m. Friday. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. marcianoartfoundation.org

SATURDAY

John Holiday in the title role of LA Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”

(Cory Weaver)

Akhnatan
John Holiday stars in L.A. Opera’s production of Philip Glass’ portrait of the Egyptian pharaoh, sung in in English, Ancient Egyptian, Biblical Hebrew and Akkadian. Directed by Phelim McDermott and conducted by Dalia Stasevska making her company debut.
Through March 21, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laopera.org

Attacca Quartet and Theo Bleckmann
The versatile Grammy-winning ensemble teams with vocalist Bleckmann on David Lang’s “note to a friend,” a chamber opera based on three reimagined texts by Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa.
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

From Strand to Sculpture
A self-guided tour of the Japanese bamboo basketry exhibition will be followed by a lecture from bamboo art expert Robert Coffland, founder of TAI Gallery (now TAI Modern) in Santa Fe, N.M., and now president of the Santa Fe gallery Textile Arts Inc. The lecture is also available via Zoom.
4-7 p.m. Saturday. The Gamble House is located at 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena. gamblehouse.org

The Price
Richard Fancy, Dana Dewes, Jason Huber and Scott G. Jackson star in Arthur Miller’s late-period drama about two brother’s cleaning out their late father’s New York brownstone.
Through April 5. Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd. pacificresidenttheatre.org

Pepe Romero Returns
The classical guitarist joins the Long Beach Symphony for a concert featuring ”Concierto de Aranjuez” by Joaquín Rodrigo, Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Elegia Andina” and movements from Handel’s “Water Music Suites.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Long Beach Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. longbeachsymphony.org

Bud Cort in the 1971 movie “Harold and Maude,” screening March 15 at the Aero.

(CBS via Getty Images)

Starring Bud Cort
The American Cinematheque salutes the singular character actor, who recently died at 77, with screenings of Robert Altman’s “Brewster McCloud” (1970), Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (2004) and Hal Ashby’s“Harold and Maude” (1971).
“Brewster McCloud”, 2 p.m. Saturday in 35mm. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.; “The Life Aquatic”, 3 p.m. March 14; “Harold and Maude,” 1 p.m. March 15 in 35 mm. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com

SUNDAY
Unassisted Residency
Every edition of erstwhile weatherman Fritz Coleman’s monthly comedy show features a special guest.
3 p.m. Sunday. El Portal Theatre, Monroe Forum, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. elportaltheatre.com

TUESDAY
Camerata Pacifica
The ensemble performs a program that includes Madeleine Dring’s “Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano,” the world premiere of David Brice’s “Natural Light,” Cécile Chaminade’s “Thème varié for Piano, Op. 89” and Antonín Dvořák’s “Quintet in A major for Piano and Strings, Op. 81,” arranged by David Jolley.
3 p.m. Sunday. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Janet and Ray Scherr Forum, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 8 p.m., Thursday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 7 p.m. Friday. Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara. cameratapacifica.org

WEDNESDAY

Sara Porkalob, playwright and performer of “Dragon Mama.”

(Corey Olsen)

Dragon Mama
Writer-performer Sara Porkalob returns in Part II of her Filipina American “gangster” family’s intergenerational saga, “The Dragon Cycle,” this time centering her mother’s journey. Directed by Andrew Russell
Through April 12. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org

THURSDAY
The Adding Machine
The Actors’ Gang performs Elmer Rice’s 1923 satire that provides a prophetic warning from the past for our present.
Through April 18. The Actors; Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. theactorsgang.com

Dante and Beethoven’s Sixth
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the L.A. Phil in Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 – Pastoral” and Thomas Adès’ “Inferno – Part 1.”
8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m. Friday; and 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company
A remounting of the historic dance theater work “Still/Here,” created by Jones 30 years in the midst of the AIDS epidemic from interviews with terminally patients which he called “survival workshops.”
8 p.m. UCLA Royce Hall, 340 Royce Drive, Westwood. cap.ucla.edu

Arts anywhere

New releases of arts-related media.

Clockwise from top left, artists Candice Lin, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tomás Saraceno and Ragnar Kjartansson from “Art in the Twenty-First Century.”

(Art21, Inc.)

