What a Wonderful World at Variety Arts Theater

What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem (installation view) (2026). Image courtesy of the artists and Julia Stoschek Foundation. Photo: Joshua White.

I like to say that really good art incompletes me; that is, it has the world-expanding ability to show me what my life is missing. What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem, a selection of 45 video works from German collector Julia Stoschek’s trove of time-based art, reveals the embarrassingly large holes in my intellectual diet. As a consequence of commercially-viable, crowd-pleasing paintings dominating this time and place in history, we suffer a collective deficiency of art that requires prolonged attention; engages the visceral power of music; or legitimately startles, frightens, or challenges. Curated by Udo Kittelmann and presented at the historic Variety Arts Theater, a crumbling, century-old, former vaudeville palazzo in downtown Los Angeles, we get all of this and more. Your free admission includes a broad spectrum of artistic approaches to the moving image—the dismantling of cinematic tradition, the documentation of performance, and the animation of abstract, painterly visions—as well as unlimited servings of complementary popcorn. 

Jesper Just, Something to Love (installation view) (2005). Image courtesy of the artist and Julia Stoschek Foundation. Photo: Joshua White.

Throughout the derelict building’s six floors, the installation produces meticulously orchestrated thematic and sonic collisions, such as in the cavernous main theater, where Arthur Jafa’s APEX (2013) and Jon Rafman’s Oh, the humanity! (2014) alternate on the big screen. The former reimagines the sci-fi genre as it races through more than 800 bracing still frames—images of Miles Davis, Mickey Mouse, gruesomely dismembered bodies, and outer space—to the pulsing beats of Detroit techno. The latter, meanwhile, is best described as a “vibe;” blurry footage of a crowded wavepool rhythmically rises and falls to hypnotically relaxing music. Throughout the evening, these opposing soundtracks dramatically alter the mood of Ana Mendieta’s Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece) (1976), as footage of Mendieta’s silhouette outlined in fireworks silently blazes in the balcony above. 

The appropriate use of this large space allows works the rare opportunity to achieve their full, immersive potential. In The Hero (2001), which is projected on a small wall in the main theater, Marina Abramović sits on a white horse with a white flag in hand, her voice resounding throughout the entire ground floor singing the former Yugoslavian national anthem, “Hej, Sloveni.” Robert Boyd’s multichannel Xanadu (2006)—collected footage of war, torture, mass suicide and more, smoothly edited to match the upbeat techno remixes of Madonna and Britney Spears songs—presents as a politically charged dance party in the basement, complete with a disco ball.

To address the elephant in the palazzo: There are legitimate accusations that Stoschek’s art philanthropy launders her family’s historical ties to the Nazi party. I don’t dismiss those accusations, but I will say this: All billionaire collectors have amassed their wealth through dubious means, but it is exceptionally rare for them to spend it in ways we all can enjoy.

Precious Okoyomon, It‘s dissociating season (installation view) (2019). Image courtesy of the artist and Julia Stoschek Foundation. Photo: Joshua White.

Lu Yang, DOKU The Flow (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artist and Julia Stoschek Foundation. Photo: Joshua White.

What a Wonderful World runs from February 6–March 20, 2026 at Variety Arts Theater.

Janelle Zara is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist and the author of Becoming an Architect, a title in Simon & Schuster’s Masters at Work series. You can find her work in a variety of publications focusing on art, design, and architecture, including The Guardian, T Magazine, Artnet, and many others. Her favorite In-N-Out location is the one outside LAX.

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