To inaugurate the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Contemporary Projects series, associate curator of twentieth-century art Lynn Zelevansky is assembling works in various media by seven artists—Stan Douglas, Jim Hodges, Elizabeth Peyton, Guillermo Kuitca, Jack Pierson, Sharon Lockhart, and Rachel Whiteread. Among the highlights of “Longing and Memory”: Whiteread’s rarely seen drawings rendered in Wite-Out correction fluid. LACMA’s new series will present intimate, curated exhibitions to bring together international and Los Angeles-based artists. How refreshing that someone has remembered that smaller is sometimes better. June 5-Sept. 7

— Bruce Hainley

What began as a survey of West Coast art since 1960 has become, in the hands of curator Ralph Rugoff, “The Scene of the Crime.” Premised on Henri Michaux’s notion that the artist is “the one who, with all his might, resists the fundamental drive not to leave traces,” the exhibition asks visitors to play detective, criminal, victim, and bystander. Bringing together a planned seventy-five works by a slated thirty-six California-based artists, from John Divola’s ’70s Forced Entry Site photographs to Uta Barth’s recent “Blow up” series, “Scene of the Crime” is accompanied by a catalogue including essays by Anthony Vidler and Peter Wollen. June 5-Sept. 7

— Ernest Pascucci