Art in the Twenty-First Century
Museums are fantastic, but do you ever want to know what’s going on right now in the art world? Since it debuted in 2001, this video series has focused on contemporary art and artists and has been a mainstay of public broadcasting. The second episode of the 12th season (they’re released biannually) debuted Feb. 11 and profiles four international artists, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Ragnar Kjartansson, Candice Lin and Tomás Saraceno, who use ordinary materials to make extraordinary art. Of local note, Crosby and Lin both live and work in L.A., and the Huntington in San Marino makes an appearance as well. Watch at art21.org, YouTube and pbs.org.

(Princeton University Press)

Michelangelo & Titian
It may not have been a heated rivalry, but author William E. Wallace makes the case that the two great Renaissance artists drove each other to excel in a new dual biography subtitled “A Tale of Rivalry and Genius.” Princeton University Press: 248 pp., $35. press.princeton.edu

Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama competes in the figure skating men’s singles free skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics on February 13 in Milan, Italy.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Turandot: Christopher Tin Finale
The two-time Grammy-winning composer completed Giacomo Puccini’s famously unfinished final opera for this EP recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios with an all-star cast. You may even have heard it during Japanese figure skater Yuma Kagiyama’s free skate program at the recent Winter Olympic Games in Milan (Kagiyama won silver for the second time). Not only was Milan Puccini’s hometown, but the Games coincided with the 100th-anniversary of the premiere of the opera at Teatro La Scala. Tin Works: $12-30. Available on vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming platforms. christophertin.com

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Frieze Los Angeles returned to the Santa Monica Airport on Feb. 26.

(Casey Kelbaugh / Courtesy of Frieze and CKA)

Art Week is here, and L.A. is overflowing with guests, artists and dealers from around the world as the city stages a wide variety of fairs, exhibitions, dinners and other arts events. The Times put together a handy guide to all the fairs you need to see, including Frieze, Butter LA and the Other Art Fair.

Freelancer Jane Horowitz wrote an in-depth piece about Frieze’s “Body & Soul,” a public art program of eight installations designed to reach beyond traditional art fair audiences. The story gives information about site-specific installations and the artists behind them, including Patrick Martinez. Amanda Ross Ho and Kelly Wall.

Kara Walker, “Unmanned Drone,” 2024, bronze

(Ruben Diaz)

Earlier this week, MOCA announced it had acquired 158 works by 106 artists in 2025 and that it had acquired the centerpiece of its current blockbuster “Monuments” exhibit: “Unmanned Drone,” by artist Kara Walker. “Walker created the 13-foot-tall bronze sculpture out of a statue of the prominent Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson that was originally in Charlottesville, Va. The statue had been removed after serving as a significant gathering place for the infamous 2017 Unite the Right rally of white supremacists,” I wrote in a story about the acquisition.

Our major investigation into L.A. arts icon Judy Baca also published this week, featuring allegations by 10 former employees, including two managers, that Baca used her nonprofit arts center, SPARC, to benefit her private, for-profit art practice, Judy Baca Inc. They also alleged Baca personally benefited from a $5-million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to expand her most famous work, a community-driven effort known as “The Great Wall of Los Angeles.”

Alexander Hurt, left, Katie Holmes and Charlie Barnett in “Hedda Gabler.”

(Rich Soublet II)

Times theater critic Charles McNulty headed to San Diego’s Old Globe to catch Katie Holmes in a new take on Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” written by Erin Cressida Wilson “that compresses the action and sharpens the language to a razor’s edge.”

McNulty also caught Guillermo Cienfuegos’ “enlivening, if at times unsteady,” production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” at A Noise Within. “Cienfuegos is a font of directing ideas, but his work here could use more editing. He plays up the comedy, which is as much a part of the play as its violence. But sometimes the actors overdo it,” McNulty writes.

“Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ is a grand mass for large orchestra, chorus and four vocal soloists that lasts around 80 minutes,” writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed in his review of Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil’s performance of the challenging piece. “It was written near the end of Beethoven’s life and is his most ambitious work musically and spiritually.” The concert at Disney Hall was part of Dudamel’s “month-long L.A. Phil focus on Beethoven.”

