Diedrick Brackens

The UCLA Hammer Museum’s much-anticipated biennial survey of new art produced in the city has just opened its fourth iteration. “Made in L.A. 2018” is the best one yet.

Part of the reason comes from simple, dramatic contrast. Since the show’s last outing in 2016, American society has been plunged into a period of destructive nastiness and malice. Art is inherently its opposite.

Artists have been responding. These 33 — up from 26 last time — were chosen with a keen attention to the resonance of their work within our socially disturbed time. Rather than art with partisan political agendas, Hammer curators Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale have chosen smart work that, for the most part, feels acutely attuned to our beleaguered moment.

Emblematic is the big mural that wraps the stairwell at the museum’s front entry. At first look, you might not notice how.