A journey through life, love and death, Arte y Almas: Día de Los Muertos 2017 (Art & Souls: Day of the Dead 2017) features contemporary installations by La Sonrisa de La Muerte and Lapiztola from Mexico and California artists Lurac and Oscar Magallanes.
Opening at the Museum’s Dia de Los Muertos Fiesta 2017 (Day of the Dead Party 2017) on Fri., Oct. 13, 2017, the exhibit explores the Mexican cultural tradition of honoring deceased loved ones each year on November 1 and 2 by creating calaveras de azúcar (sugar skulls), altares de muertos (altars of the dead) and ofrendas (offerings), which has evolved from the Aztecs to modern day Mexico and California.
Members of the public are also invited to celebrate friends and family with a remembrance in the exhibit’s accompanying Community Altar Oct. 7 through Dec. 30, 2017.
As South Los Angeles and its surrounding communities continue to face the threat of gentrification, both community residents and artists have begun to feel the effects of displacement.
As a result, a group of artists, including Patrick Martinez and John Carlos “Barrio Dandy” De Luna will be displaying their work in an upcoming exhibition titled, “Barrio Logos: Displacement and Vanishing Iconography,” aimed at preserving the legacy of Chicano/o resistance in a city whose Chicano style and aesthetics have been appropriated around the world.
Located at the Residency gallery, directed by Rick Garzon, in the rapidly changing city of Inglewood, Barrio Logos is part of a larger art initiative titled Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, which is hosting a range of art events and exhibitions aimed at creating a dialogue between Los Angeles and Latin America art.
“Barrio Logos is the only PST LA/LA participating exhibition taking place within South Central Los Angeles.”
Curated by Oscar Magallanes, the upcoming exhibit takes place in a city that is 50 percent Latino, and serves as the backdrop for popular HBO series, “Insecure.” Magallanes urges viewers to think about the historical impact of displacement in the context of a Chicana and Chicano legacy that stems back to the mid-19th century Mexican-American war.
Additionally, the upcoming exhibit, Magallanes explained to mitú over the phone, builds on the book, titled, “Barrio Logos,” written by author, Raul Villa, which explores how California Chicanos have used expressive culture to oppose community-destroying forces like urban renewal programs and massive freeway development for survival.
Through art, Adriana Coral explores human rights issues.
Adriana Coral Impunidad, Circle, Vicioso, 2015
But the idea for the show,” explained Magallanes, “also came from hearing about Pacific Standard Time and not hearing that anything was going on in South L.A. or Inglewood. I knew it would be important for different communities and galleries and community spaces that represent Latino art to be involved.”
L.A. native Patrick Martinez will also be one of the artists featured in the show. Through his art he’s creating discussion around cultural appropriation of Chicano style around the world.
Patrick Martinez. what you gonna do now? (haircuts look airbrushed) / Mixed media on acrylic / 72 x 72 inches / 2014
As fashion companies continue to glorify Chicano aesthetics, the show’s curator hopes it can help people understand that there are dire consequences for Chicanas and Chicanos in L.A who continue to be victims of hyper-policing.
“People gravitate towards Chicano culture and style all over the world,” he said, “While it continues to be criminalized here in L.A.,” he explained.
“What does it mean that people in Japan can celebrate the culture but we can’t even go cruising in LA? There’s an underlying racism that informs the artwork in this show.”
Barrio Logos will run from September 23rd through December 16th.
About PST: LA/LAPacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. Led by the Getty, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is the latest collaborative effort from arts institutions across Southern California. Through a series of thematically linked exhibitions, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA will present a wide variety of important works of art, much of them new to Southern California audiences. While the majority of exhibitions will have an emphasis on modern and contemporary art, there also will be crucial exhibitions about the ancient world and the pre-modern era. With topics such as luxury objects in the pre-Columbian Americas, 20th-century Afro-Brazilian art, alternative spaces in Mexico City, and boundary-crossing practices of Latino artists, exhibitions will range from monographic studies of individual artists to broad surveys that cut across numerous countries.
