The impact of “Slide Paintings,” Richard Aldrich’s second solo show at Marc Foxx, was slow and cumulative. The works—covering a scattershot range of abstraction—can be coyly obtuse, nonchalantly restrained, and cagey, but they gradually open up onto one another, subtly echoing a nearby shape here or a neighbor’s title there. Minute touches, quivering in isolation against the white of canvas and wall, conveyed prolonged deliberation, patience, and ruminative looking in the studio. The joys of viewing were understated and insular: They rested in the minor discoveries of mousy subtleties and nearly

The agitated camera work, gaudy palette, complete disavowal of intelligible narrative, emphasis on slippery models of beauty, desire, gender, and sexuality, and strategic use of lo-fi graphics evident in the seven videos on view in Ryan Trecartin’s recent solo exhibition “Any Ever” are by now standard fare for the artist. But where previous viewing “environments”—for instance, Sibling Topics (Section A), 2009, seen at New York’s New Museum—recall the work of predecessors such as Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy in their emphasis on materiality, the installations in this show are far sparer and

Described in the press release accompanying this exhibition as “self-portraits of his own adolescent subconscious,” André Ethier’s new paintings are every inch the exercises in creative onanism that this boldly unfashionable characterization might suggest. Self-consciously brooding and superficially melancholy, each modestly scaled, putridly colored oil-on-Masonite picture in “ACTUALIZED, and it feels so good” convincingly channels the imaginings of a disaffected young man with a spotty understanding of art history and a healthy investment in the lifestyle and aesthetics of psychedelia, metal,

Night Gallery (hours of operation: 10 PM to 2 AM) is an off-space in East Los Angeles nestled between a taqueria and a beauty salon. Opening last February under the direction of artist Davida Nemeroff, this intimate nocturnal venture appeared as a welcome other to the city’s more pedestrian gallery scene. The venture’s innocuous slackness—the artworks aren’t exactly titled or untitled, the installations may change during the course of the show, the space is attended by whichever trusted friends happen to be hanging around on a given evening—only lends breathing room to the venue’s black-walled