PAGING DR. FEELGOOD via Perrotin, Los Angeles

Installation view of PAGING DR. FEELGOOD, 2026. Courtesy of Perrotin.

By PIPER OLIVAS February 26, 2026

Los Angeles is a city that has always been fluent in its own languages of transcendence. Whether you find it through celebrities, wellness, beauty, or belief, the city is well known for specializing in making enlightenment (and perfection) feel tantalizingly close, very visible, occasionally promised, but rarely delivered. PAGING DR. FEELGOOD, an off-site group exhibition presented by Perrotin, leans fully into this hedonistic ideology (as noted: “unregulated and mystically-practitioned medicine with added doses of weed, meth, cocaine, Botox, and filler”). The works, presented inside the original home of Spago (where Wolfgang Puck once fed Hollywood’s elite while the rest of the city lingered just outside), sit amid a geography shaped by a history of cults, counterculture, and glamour. The works explore these altered states, both literally and symbolically. This exhibition, held exclusively for LA art week, is appropriately transient, given the subject matter.

The exhibition unfolds episodically, beginning with indulgence. Walking in, a functional bar greets you at the entrance, and visitors are invited to imbibe. Surrounding works draw from the iconography of Los Angeles bar culture, such as portraits featuring women depicted sensually. Elsewhere in this opening section, strange deities begin to emerge. A large and unavoidable 2D noose confronts the viewer: perhaps offering us death as a rebirth?

In the second section, landscapes by Emma Webster and Max Hooper Schneider are synchronized; their lush, hyperreal environments echo Sunset Boulevard, which is visible through the gallery windows directly across from the works. The boundary between interior and exterior collapses here. Los Angeles is no longer just a subject, but a loop, feeding itself back into the artwork. Theodora Allen’s paintings are soft portals—thresholds that promise access to something beyond our reach. By now, the viewer might start to notice the forbidden fruit appearing again, and again, throughout the exhibition.

Installation view of PAGING DR. FEELGOOD, 2026. Courtesy of Perrotin.

In the third section, Marty Schnapf’s gender-bending portraits envision motorcyclist men painted in psychedelic cubist style. Alex Gardner’s works depict a figure emerging from darkness into light (or vice-versa) while Aryo Toh Djojo’s paintings are reminiscent of stills straight out of a film: models stepping out of cars on the Sunset Strip, drag races dissolving into torrid lesbian affairs; sex, speed, and ascension. Nick Doyle’s contributions refuse metaphor altogether; his giant screw is blunt and literal. 

Max Hooper Schneider, Sex, 2021

In the last section, we have a grand finale of textures and shapes, arranged like a shrine. A motorcycle created by Mattia Biagi has shifted materiality and is more of a frozen relic, without any real function. Vincent Pocsik’s wooden anamorphic sculptures distort our perception, while Devendra Banhart’s paintings capture something playful about Los Angeles sports culture, particularly baseball. Textile works by Valerj Pobega (who has created costumes for the likes of Lady Gaga and Madonna) present her large draped textile poems; the left side is legible, the right side jumbled. Jon Ray, who was experimenting with artificial intelligence fifteen years ago, long before it entered common use, presents his AI-generated heads aggregated from Chatroulette. These male subjects are shown asleep, an act of Sleeping Beauty-esque vulnerability.

Biblical motifs reoccur throughout the show: apples, snakes, and various versions of Adam & Eve. Handcrafted piñatas by Roberto Benavidez are modeled after the beasts of Hieronymus Bosch and hang down from the ceiling. Max Hooper Schneider’s second terrarium boldly depicts the word SEX, a found neon from a defunct Amsterdam sex shop. Nearby, a site-specific painting by Austyn Weiner creates synergy between the terrarium piece and the urban landscape surrounding, while Isabelle Albuquerque’s nude sculpture binds the show with seduction, with the subject reaching out towards something ambiguous.

Here, desire is neither celebrated nor condemned; beliefs are neither embraced nor dismantled. Instead, the show and subjects linger in suspension for the viewer to indulge, or turn away from. 

PAGING DR. FEELGOOD is on view at MC+ Design Studio/Studio Dardo via Perrotin in Los Angeles from February 23 – March 1, 2026.