Barrio Logos: Displacement and Vanishing Iconography
Part of the Getty’s PST LA/LA initiative
9/17/2017 — 12/16/2017
Opening reception Oct. 7th 1-6
Curated by Oscar Magallanes
The Chicano movement in Southern California, born out of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, gave rise to art, murals, west coast handstyle graffiti, tattoos, and literary works along with lowrider culture and fashion as forms of self identification and cultural pride in the midst of oppression and segregation. This unique style has spread to many countries but in Los Angeles it has faced persistent attacks whether in the form of criminalization or steep fines placed on unsanctioned murals. This has created an erasure of the cultural markers that speak most clearly in opposition to systemic racism. There is a heightened urgency to preserve and document this work in the midst of rapid gentrification. This exhibition brings together artists that not only continue to use Chicano aesthetics but also uphold the use of art as a means of challenging dominant narratives.
Descendants and dissonance: Cultural Iconography in contemporary L.A. brings together the work of three graphically inspirited artists, Oscar Magallanes, Linda Vallejo and Sonia Romero, Los Angeles based and deeply tied to Chicano culture and the tradition of challenging propagandist iconography through the use of irony and appropriation. This exhibition seeks to correlate directly with How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney and The Making of the Modern: Indigenismo, 1800-2015 at the San Diego Museum of Art in the idea of creating identity and the use of iconography as political and cultural tools.
Oscar Magallanes, creates across a spectrum of different interlocking mediums. Laser cut wood, video and stenciling create a hyper-detailed narrative that speaks directly to the history of propagandist iconography sourcing its power from the emotional experiences of the people who have most suffered from corporate imperialism. Through an alchemic combination of imagery, the work aims to be a visual documentation of suppression and creation, life and death.
Linda Vallejo created one of the most inspired bodies of work on the subject of popular culture and the effects it has on the hearts and minds of the people it seeks to influence with her series, Make ’Em All Mexican. Drawing from her experiences growing up in Europe and the United States, her overwhelming sense of feeling “other” and the complete lack of any reflection of herself in the strain of popular culture strong enough to make it around the world (Disney films, Saturday morning cartoons, Barbie, etc.)
Sonia Romero is an artist who utilizes traditional forms of printmaking with deep heart and narrative power and a strong emphasis on micro over the macro. Having studied print making at the Rhode Island School of Design, craft and history anchor the core aesthetic while it is her ability to present deep psychological and inwardly drawn images that speak to feelings community and shared trauma.
Salt Fine Art
346 North Coast Highway | laguna beach, ca | 92651
phone: 949.715.5554
Reconstitution is a group exhibition that is an update and recasting of the 1987 exhibition Constitution originally organized by the art collective Group Material. The exhibition will include work by: Kathryn Andrews, Shagha Ariannia, Gretchen Bender, Dawoud Bey, Mary Ellen Carroll, Ching Ho Cheng, Tseng Kwong Chi, Sonya Clark, Joeff Davis, Sid M. Duenas, Melvin Edwards, Ridykeulous (Nicole Eisenman & A.L. Steiner), Rafa Esparza, Lauren Davis Fisher, Arshia Haq, Rachel Harrison, Sharon Hayes, Edgar Heap of Birds, Brendan Fowler/Election Reform, Gronk, Anish Kapoor, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Kang Seung Lee, Zoe Leonard, Steve Locke, M (aka Michael Chow), Van McElwee, Harold Mendez, Mike Mills, Jenny Perlin, Jefferson Pinder, Christina Quarles, Umar Rashid, Marie “Big Mama” Roseman, Peter Saul, Augustus Sherman, Maryam Taghavi, Mark Themann, Danh Vo, Christine Wang, Timothy E. Washington, Lawrence Weiner, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
LAXART Text installation by Oscar Magallanes with assistance by Aaron Estrada, Alfreda Diaz and Adrian Alfaro.
Legacy of the Chicano Movement: A Discussion with Emerging Los Angeles Artist
Friday, March 3, 2017 | 7:00 – 9:00pm
Oscar will be participating in this panel discussion at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA.
Writer and historian Rodrigo Ribera d’Ebre leads a panel discussion that will focus on the legacy of the Chicano Movement as it relates to the work of today’s emerging Latino & Chicano artists.Topics will include muralism and social justice movements in the context of Frank Romero’s politically charged work of the 1980s and 1990s.
Museum of Latin American Art’s Día de los Muertos Exhibition
October 12, 2016 – December 4, 2016
My work will be included in this juried exhibition of Southern California artist. The art and altars are displayed to the public in the MOLAA galleries and are featured as a part of MOLAA’s Día de los Muertos curriculum.