Urban Light at LACMA

(Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that its partnership with Hyundai Motor Co. will continue until 2037. The union was first cemented in 2015, and the museum said in a news release that it “represents the largest programmatic commitment from a corporate partner in LACMA’s history.” The announcement included two initiatives “that will define the next chapter” of collaboration. “The first initiative is a new exhibition series under the title ‘Hyundai Project.’ Beginning in 2028, the museum will present a biennial survey of an artist with significant ties to Los Angeles and the Pan Pacific region. The featured artist will also develop a large-scale banner for the exhibition that will be installed on the exterior of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM). Secondly, with Hyundai Motor’s renewed support, LACMA will expand the scope, visibility, and impact of the Art + Technology Lab,” the release noted.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts is celebrating its 40th anniversary season and has announced its 2026–27 Broadway season featuring 11 shows, six of which are Orange County premieres. The season kicks off with “Beauty and the Beast,” followed by “The Outsiders,” “Water for Elephants,” “Book of Mormon,” “Jersey Boys,” “The Who’s Tommy,” “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Waitress,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Maybe Happy Ending” and “Death Becomes Her.”

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Olympic Gold-winning U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu is everybody’s favorite person these days. Now she has her own mural on Crenshaw Boulevard in Gardena.

Stepping into Jr. Market boutique in Highland Park is like entering a 1980s time warp. Built into a refurbished shipping container, it’s filled with everything from tiny Walkman-style portables to colorful, number-flip clock radios and, naturally, boomboxes of all sizes. Few are more imposing than the TV the Searcher, a Sharp boombox from the early ‘80s that features a built-in, 5-inch color television.

“Try lifting it, it’s really heavy,” warns Spencer Richardson, the shop’s owner. Indeed, the machine is at least 15 pounds without the 10 D batteries that power the unit. He adds, “I don’t think you’re taking this to the beach so you could watch TV while you listen to music.”

An affable, hyper-knowledgeable proprietor in his early 30s, Richardson repairs and resells analog music technology from the 1980s or earlier. In bringing these rehabbed players back into circulation, he’s helping others rediscover a musical format once left for dead. While his hobby-turned-side hustle started as “a gateway to discover sounds” that he otherwise would not have heard, it now attracts curious customers willing to drop $100-plus for a vintage Technics RS-M2 or My First Sony Walkman. His customers include older baby boomers and Gen X‑ers nostalgic for the players of their childhood, but most have been millennials like himself, drawn to something tactile and analog in an era when everything else disappears into the digital ether.

A rare Technics RS-M2 stereo radio tape deck. “I’ve worked on a lot of tape players and this one shouts quality inside and out,” Richardson writes on Instagram.

(Spencer Richardson)

Unlike turntables, which have become increasingly high-tech thanks to the “vinyl revival” of the last 20 years, almost all cassette players in current production rely on the same, basic tape mechanism from Taiwan, Richardson explains. Though cassette culture is enjoying its own period of rediscovery — albeit on a far smaller scale — he hasn’t seen a market emerge for newly engineered tape decks. And he’s fine with that.

“I’m not one of those people that’s like, ‘Why don’t they make good new tape players?’” he says. “No one needs to make it better. You’re still better off buying a refurbished one from the time when they made them.”

That’s where he steps in.

Richardson works on a Nakamichi tape deck out of his repair studio in downtown L.A.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

It’s easy to forget that when cassettes debuted in the mid-1960s, the technology was groundbreaking. Not only were the players far more portable than turntables but unlike records, tapes were resilient to being tossed about. Even more profoundly, cassettes democratized access to the act of recording itself since cassette technology required minimal infrastructure and cost.

“I think about how incredible it must have been for people to realize they could just put whatever they wanted onto a tape, dub it, give it to a friend,” says Richardson.

Entire genres of music, especially in the developing world, became far more accessible across borders. In some countries, big records are still released on cassette. “I have a Filipino release of Kanye West’s ‘College Dropout’ on tape,” Richardson says.

The constraints of the technology guided the listening experience. Because skipping songs on a player was a hassle, most people sat with cassette albums as a track-by-track, linear journey, the antithesis to the algorithmic, shuffle-centric playlists ubiquitous on today’s streaming platforms. It’s a pace that Richardson appreciates.

“I want things to be intentional and slow,” he says. “I don’t need them to be optimized.”

