Los Angeles is an unruly city. Under shaggy palm trees and the bruised purple blooms of jacarandas, roads snarl in mile upon mile of naked asphalt and concrete lined with buildings from every conceivable shape and era. Mostly there are low-slung, postwar ranch houses and bungalows with yards swollen with succulents alongside patches of grass, strip malls with packed parking lots under a patchwork sign advertising dozens of shops, hawking everything from soul food and vegan tacos to Thai massages and pot dispensaries in three different languages—and all of it, caught at dusk, wearing the rich, smeary colors of smog-smothered sunset. Then again, tucked between the hills and highways, you’re just as likely to find fruit orchards and high-rises, marble palaces and shantytowns. All over, things jut and stick out. The brash cacophony of visions and the tucked-away secret gardens make up a city that is both a mess and a dream, constantly resisting just about anything you can say about it and existing like Venice in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972), as every city and none. You might hate it, but LA has got style. And few artists capture its gleeful and garish, brash and beautiful resistance like Peter …