“Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse,” writes Joan Didion of the dangerous Santa Ana winds, in 1968’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. “The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.” Before the winds hit Southern California last fall, Los Angeles was pushed to the brink by the coronavirus and its ravages. From his home just outside the city, in Bronson County, the artist Wes Lang heard the blades of helicopters as death knells. Amid this atmosphere, he created a series of 12 drawings redolent with the feeling that the end is nigh. (They are full of grim reapers, winged skulls, flames, and skeletons.) But things are looking up. These gloomy images are now on view, part of the opening of a new gallery in downtown Los Angeles called One Trick Pony, whose launch itself suggests that there’s a future to be had. —C.J.F.