He learned how to repair gear by watching YouTube videos, perusing old manuals and through trial and error.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Born in the early 1990s, Richardson grew up in Santa Monica and the Pacific Palisades, where his mother’s home was lost in the L.A. wildfires last year. He’s just old enough to remember cassettes as a child: “My mom had books on tape like ‘Winnie the Pooh,’ but I wasn’t out buying tapes.” Fast forward to the mid-2010s and he was working at the now-defunct Touch Vinyl in West L.A. “Back in 2014, we started this little in-store tape label,” he explained. “Bands would come to play, and we’d duplicate 10 tapes and give them away or sell them.” Richardson slowly began collecting cassettes but after the store closed a few years later, he realized how hard it was to find people to service his tape players.

Finally, once the pandemic hit in 2020 and everyone was stuck at home, he decided to learn how to repair his gear by watching YouTube.“I was just fascinated by the videos, absorbing soldering techniques and tools you might need,” he said. With no formal engineering background, Richardson began collecting information online, perusing old manuals, learning through trial and error. “You just need to get your hands in there and be like, ‘Oh, OK, I see how this works,’ or maybe I don’t see how this works, and I’m just going to bang my head against the wall, and then a year later, try again.” His first successful repair was for his Teac CX-311, a compact stereo cassette player/recorder that he still owns. “It has some quirks but runs well.”

A few years later, Richardson’s girlfriend, Faith, suggested he start selling his players online via an Instagram account — jrmarket.radio — originally created for a short-lived internet station. Tim Mahoney, his childhood friend and a professional photographer, shot the units against a plain white backdrop, as if for an art catalog. A community of enthusiasts quickly found his account and Richardson began selling pieces online and via pop-ups. In 2024, the owners of vintage clothing store the Bearded Beagle invited him to take over the parking lot space behind their new location on Figueroa St. Opening a brick-and-mortar store hadn’t been his ambition but Richardson accepted the opportunity: “I never envisioned opening my own physical store. It’s hard enough to have a retail space in Los Angeles to sell something that’s very niche.”

Jr. Market operates as a shop Thursday through Saturday in Highland Park.

(Spencer Richardson)

Jr. Market — whose name is inspired by Japanese convenience stores known as “junior markets” — isn’t trying to appeal to audiophiles though Richardson does stock studio-quality recording decks. He primarily looks for players with appealing visual design, most of them made in Japan where Richardson has been traveling to since graduating high school. Through those trips, he’s learned where to source pristinely-kept gear, including his best-selling Corocasse: a bright red plastic cube of a radio/tape player, introduced by National in 1983. He also keeps an eye out for the unique Sanyo MR-QF4 from 1979, an elongated boombox with four speakers, designed to play either horizontally or flipped into a vertical tower.

The store also stocks a small selection of portable record players, including a Viktor PK-2, a whimsical, plastic-bodied three-in-one turntable, tape player and AM radio that looks like something designed by a modernist artist for Fisher-Price. That went to local author and historian Sam Sweet, who visited the store with no intention of buying anything and left with the Viktor, which now sits on his writing desk. “Spencer’s part of a grand tradition of workshop tinkerers and specialty mechanics,” Sweet says. “The refurbished devices he sells are as much a reflection of his ethos and expertise as they are treasures of the past.”

Last year, Imma Almourzaeva, an Echo Park art director, came to the store and purchased a massive 1979 Sony “Zilba’p” boombox, which is nearly 2 feet wide and over a foot tall, with wood veneer panels to boot. Almourzaeva, who grew up in Russia in the ‘90s, wanted a player that offered “the tactile feel of my childhood and bringing it back into my daily routine, something familiar, something warm.” The Zilba’p is the largest boombox Richardson has carried and Almourzaeva said, “It’s aesthetically a showstopper. Maybe I have a Napoleon complex because I’m pretty small too. It’s like ‘go big or go home’ for me.” She shared that she recently bought a Soviet-era boombox from Richardson for her brother for Christmas. “It turned out my mom grew up using the same brand of stereo,” Almourzaeva says. Richardson had told her that Soviet boomboxes are “very DIY, more funky and finicky.”

Refurbishment is one of Richardson’s specialties, including repairing customer units, each of them a puzzle he enjoys solving. No matter if a player is sparse or feature-packed, the simple act of playing a cassette creates a sense of calm and focus for him. “You’re not distracted, because it doesn’t do anything else,” he says. In a time where every “smart” device is marketed with dizzying arrays of features, that simplicity can feel downright revolutionary.