Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume I

Linda Komaroff, head of LACMA's Art of the Middle East department, recently acquired Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj's My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume I for the museum. It includes footage of nine musicians known by the artist, some more famous than others, playing against patterned fabric and wearing fantastic, comfortable-looking costumes Hajjaj made for them. Hajjaj filmed each separately but you see all of them at once, each inhabiting his or her own colorful rectangle and taking turns making music. The multichannel video currently plays in a narrow corridor on the third floor of LACMA's Ahmanson building, by the elevators. It's awkward to see it in that space but interesting, too, because it seems indicative of the still-marginal place contemporary Middle Eastern art holds in most U.S. museum collections. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire; ongoing. (323) 857-6010, lacma.org.